Ternate - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

TERNATE 58 TOPOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL DESCRIPTIONS
lay on a precipice behind the fort; this settlement was completely destroyed, and the people
moved to a lower place on the same northeastern beach.
Along the whole coast there are sheds or sibuwah which have been built close to the
sea. Travelers can stay here on payment of a small fee to cover provisions of water and
firewood; like most mesigits (mosques), these sheds often have an elevation in the form of
an upturned proa on top of the roof. 7
There are no sago palms on Makian and the sago consumed daily is brought from
Halmahera, as is the katu which is needed for roofing and is joined together at home. 8
There are neither coconut nor arenga palms, so the natives cannot indulge too freely in
sagwire. A few, feeling the need for a stimulant, might buy gin from an itinerant trader. 9
In earlier days there were plenty of kanari trees, which supplied kanari oil for domestic
use; during the eruption in 1861 these were all destroyed and, although they have been
replanted, at present only the people of the kampongs Sabele and Talapau press oil from
the fruit and use it in the preparation of spices. There are many fruit trees, however,
among which are gomu (readily eaten, for want of other food), nangka (jackfruit), and a
multitude of nanas (pineapple) plants. There are small plantations of sugar cane near the
houses. [p. 88] A juice is obtained by pressing the cane with a wooden wedge. Kucubu
shrubs, also grown here, are highly valued as a medicine, since the leaves, when put on
wounds, heal them within a short time.
The soil is less suited for growing paddy than for maize, which, together with pisang
capatu (a kind of banana), forms the main staple of the diet. 10 One usually harvests the
maize three times a year and rice only once from a garden, after which one has to till a new
piece of land; only the banana propagates itself everywhere. When the paddy is ripe it is
Musschenbroek near the old fort are at the most three or four in number and do not differ in any
respect from the coffee shrubs grown on lowlands near houses all over the Indies.
7 [p. 87, n. 1] A very good picture of such a roof can be found in Le Tour du Monde, XXXVII:233.
8 [p. 87, n. 2] At Payae (Tidorese Halmahera), a sago tree costs f 5.- and produces five to ten
tuman; at Gaane (Ternatese Halmahera) the price of two trees is only f 2.50, but Gaane is rather far
from Makian.
9 [p. 87, n. 3] Except for a very few of them, the natives of Ternate never use opium.
10 [p. 88, n. 1] Maize is called milu in the Malay of the Moluccas (Portuguese, milho; Ternatese,
kastela), a word also used to indicate the Spanish (Castilians), who may have introduced maize for
the first time into these regions. The Makianese call it gocila and pay two kupang for forty ears;
they pound the maize, cook it as rice, and eat it with fish or with kanari kernels with a little bit of
salt and ricah (Capsicum, hot pepper) as spices on the side. If there is no maize or they have no time
to cook it, the natives manage with roasted pisang capatu, available everywhere in abundance,
dipped in dabu-dabu, which is a mixture of tamate (Lycopersicum), onions, ricah, salt and lime juice;
twenty or so pisang make a meal. When working in the plantations the dabu-dabu is mixed with
seawater for convenience’s sake, that way the workers do not have to bring salt with them.
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