Three-quarter scale bronze sculptures 19th C. Malay people, Indonesia, Borneo. The men are readying their roosters for a Censored page. A boy, eating a fruit, is watching them. The central figure, a woman, balances a load of fruit atop her head. Until the 1960s, it was not uncommon for women in Bali, for example, to dress bare-breasted. Antonio Pigafetta's journal 1521 records this custom in the Philippines as well. The sculptures can be seen in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago

The Malays are the dominant race which live in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines which, together with Singapore, make up what is called the Malay archipelago. The Malays are traditionally classified as a member of the Mongoloid race, along with other Asiatic peoples, including Chinese, Mongols, Japanese, Koreans, Thais, Vietnamese and Burmese. They are also closely related to the Micronesian and Polynesian groups in the Pacific, with evidence to suggest that these peoples were the desendants of one large Austronesian racial stock. Malayan peoples have black hair and typically darker skin color (usually brown).

The word "Malay" comes from the Dutch word "Malayo", which comes from the original Malay word "Melayu", the word they use to identify themselves.

The term "Malay" is both generic and specific.

Generally, the name "Malay" is used to describe all the numerous related groups including the Acehnese, Minangs, Bataks and Mandailing s who live in Sumatra ; Javanese and Sundanese in Java ; Banjar s, Ibans, Kadazan s and Melanaus in Borneo ; Bugis and Torajan s in Sulawesi; and the various dominant ethnic groups in the Philippines such as the Tagalogs, Ilocanos and Ifugao of Luzon island, the Visayans of the central Philippines, the Maguindanao, Tausug and Bajau of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipaelago.

Specifically, this name is also the proper name of the subgroup which is native to the eastern part of Sumatra but migrated to the Malay Peninsula and the Riau Archipelago over the past thousand years or so. Sometimes, but very rarely, this subgroup is called "Riau Malays" to distinguish it as a specific group.

Other groups classified as Malays which live outside what is called the Malay archipelago include the Cham who live in Cambodia and Vietnam and the Utsuls who live on the island of Hainan. Descendants of the Malays could be found today in Sri Lanka, South Africa (the "Cape Malays") and Madagascar. In the latter, they are known as the Merina and one of the dominant ethnic groups in that country.

Surinam, on the north-eastern coast of South America, has a large population of ethnic Javanese.

The languages spoken by the Malays were classified in the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages which is now known as Austronesian family of languages which includes the language spoken by the Merinas in Madagascar, the Maori language in New Zealand and other Polynesian languages such as Samoan and Hawaiian.

In terms of religion, most of the Malays are Muslims; they form the dominant religious group in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Their conversion to Islam from Hinduism and Theravada Buddhism began in the 1400s. Most Malays in Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Surinam are also Muslims. Most Malays in the Philippines have been Christianized since the colonization by Spain with the native groups of the southern island of Mindanao and the Sulu chain being mostly Muslim. Like Malays of The Philippines, Malays in East Timor are Christians as a result of the Portuguese rule. Hinduism is the dominant religion in the island of Bali while small groups in other parts of the archipelago practice animism and Buddhism.

See also

• Bumiputra
• Hinduism in Southeast Asia