THE COMING OF ISLAM AND MOLUCCAN-MALAY CULTURE TO NEW GUINEA c.1500–1920∗

∗For helpful comments and criticism I would like to thank Birte Brecht, Alexandra Heinke, Sven Kosel, Lany Probojo and two anonymous IMW reviewers.

Abstract

This article deals with a neglected portion of the history of Islam in the Indonesian archipelago. According to European sources from the 16th and 17th centuries, Islam was found mainly in the Raja Ampat Islands which were under the suzerainty of the sultanate of Tidore. Tidore played a major role in spreading Islam to the coastal regions of northern New Guinea; it claimed suzerainty over coastal New Guinea, especially Bird's Head Peninsula, and demanded tributes until the late 19th century. Regular expeditions of Muslim traders and bird hunters into the region led to more intensive contact between Muslims and local populations, the growth of Muslim settlements and religious conversion among the locals. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Onin Peninsula was regularly visited by traders and slave raiders from the Geser-Gorom Islands, with similar patterns of interaction as occurred in the Bird's Head. By drawing on an array of contemporary European accounts, this article illustrates how and when Islam came to coastal New Guinea from the 18th to early 20th centuries.

Notes

∗For helpful comments and criticism I would like to thank Birte Brecht, Alexandra Heinke, Sven Kosel, Lany Probojo and two anonymous IMW reviewers.

¹For general overviews of trade relations between the Moluccas and New Guinea see Andaya (1993), Ellen (2003) and Swadling (1996). Swadling's book, while well-written, suffers from a dependence on English and French sources at the expense of Dutch, German or Indonesian material.

²Malay was a secondary language in the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore. The mother tongues of their inhabitants were Ternate and Tidore respectively, two closely related Papuan languages. A small corpus of texts in these languages written in Arabic script exists in manuscript collections in Indonesia and the Netherlands; Ternate and Tidore languages were thus the only Papuan languages which developed indigenous literary traditions that today are almost forgotten. The use of Arabic script shows the deep roots of Islam in the culture of these states. For a linguistic description of Tidore see van Staden (2000).

³On eastern Indonesian trade languages see Donohue (1996), on Malay in western New Guinea see Gau (2007).

⁴For a list of products from New Guinea traded in the Moluccas in 1636 see Wurffbain (1931).

⁵See e.g. Henige (1980) on the lists of kings of the Ganda and Nyoro people in Eastern Africa which lengthened the more often European explorers, British administrators and social anthropologists asked for them.

⁶On the relations between the Dutch and Moluccan local political entities see Miedema (1984), Kamma (1947–1948; 1948–1949), Andaya (1993) for the northern Moluccan sultanates, and Ellen (2003) for the Ambon-Ceram-Banda region.

⁷See e.g. Wurffbain (1931: 108, 131, 143) or Leupe (1875).

⁸For a detailed account on Rumphius as an internationally renowned scientist see Schulze (2004).

⁹The leaders of Salawati and Waigeo concluded the reading of the sultan's letter with an Amin which shows that a familiarity with diplomatic etiquette from the Moluccas already existed on the Papuan coast in the early 18th century (Andaya 1993: 101–2). This pattern closely follows diplomatic conventions known from other parts of insular Southeast Asia. The reading aloud of a letter from a sultan, king or noblemen in Malay is one of the most significant actions in traditional diplomacy throughout the Malay world. The letter is regarded as more important than the ambassadors who brought them. Although some of these letters still exist today, to date no analysis or transcription of Tidore letters to Papuan rajas and other leaders has been carried out. For an overview of the crucial importance of Malay letter writing in maritime Southeast Asia see Gallop (1994) and Wilkinson (1907).

¹⁰For an ethnological account on the Biak with a good overview of their history see Rutherford (2003).

¹¹Today Biak is an endangered language in the region (van den Heuvel 2006: 5–6; see also Rutherford 2005).

¹²The Papuans melted these dollars into silver necklaces which were important dowry items (Dumont d'Urville 1987: 151).

¹³Van Dissel (1904a: 642–3) notes that in 1902 the local language in Onin was a kind of Pidgin-'Seransch’, i.e. Geser-Gorom with many Malay and Papuan loanwords.

¹⁴E.g. in 1823 a slave raid was carried out by people from Tidore, Galela and Ceram together with ‘Papuans’ in the Onin region (van Doren 1856: 195).

¹⁵Most of the Arab traders in Indonesia were of Hadhrami descent and had close kinship and business networks with the trading world of the Indian Ocean.

¹⁶The custom of presenting a letter from the sultan of Tidore to local leaders in New Guinea was still very much in use in the second half of the 19th century. These appointments had to be signed not only by the sultan, but also by the Dutch Resident. F.S.A. de Clercq who was Resident in Ternate and reported that he signed 57 such documents in 1887 alone (de Clercq 1891). Until well into the 1880s, colonial officials and European travellers were accompanied by members of the family of the sultan of Tidore (e.g. Guillemard 1886; de Clercq 1893).

¹⁷Amir, an experienced Tidore diplomat who belonged to the family of the sultan, frequently travelled to New Guinea's coasts. He accompanied European travellers, missionaries and officials to New Guinea on at least three different occasions between 1849 and 1862 (Rosenberg 1859, 1860, 1862; Anon. 1863a; de Bruijn Kops 1850).

¹⁸For a biography of Ottow in New Guinea see Ottow and Ottow (2004). However, this work shows a prejudice against the indigenous populations and Muslim inhabitants of the Moluccas and New Guinea.

¹⁹This letter of recommendation was read aloud in public on the arrival of the missionaries (Anon. 1862: 12; see also Goldman 1866: 537). This practice shows that the sultanate of Tidore maintained the diplomatic etiquette known in other parts of Indonesia.

²⁰See e.g. Teijsman (1876: 72) who describes a Geser-Gorom trade settlement in Berau Bay in great detail.

²¹Both Italians spent more than four years in New Guinea and were excellent observers who described their surroundings in great detail. The publications of d'Albertis (1874) and especially of Beccari (1874a; 1874b; 1874c; 1924) on New Guinea, providing plenty of rare material, have unfortunately not been translated. From among d'Albertis’ writings, only his travel accounts have been published in English (1880), but Beccari's Wanderings in the great forests of Borneo on his later trips to Sarawak was translated in 1904 and became a widely read classic.

²²See also van Hille (1906: 476).

²³The use of pandita as an Islamic religious term seems uncommon as it means ‘(Protestant) pastor/scholar’ in modern Indonesian. However, in 17th- and 18th-century Malay it also referred to Muslim religious scholars. This meaning can be found in the dictionary by Caspar Wiltens (1623: 102) which is based on Malay spoken in Ambon, Banda and Ternate, and in the traditional Malay texts Sulalatus salatin (Sejarah Melayu) and Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah.

²⁴The number of Arabs in the Moluccan residency, most of them active merchants, greatly increased in the 1880s. On the role of Arabs in the Moluccas in the 19th century see Clarence-Smith (1998).

²⁵Around 1900 the Chinese company Boen Kie & Co. based in Ternate was the biggest trader in coconuts in Waigeo (van Hille 1906: 481).

²⁶On the expansion of the Dutch presence in New Guinea before World War II see Hastings (1984: 129–33).

²⁷Material items such as ceramic, porcelain and silver coins were often used in dowries and helped to enhance a person's status (Held 1957: 97).