‘A Life of Make‐Believe’: Being Boy Scouts and ‘Playing Indian’ in British Malaya (1910–42)

Abstract

According to white Scoutmasters in Malaya, ‘the peculiar difficulties of locality and climate’ necessitated certain proscriptions on Scout training for Malayans. Restrictions on the physical aspects of Scouting in Malayan jungles limited opportunities for Malayans to cultivate Scouting's idealised male figure of the frontiersman. At the same time, colonial discouragement of the ‘Anglicisation’ of indigenous Scouts effectively curtailed indigenous Malayan access to those ideals of masculinity which were in many respects dominant in the colonial context. Ironically, some of these Anglicised Scouting ideals of masculinity were borrowed from ‘native cultures’ or ’martial tribes’. The exchanges and appropriations of culture and masculinities through Scouting were therefore multi-directional and more complicated than imagined. This article examines how Scouting in Malaya functioned as a vehicle for and as a product of multiple colonial exchanges. It argues that colonial Scouting in Malaya introduced but also restricted Malayan access to certain ideals of masculinity. Additionally, it argues for a more nuanced analysis of localised Malayan appropriations and negotiations of colonial/imperial concepts introduced through the Scout Movement. In particular, through considering how Malayan Scouts ‘played Indian’, this article further suggests that Scout activities of ‘make-believe’ attracted Malayan Scouts because of the liberties attached to these bodily performances of idealised Anglicised masculinities.