Over 50 percent of the population is of Malay descent. Chinese make up about 25% and Indians make up about 10% of the population. Indigenous groups called Orang Asli live in the peninsula; they include Negritos and Proto-Malays. Other ethnic groups live in Sarawak and Sabah. They include Iban and Bidayuh in Sarawak (well known for the head-hunting skills - fortunately no longer practised), and Kadazan (often farmers) and Bajau (a nomadic sea-faring people sometimes also called sea gypsies) in Sabah.
There are several theories about where the present day Malays came from. Since this is not an anthropology site, one or two schools of thought are briefly mentioned here as a talking point. One school believes that the land occupied by present day Malaysia was first inhabited probably as early as the Stone Age (around 8000 B.C.) on the Malaysian Peninsula; they are thought to be the ancestors of the present day Negrito aborigines. Later came the Proto-Malays around 2000 B.C. from Yunan, China. Subsequently, around about the third century B.C., another ethnic group called Deutero-Malays came, and through intermarriages with Indians, Arabs, Siamese and Chinese, become today's Malays. Another theory says that the Malays originated from Taiwan thousands of years ago, and then spread to the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Whatever the theory, the fact remains that Malaysians regardless of their ethnic origin are a friendly people.
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