Trade in Maritime Resources in Aru
For centuries, the Aru Islands have been known for their trade of natural resources like birds of paradise, edible birds'nests, pearl oysters, turtles, and various dried products like sea cucumbers, sharks' fins, and abalone. Bugis and Macassarese used to be the main traders, but since the second part of the nineteenth century the Indonesian Chinese have been entering the Dobo market and today hold the monopoly.
By MANON OSSEWEIJER
Walking in the neigbourhood of Des Voeux Street in Hong Kong, one notices the bright, gold letters of the firm and shop names on the facades as well as the peculiar salty smell of sea products. This smell instantly reminded me of Aru, where these products are cooked in woks behind people's houses and stored on a grid above the cooking hearth. The Hong Kong shops are stuffed with seafood delicacies in baskets and in glass pots, such as sharks fins, abalone and sea cucumbers, all well-ordered according to size and quality.For centuries, the Aru Islands have been known for their trade of natural resources. Once these traders used to visit the Aru Islands in the middle of the west monsoon season (December-January) and leave for Macassar on the east wind to Macassar to export the products purchased. Today the middlemen and their families live permanently in the villages of the east coastof Aru, also known as the 'backshore'.
The Aru archipelago, situated in the remote southeast corner of the province of Maluku, is inhabited by approximately 54,000 people. In the southeast the people are highly dependent on the sale of natural resources to local Chinese Aruese traders. Hunting, fishing, and horticulture are the main subsistence activities, but the collection of the above-mentioned highly prized maritime resources, or jernom somai (diving harvest), forms the basis of their cash income. Both men and women are involved in this trade and are tending to focus their energies on maritime resources to an ever higher degree at the expense of subsistence activities. Apart from turtle meat and occasionally raw sea cucumbers, most of the products are specifically collected for the international market. Nearly all of these resources are declining in abundance: compared to the recent past oysters are harder to find, sea cucumbers are smaller and have to be gathered further off the coast, the sharks caught are smaller, and turtles are thought to be threatened by over-exploitation as well.
Disappointing harvest
Every Aruese fisherman has a patron-client relationship with one or more Chinese Aruese shopkeepers. In the village, the transactions in the shop are based mostly on barter: maritime produce is exchanged for consumer goods, and if the value of the maritime products is not spent the same day it is written in a book made of Surya cigarettes cartons for future grocery shopping. Though this does happen, most of the time it is the other way around: people have long lists of products on tick. Consequently, they prefer to 'spread their debts', or buy consumer goods in one shop and trade maritime products in another, leaving the debts in the first shop with the excuse that they have had a disappointing harvest.
In the trade settlement of Meror, fishermen from different villages come to sell products in return for money. It is also the place where outsiders like Bugis and Butonese shark fishermen come ashore to rest and sell part of their catch. In the morning, boats from the villages visit Meror to sell dried maritime produce collected the previous day and to buy fuel, cigarettes, and sago for consumption on their way to the reefs. The men dive for pearl oysters, sea cucumbers, and bailer shells; the women scour the tidal flats in search of sea cucumbers and abalone. In the afternoon, beginning around 4.30, one after the other the boats return from the sea. The divers come ashore to sell their pearl oysters, and to buy some groceries to take back home.
'Godfather'
During the east monsoon (May-October), men and women who are on their way to the reefs for the nocturnal collection of sea cucumbers using flash lights and petroleum lamps also come to Meror in the afternoon. Suddenly, the shop is filled by forty or fifty customers who throw their oysters onto the cement floor, and start opening the unlocked cupboards, looking for the products they want to buy, or sit down on the floor to watch television. One or two shop assistants help to get the products from the cupboards or from the loft, while the shop-keepers write down the day's catch. The commodities and fuel taken in advance that morning are cleared and usually the diver spends every last penny. For two or three hours, the shop is thronged with village clients.
With at least one of the shopkeepers in Meror, the Aruese have a relationship which extends beyond the context of natural (maritime) resource trade. Besides the credit for an outboard motor for a boat, other needs of the villager, such as advances for the payments of weddings, school fees, and construction materials are met as well. In many cases, these advances are not paid back within a definite time period. In this sense, the Chinese Aruese shopkeeper is not only a trader but also the villager's 'godfather' and a kind of insurance. Quite a few adult villagers were raised by the Chinese Aruese traders, as their adopted children. This very relationship with the trader means that Aruese usually do not worry about the future: they can always take consumer goods from the shop, and the trader will always have a need for their products. This relationship between the trader and the fisherman resembles a love-hate relationship in which both parties are inextricably interdependent. Although the traders often have Aruese ancestors (most of the time a grandmother or mother) and have adapted their lifestyle to Aru as well as possible, they talk about the villagers as 'less developed', 'lazy', and unreliable. Paradoxically, many boast about their Aruese background, but they do not allow their children to marry the local people, because ostensibly they cannot run a business. For their part the Aruese are frequently helped by the traders, yet they also complain about the trader mentality of the Chinese i.e.wanting to make double profit on both maritime produce and consumer goods, at the expense of the villagers , covered by their sometimes insincere friendliness. *
References
Eijbergen, H.C. van
Verslag Eener Reis Naar De Aroe- En Key Eilanden, In De Maand Junij 1862
Tijdschrift voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, deel XV, vijfde serie, deel 1:220-361, Batavia/Den Haag, 1866
Hoëvell, G.W.W.C. Baron van
De Aroe-eilanden, Geographisch,
Ethnographisch En Commerciëel
Tijdschrift voor Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde, deel xxxiii:57-100. Batavia/Den Haag, 1890
Wallace, A.R.
On The Trade Of The Eastern Archipelago With New Guinea And Its Islands
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 31:127-137, London, 1862
Drs Manon Osseweijer is researcher of the EDEN 2 project at the KITLV and a guest employee at the Centre of Enviromental Science, Leiden University.
E-mail: Osseweijer@rulcml.leidenuniv.nl.