Akar Nusa
A merchant ship from Gujarat drops anchor, waiting for the winds to turn. On the quay an official in charge of Gujarati traders greets the captain by name.
The story
Melaka had very little to sell. It made some tin and dried fish, and even its salt came from elsewhere. Yet in less than a century it grew into one of the busiest ports in Asia. Its secret was not goods. It was trust.
The port sat on the Strait of Melaka, a great sea road between India and China. Ships from the east came on the northeast monsoon. Ships going west left on the southwest monsoon. Merchants had to wait months for the right wind, so Melaka offered warehouses to store their goods, and elephants to carry them.
To keep order among so many peoples, traders were grouped by region under four shahbandars (harbourmasters). One looked after Gujarati traders. One handled traders from southern India, Bengal, Burma and Pasai. One dealt with traders from across the islands of Southeast Asia. One looked after traders from Vietnam, China and the Ryukyu Islands. Above them stood the sultan, and a Bendahara (chief minister), a Temenggung (head of order and security) and a Laksamana (admiral). The Orang Laut (sea people of the straits) patrolled the waters and guided ships in.
Melaka also had written laws. The Undang-Undang Melaka (Laws of Melaka) is seen as the first collected set of laws in the Malay world. It was begun in the 1400s and added to by later rulers. It mixes Malay custom (adat) with Islamic law, and covers sea rules, marriage and trade. About 50 old copies survive. Other sultanates, such as Johor, Perak, Aceh, Brunei and Pattani, copied and changed it for their own use.
Melaka even had its own money. Tin was cast into small standard blocks, and ten blocks made a unit called a small bundle.
The sea laws were just as practical. The Laksamana, the admiral, was in charge of keeping the strait safe and enforcing the Maritime Laws of Melaka. Other officials kept the peace in the town. Nobody had to guess who was in charge of a quarrel between a Gujarati shipowner and a Javanese buyer. This is why merchants chose Melaka over other ports on the same strait, such as Kedah, Jambi and Palembang. Chinese records of the mid-1400s say the port flourished because of its good security.
Where you can still see it today
- Melaka's old town and museums tell the port's story.
- The Laksamana, Bendahara and Temenggung titles still appear in Malay court tradition and in the history lessons Malaysians learn at school.
- Old law manuscripts. About 50 copies of the laws survive, and they show how far Melaka's rules travelled.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
A port that welcomed Gujarati, Tamil, Chinese, Javanese and island traders left a mixed population. Many Malaysians have ancestors from more than one of these streams. A region estimate can show that mix.
DNA cannot tell you which ship your family came on, and it does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status.
