Ternate - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

TERNATE 91 TOPOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL DESCRIPTIONS
Their staple diet consists of the tuberous crops bete, ubi, sayawu; 8 a kind of red
kidney bean; bananas; and sometimes rice, with the sea supplying them with plenty of fish.
They also usually have available the meat of wild pig, which they snare or rouse with dogs
and then stab with spear or lance. They eat, depending on the supply of food and whether
or not they are hungry, three to four times a day, though sometimes less often.
They have no salt, but in preparing their food they mix the drinking water with
seawater. As a matter of fact they always do this since they think that drinking fresh
water causes stomach aches. Sagwire is obtained from coconut trees by pounding the trunk
in the usual manner and then cutting off the spadix; they use this drink liberally in the
manner of the eastern part [p. 131] of the Indies archipelago. There are relatively few sago
trees; when they buy sago from the traders it is prepared in the form of porridge or baked.
Their houses are all built on poles. Some of them are made of wood but most have
bamboo or gabah walls and are covered with strips of leaves: separate rooms serve as
cooking and sleeping quarters and are separated from the common inner gallery by thin
partitions.
They do not have bows and arrows, but only lances and broadswords or blades which
are purchased from Tobungku, of which the smaller kinds are called bakako and the bigger
tololaki.
Their musical instruments are limited to the tifah, rabab (a stringed instrument),
and suling (flute), and also a strange apparatus, called tulalo, which consists of a bridge of
lenggua wood over which is strung a fine copper string which is set vibrating by a needle
attached to the forefinger in a small rattan ring. The bridge is held up by a bamboo
cylinder on top of two unequal coconut shells, the bigger of which is pressed against the
breast when the instrument is played. It is used mainly to accompany singing.
The unfavorable profile of the Alfurus in the well-known magazine article (p. 97) is
definitely exaggerated and it is completely untrue to say that they do not understand the
mutual relationships of consanguinity or marriage. 9 On the contrary, they usually have
only one wife, obtained in the normal Polynesian manner of paying a certain dowry;
quarrels which lead to murder and manslaughter are caused by the weaker sex, since
otherwise they lead a quiet life, submit to their headmen, pay their dues regularly and do
not cause the government any trouble. The Moslems do indulge in opium and the Alfurus
[p. 132] in sagwire, but gambling is restricted to the Rajah and the headmen—strangely
enough, their favorite game is vingt-et-un.
They believe only in good and evil spirits and, to appease them or to safeguard
themselves against calamities, places for offerings have been erected in front of the door of
the house, in the gardens, or in certain other places, sometimes in the form of a wooden
8 [p. 130, n. 1] Sayawu or sayafu [as corrected in Errata —Trans.] is the Moluccan name for the
Dioscorea Aculeata, of which the tubers are edible.
9 [p. 131, n. 1] Van Musschenbroek (TAG) finds this unfavorable impression to be confirmed in a
local investigation!?!
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