Ternate - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

TERNATE 60 TOPOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL DESCRIPTIONS
remains the favorite sport, always drawing many spectators while the victor is rewarded
with sweet glances from the maidens present. Lego, or cawa in the Makian language, is a
calmer pleasure and consists of a melodious recitation of familiar or improvised love stories
and other happenings which at that moment interest the people. These events often serve
to fill the intervals when the performers are resting from the exertion they have expended
during the fight. 15
The weapons of the performers are the straight lance and the barbed-hook lance; the
former is thrown at the enemy from a short distance, the latter is on the other hand shot
like an arrow and penetrates the target with force.
The three most important branches of industry are the weaving of sarongs, tobacco
cultivation, and fishing. Under the porch of almost all houses one can find a Javanese-style
loom on which sarongs are woven with European threads and colored with dyes sold by the
Chinese at Ternate. 16 As is true elsewhere, it is mainly the women who carry out this
sedentary work. It is, however, a very time-consuming work since weaving one kain (cloth)
takes a month to do and is sold very cheaply because of the [p. 91] competition with linen of
western origin. These fabrics are in great demand among the Alfurus of Galela.
Makian tobacco is very popular on the Indies market. The seed, left over from the
previous crop, is sown in seedbeds and later transplanted in plots of 50 x 50 fathoms. The
seedlings are protected after transplanting by kanari leaves attached to each other with
strips of bamboo, removed only after the sprouting of four or five seed leaves. The harvest
takes place four to five months after sowing. The gathered leaves are dried in the sun at a
low degree of humidity, cut up fine, once again dried, and then marketed in that form.
There are three kinds, depending on the quality of the leaves. They are tied up into parcels
of forty to fifty catties. The price at Makian varies from f 40.- to f 50.- per picul and the
Makianese often go with the mail steamers to Menado where they can sell their tobacco
readily for f 1000.- and more per picul. 17
Fishing is done with fishing rod, line, and drag net. On the east coast of the island
they also use enormous fish traps (Ternatese, igi; Makianese, hol), which have a width of
two meters and a length and height of three meters. These traps are plaited from fine split
bamboo and take two people more than a month to make. Taken on wooden rafts into the
sea, with heavy stones mounted on the projecting side laths, they are lowered to a depth of
ten to twenty fathoms and attached to the shore with a rope in order to know exactly in
which spot they sank. Pulled up after twenty-four hours they contain a large variety of
fish, especially smaller species, like the Caesio Erythrogaster (wasam in the Makianese
language). These are often caught in the thousands when the moon is full. A great number
15 [p. 90, n. 1] The Sultan of Ternate has appointed certain persons to perform the lego during
visits by foreigners; the singing is prefaced by a few notes on a clarinet-like instrument called an
iskilmai and further performed to the tune of a gong and tifah beat. See page 18, above.
16 [p. 90, n. 2] The claim of a few writers that thread is spun from the cotton shrubs which are
found in some places is not correct.
17 [p. 91, n. 1] Van der Crab estimates the annual export to be at least 700 piculs [1862?], p. 305.
I did not succeed in obtaining reliable figures from the headmen.
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