The marriage registers in St. Peter’s Church in Malacca (1768-1800), toward the end of Dutch dominion in that pre-multicultural city, reveal a rainbow of names pertaining to fiancées who were apparently Portuguese, Dutch, German, Macanese, Philippine, or (ambiguously) 'europianos', but also British, Anglo-Indian, French, and Batavian. Lusotypical surnames – such as Monteiro, Pereira, or Zacarias – abound in the documents, but do not overshadow those from other regions, such as Abrahaam, Estevat, or Suriano. Vicars – from Goa at the time – systematically lusitanized the names of brides, grooms, and their respective parents (if known, and if named). Ethnic belonging paled alongside much stronger religious borders. Can we determine the provenance of one João Hendrek Ming? Names seem to be at best quite slippery clues. The surviving Creole population of Portuguese Eurasians were portrayed as the direct heirs of the earlier ex-colonial presence of Portugal. But to point the spotlight on these purported descendants of European men, people from other ethno-linguistic origins had to be rendered less visible, so as to freeze the Lusitanians in both time and space. This set the scene for their transformation in the 1950s – under the influence of the hyper-colonial Estado Novo – into genuinely lusotypical relics of the first Portuguese Empire. A curious example of whitewashing is scrutinized, during the decade 1829-1839, in which two sets of marriage registers – an original and a copy – were archived. When compared, numerous references to non-Christians (or more precisely, non-‘Westerners’) listed in the original as 'infieis', 'gentios', 'malayos', or 'chinas' were amputated from the copy. To whose patrimony did these retouched registers pertain at all – the newlyweds, the vicars, the congregation, the local church, the diocese, the Archdiocese, historians? We analyze some of these imperializing strategies aimed at homogenizing a quintessentially pluri-religious and polyethnic society. Whitewashing names can tend to hide ethnic or religious provenance or even black out heritage. Priests did this subtlely in the 1700s and 1800s, and less subtlely in the post-multicultural mid-1900s. The local panorama was so kaleidoscopic that the meaning of ‘Portuguese’ seems to have served simply as putty. How can we even begin to define ‘patrimony’ within this authentic melting-pot resembling an ethnic 'cozido à portuguesa'?

Instituto de História Contemporânea, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Orgs. Profs. Paula Godinho e Ema Pires; 25-7 de Novembro de 2019

Relics,Luso-Typicalism,Marriages,Malaysia