ABSTRACT
Oral tradition was once vibrant among the native people of insular Southeast Asia, of which Malaysia, as a national entity as constituted today, formed a part. The Malay Peninsula and the Bornean territories of Sabah and Sarawak, which today form the Federation of Malaysia, were part and parcel of the historical experience and cultural pattern of insular Southeast Asia until the twentieth century. Historically, the island world was characterized by the establishment of harbor principalities at strategic geographical locations on the seacoast. These principalities engaged in interinsular or intercontinental trade and established government and religious or learned centers. Most important for the purposes of this essay, these were the loci of the “Great Tradition” for the population. Throughout history, these city-states (as we call them because they emerged or submerged as kingdoms, sultanates, or even empires, such as the Sriwijaya, Majapahit, and Malacca) had provided cultural leadership. In the hinterland, the populations had less contact with the outside world, but in various degrees they had symbiotic relations with the coastal principalities and formed the “Little Tradition.” The written, or book, tradition developed in the centers of the Great Tradition because they were also the religious and learned centers for the propagation of the Hindu and, later, the Islamic religions and cultures. These two religions had a dominant influence on the people and their civilization, the former from the first century a.d. to the twelfth century and the latter from then up to today.
