Mat Salleh is....

A warrior?

A rebel?

A terrorist?

Well, if you happen to be in Malaysia from the 20th century onwards, he (or she) is a westerner.

Seriously, I can't make the connection here.

According to the history books, Mat Salleh was any one of the first three (depending on which side of history you read).

All I remember is he definitely had a bone to pick with the British during the late 19th century. (I'm not gonna give you a history lesson so you can go read up about it here and here. Oh, and here too.)

However, I am curious about how we ended up referring to (no offence to all westerners out there) "orang putihs" (literally, white people) using the name of someone who is considered a folk hero of sorts in Sabah. After all, we do have a street named after him so he must be important.

Come to think of it, do Sabahans refer to westerners as "Mat Sallehs" as well?

Hmmm... maybe not as often as referring to them as "orang putihs" but I can be wrong on that.

Anyway, googling around, I found the answer to my question. I'm not sure if it's true but hey, at least it's a good theory.

Apparently, during the colonial times when the people of this region knew very little about the languages of the west, an English-speaking person had called a bunch of partying caucasians "mad sailors" (because most caucasians at that time were, in fact, sailors).

The locals who heard that mispronounced it as "Mat Salleh" and this somehow stuck.

(You can read about the story here. Somebody even posed the question on Yahoo Answer.)

Now let me give it a shot.

Madsailormadsailormadsailormatsailormatsallormatsallermatsalleh......

Maybe they're right.

:-)

(disclaimer - this post is not meant to be offensive to anyone. The picture of the caucasian family is a random one obtained via Google)