Akar Nusa
Malayali: clerks, supervisors and traders from Kerala
A young man in a crisp white shirt steps off a ship in Penang in the 1920s. He is from Kerala, on the south-west coast of India. He can read and write English, and he can follow a little Tamil. That is exactly what an estate office needs.
The story
Kerala is a green strip of India between the sea and the hills. Its people speak Malayalam (മലയാളം) and are called Malayalis. Many came to Malaya from Travancore, Cochin and the Malabar coast.
The Malayalis were fewer than the Tamils, and their story has been told less often. They came in smaller numbers, and they came for different jobs. Educated Hindus and Christians from Travancore and Cochin often worked as clerks on estates and in towns. They could speak a little Tamil, so they could pass messages between the estate managers and the Tamil workers. Many Malayalis worked as supervisors, called mandur, on the estates that used the kangani system (see "The kangany system"). Others were labourers, and many came from Palakkad and Kannur.
A second stream came from the Malabar coast, where many Muslim families traded by sea. Malabari Muslims ran shops, restaurants and medicine stalls in Penang and Malacca. Some were there even before the British arrived.
Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore were seen as an El Dorado by Malayalis with basic English. They filled the colonial demand for clerks. In 1917, Malayalis in Singapore formed their own association. By 1923 a Malaya Malayalee Association was helping unemployed members find work as clerks, conductors and dressers, and by 1970 there were seven Malayalee associations in Peninsular Malaysia. Estate Malayalam schools opened in places such as Padang Rengas, Labu and Johor Bahru.
Most Malayalis in Malaysia today are citizens, and they work in every profession.
Where you can still see it today
- Malayalam-language associations in many towns, and the All Malaysia Malayalee Association.
- Vishu and Onam, celebrated with a feast called sadhya (a vegetarian meal on a banana leaf) and with pookalam (flower carpets).
- Mappila Paattu songs and dances such as Mohiniyattam, performed by youth groups.
- Grocery shops and restaurants, a trade many Malayali families took up.
- Old Malayalam school buildings on estates, some now turned into Tamil schools.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
A region estimate may show that part of your DNA looks closest to South Asia. A mother line from a South Asian family, such as the old lines in "The old lines of India" (M-SouthAsia), is shared by many peoples of India. A father line such as L-M2481 is most common in south India.
Each line is one thread. These lines are shared across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka and beyond. They cannot say whether a family spoke Malayalam, which faith they followed, or whether they came as clerks, supervisors or shopkeepers.
DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status. Language, faith and community come from families, law and culture, not from a test.
