ABSTRACT
The whole period during which the Malays were the controlling power on the Peninsula is a matter of about a hundred years during the supremacy of Malacca before its capture by the Portuguese. The only definite reference to Bruas in the Malay Annals mentions it in 1500 as a small village asking help in a squabble against another hamlet, Manjong, in return for which its “king” received a petty title at the Malacca court. Malay history consists largely of royal genealogies, often confused and contradictory, and of minute details of court ceremonial and royal personal life. The east coast was and is unsuitable, owing to the stormy wet season; and Singapore had suffered such a terrible catastrophe that no love of gain or power would tempt any Malays to its haunted hills, where the jungle soon regained its old wildness. Malacca was indeed an independent Malay State, which held an important position owing to the absence of all competition.
