The problem has been greatly, though perhaps inevitably complicated by the indiscriminate extension of the term "Malay" to all these and even to other mixed Oceanic populations farther east, as, for instance, in the expression "Malayo-Polynesian," applied by many writers not only in a linguistic, but also in an ethnical sense, to most of the insular peoples from Madagascar to Easter Island, and from Hawaii to New Zealand. It is now of course too late to hope to remedy this misuse of terms by proposing a fresh nomenclature. But much of the consequent confusion will be avoided by restricting _Malayo-Polynesian_[493] altogether to linguistic matters, and carefully distinguishing between _Indonesian_, the pre-Malay dolichocephalic element in Oceania[494], _Malayan_ or _Proto-Malayan_, collective name of all the Oceanic Mongols, who are brachycephals, and _Malay_, a particular branch of the Malayan family, as fully explained in _Ethnology_, pp. 326-30[495]. The essential point to remember is that the true Malays--who call themselves _Orang-Malayu_, speak the standard but quite modern Malay language, and are all Muhammadans--are a historical people who appear on the scene in relatively recent times, ages after the insular world had been occupied by the Mongol peoples to whom their name has been extended, but who never call themselves Malays. The Orang-Malayu, who have acquired such an astonishing predominance in the Eastern Archipelago, were originally an obscure tribe who rose to power in the Menangkabau district, Sumatra, not before the twelfth century, and whose migrations date only from about the year 1160 A.D. At this time, according to the native records[496], was founded the first foreign settlement, Singapore, a pure Sanskrit name meaning the "Lion City," from which it might be inferred that these first settlers were not Muhammadans, as is commonly assumed, but Brahmans or Buddhists, both these forms of Hinduism having been propagated throughout Sumatra and the other Sunda Islands centuries before this time. It is also noteworthy that the early settlers on the mainland are stated to have been pagans, or to have professed some corrupt form of Hindu idolatry, till their conversion to Islam by the renowned Sultan Mahmud Shah about the middle of the thirteenth century. It is therefore probable enough that the earlier movements were carried out under Hindu influences, and may have begun long before the historical date 1160. Menangkabau, however, was the first Mussulman State that acquired political supremacy in Sumatra, and this district thus became the chief centre for the later diffusion of the cultured Malays, their language, usages, and religion, throughout the Peninsula and the Archipelago. Here they are now found in compact masses chiefly in south Sumatra (Menangkabau, Palembang, the Lampongs); in all the insular groups between Sumatra and Borneo; in the Malay Peninsula as far north as the Kra Isthmus, here intermingling