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Nicolas: Musical Terms in Malay Literature NSC Working Paper No. 24
guardian ancestor spirits, and rites to ensure agricultural fertility and bountiful harvests
or for prosperity (Ghulam-Sarawar Yousof 2004:64 quoted in Raja Halid 2015:77). 90
Musical landscapes in the Thai-Malay Peninsula have sprung for several thousand
years in the Upper part of the peninsula; first by the Orang Asli, whose music is based on
bamboo and wood, then by the Mon-Khmer communities. They were followed by the
Mon during the Iron Age, but little is known of the music of this group, as they have moved
northwards to Thailand and Burma and would since then, assimilating and acquiring
mainland music cultures. The settlement of the Mon-Khmer language speakers covered
the northern edge of the Peninsula, including what is now Kedah and Kelantan, and as
far south as Pahang and coastal Melaka, as suggested by Benjamin (1987:125). 91 However,
this area was then taken over by the new Indian settlers, as suggested by Quaritch-Wales
(1940) and subsequently by Jacq-Hergoualc’h (1992:39). 92 Earlier, Stargardt (1973) stated
that Indian settlers were severely restricted in territorial extent. A future study on Mon-
Khmer, Thai, Aslian, and Malay musics on Mainland Southeast Asia may unravel historical
connections that would identify trends in musical changes and musical shits in this area.
An intervening period with the appearance of bronze drums in Selangor on the
central part of the peninsula linked the region to a larger Dongson music network, which
extended to the north in what is now Nakhon si Thammarat in southern Thailand, where
bronze drums were also found. These bronze drums are now housed at the Provincial
Museum, together with stone lithophones (Nicolas 2009). However, the recent discovery
of a bronze drum production site at Non Nong Hor, Mukdahan, Northeast Thailand,
significantly changes the picture, as the 35 bronze drums found in Thailand had been
associated with the spread from southern China and northern Vietnam (Boenoed 2016).
Outside of Dongson and Yunnan, this production site brings to three together with the
other two sites in Bali, Sembiran, and Manuaba, where on-site and local production had
been confirmed (Bernet Kempers 1988:21, 409; Ardika 1991; Ardika and Bellwood 1991;
Calo 2009:129ff.; Nicolas 2009, Bali field notes).
In the Lower Thai-Malay Peninsula, the musical landscape is much clearer than
what may have transpired in the northern regions. Malay speakers settled just before the
14th century, bringing with them a sophisticated culture based on letters and literature—a
legacy that was so vibrant and dynamic, as it is so now. The language network and spread
of Malay was not, however, fully accompanied by the spread of musical instruments, nor
by any paradigm shit in music. This is the case because communities adapted Malay
90 The latter also posits that the ‘nobat as a ritual performance can be seen in part as a continuation of this
ancient practice’. See also Osman 1974.
91 Based on his study of Mon-Khmer languages in the area, Benjamin states: ‘I am proposing that the
population of the Isthmian parts of the Malay Peninsula changed from being Mon speakers to Malay
speakers at some time around the 12th century AD, but that they remained Buddhists until several centuries
later’. An earlier article by Benjamin (1985:269, note 12) has already proposed that the ‘...ancestors of some of
the northern Melayu populations were probably speakers of the Mon language until eight or nine centuries
ago’. See also Andaya 2001.
92 This is questioned by Nik Shuhaimi (2007:54) on archaeological ground: ‘From the available
archaeological and paleo-environmental data, archaeologists are able to establish the chronology of the
prehistory and proto-history of Malaysia and confirm the view that there was no maritime migration during
the Neolithic period. They have not found evidence to suggest that Indians established colonies during the
protohistoric period’.
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