Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

468 RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES part iv
At some period after the Mon- Khmer populations
of Southern Indo- China had become more or less
civilised through the medium of immigrants from
India, the central portion of them, inhabiting the
Menam valley, seems to have extended its influence
to the southward and to have founded settlements in
various parts of the Peninsula. This occupation, of
which there is no distinct historical record,^ is evidenced
by the local tradition which assigns such a great part
in the past history of the Peninsula to the Siamese.
Ancient mines and other workings, remains of forts
and the like, are generally styled Siamese by the
Malays ; in fact, " Siam," in the local popular topo-
graphy, plays the part which in England is shared
between Caesar and the devil : it serves to explain
any ancient and striking landmark the real origin of
which is unknown. As, however, there is not a trace
of anything really Siamese, i.e. Tai, in the dialects of
the aboriginal tribes or elsewhere in the Peninsula,'
and as the Siamese are relatively modern intruders in
Southern Indo-China, it seems reasonable to suppose
that these traditions refer to the Mon- Khmer race
1 It appears from Siamese sources sula from lat. 7° (or thereabouts) souththat
the Mon race had occupied Ligor wards, that being the region within
(lat. 8° 24', long. 99° 58') before the which the specimens of aboriginal
Siamese arrived there : see Low in dialects were collected. North of that
J.
I. A. vol. V. pp. 518-521 ; Bastian, region there has been a, more or less
Geschichte der Indo-Chincsen, p. 197. mixed, Siamese population for ses-eral
Further south than this they have centuries ; south of that latitude there
not been positively traced : Sanskrit was, until quite modern times, no real
Buddhist inscriptions in alphabets of Siamese penetration or occupation,
South Indian origin have been found in but merely a traditional and persistent
Kedah, but it has not been shown that claim to suzerainty over some of the
tliese were the work of Mon settlers. Northern Malay States. It is only
The archaeological collections in the during the last hundred years or so
museums of the Peninsula have never that this purely external suzerainty has
yet been properly studied, and it is been transformed in some cases into
possible that they might throw some actual effective occupation, accomnew
light on these matters. panied in a few districts by the
^ To avoid misunderstandings, I settlement of a .Siamese-speaking
must add that this refers to the Penin- population.