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TERNATE 48 TOPOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL DESCRIPTIONS
Tobacco is not cultivated in abundance; Makian tobacco is preferred and it costs
thirty to sixty cents per catty. Weaving (lin) is done by a few women with European
threads because little cotton grows on the island—even pillows are always filled with
kapok. Weaving looms (dino) are bought at Makian. In some places rather tasty grapes
(jabibi) are found.
Cakalang fishing, described elsewhere, is also carried out here in the same manner.
Other ways to catch fish are with the help of fish traps, in which the entrails (gale-gale) of
chickens are placed as a bait, or with a line to which a piece of the white fleshy bark of the
Crinum Asiaticum (fete-fete), cut in the shape of a small fish, is hooked. Entertainment of
the Tidorese consists mainly of the dodengo and lego-lego. The first of these is only held on
Moslem holy days. It has never had a very serious character since the two fighting parties
stop after the first blow has been struck. The lego-lego [p. 73] takes place to the
accompaniment of a noise made by the shaking of small stones or seeds inside hollowed-out
Lagenaria (dorofu) fruit.
On the day of the Mulud (birthday of Mohammed) festival, a few young men tie
large wooden masks on their faces. These masks are pasted with all kinds of paper figures
and provided with two horns to which are glued pictures of chickens. The young men enter
people’s houses disguised in this manner, tease the womenfolk, and take away some sweets
or cigars.
These masks (cakaibah) are quite heavy and one soon feels suffocated. A person
who does not know how to wear one properly often grazes the skin of his forehead and face.
It is said that in former days the masks were worn by the bodyguards of the Sultan, but the
real origin seems to have been forgotten.
The stars play a relatively important role in the life of the Tidorese; traders even
have drawings of the firmament to calculate lucky days. The morning star is called koru
and the evening star bolongosa. When parents and children quarrel they often use the
word koru as a kind of a curse. The Pleiades are called pariama and by observing their
position the gardeners know whether drought or rain will follow and whether it is time to
cut wood, to burn, or to plant. Falling stars (loja) and comets (ngomasofu) have no special
superstitions attached to them.
When there is an eclipse of the moon the people believe that the moon is being
swallowed by a dragon and that this beast can be chased away by a lot of shouting and by
beating the tifah and gong. The people say that leaves gathered during an eclipse are good
medicine. Women who give birth during an eclipse crawl under the bed or couch so that the
child will not be born half white and half black.
Nowadays giants (laksa [de Clercq writes it with a retroflex “r,” not used in Errata
—Trans.]) do not visit to [p. 74] disturb the people, but there are still a lot of expedients to
make one invulnerable (juhasa) against them. The people believe that the souls (wongi) of
the deceased reside in chosen places, such as forests or gardens; they are addressed as jou
and revered as patron saints. Spirits (salai) are often consulted in cases of sickness, when
also all kinds of food are placed near the bed and celebrations go on for a few days. This
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