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TERNATE 148
THE TERNATESE LANGUAGE
Moreover, at seven o’clock that day, the Sultan received word that a Tidorese of
Mariku who had slept with his own child was staying at Tobona. 14 The Sultan then ordered
the clerk Abdul Haya to notify the Resident of this fact, after which the latter instructed
the Sultan to have the man detained as soon as [p. 206] possible on the Resident’s behalf.
The Sultan ordered the clerk Abdul Mothalib and Sarjeti Hayun to go with two police
guards and arrest both of them, but they could not be found. They had already fled.
At seven o’clock every conceivable type of proa [boat], big and small, rorehes, and
pakatas were pushed out into the sea. 15 To the south at Toboko and Kota-Baru, as well as
to the north as far as Toloko, a few were still tied to the stakes and others were already
busy paddling. It looked as if pieces of wood were floating on the sea. 16 The people who
lived here on the mountain were terrified and bewildered⎯they had lost their capacity to
think because they had never seen anything like this. Some of them dressed in patches of
clothes, others fully dressed, some even without shirts, in flight they ran into each other
throughout the village. But none of the believers were frightened.
The bewilderment of some people made us afraid and we laughed because many did
not have proas and ran about in confusion. However, I will make it brief. More than one
hundred Chinese children, women, and girls went up north and took shelter in a sea-going
junk of the Captain-Laut Putra Mohamad Daud, which was still on dry land; a few who had
pushed it along sat down next to it on the ground. And a few Chinese, more than sixty I
guess, got into a rorehe [boat]. The sea there was not deeper than an elbow’s length. They
grabbed the paddles and started paddling. Others, who were still on shore, seeing that the
proa did not sink, ran into the sea and raced with each other to climb aboard. As soon as
they were in it, they started paddling immediately; but the proa got stuck and they could
not get away.
There was a certain Badi in the Makassarese camp who told his relatives to get into
a rorehe with other people. He [p. 207] had a sword in his hand and he did not allow the
owner of that proa to come near it. Then there was someone of good birth, a certain Dano
Jou, who helped the owner of the proa. He seized one of the outriggers and lifted it, and the
proa sank into the waist-deep water. All that was human in this village went into the
proas, except a few people who were still on the beach. The Sultan ordered the bobatos to
go to the beach to stop the people, but they did not listen to them. A few answered,
“Bobatos, your power is finished! Do not come too close to us.” More to the north, at Hiku,
men and women, adults and children, had already pushed proas into the sea and fled before
five o’clock; when, at five o’clock, the bobatos were ordered to go north, they did not find
anybody. Nevertheless, a few of the headmen and some of the common people (those who
14 [p. 205, n. 2] The subjects of the Sultan of Tidore are summoned for the Sultan of Ternate, and
vice versa, through the intermediary agency of the Resident. Since Tobona is part of this Sultanate
and since Resident Helbach had most probably gotten fed up with this gossip, he let the Sultan deal
with it.
15 [p. 206, n. 1] The normal place for proas when not in use is on dry land on the beach.
16 [p. 206, n. 2] Actually it says “we say,” which is a little too stiff, as the narrator does not
express his personal opinion elsewhere.
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