GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL - Cloverport Independent Schools

3 1 4 " GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL
of their expansion across the Pacific, we would have to assume that they
repeatedly reached Australia, even if we did not have the evidence of the
dingo to prove it. In historical times northwestern Australia was visited
each year by sailing canoes from the Macassar district on the Indonesian
island of Sulawesi (Celebes), until the Australian government stopped the
visits in 1907. Archaeological evidence traces the visits back until around
A.D. 1000, and they may well have been going on earlier. The main purpose
of the visits was to obtain sea cucumbers (also known as beche-demer
or trepang), starfish relatives exported from Macassar to China as a
reputed aphrodisiac and prized ingredient of soups.
Naturally, the trade that developed during the Macassans' annual visits
left many legacies in northwestern Australia. The Macassans planted tamarind
trees at their coastal campsites and sired children by Aboriginal
women. Cloth, metal tools, pottery, and glass were brought as trade goods,
though Aborigines never learned to manufacture those items themselves.
Aborigines did acquire from the Macassans some loan words, some ceremonies,
and the practices of using dugout sailing canoes and smoking
tobacco in pipes.
But none of these influences altered the basic character of Australian
society. More important than what happened as a result of the Macassan
visits is what did not happen. The Macassans did not settle in Australia—
undoubtedly because the area of northwestern Australia facing Indonesia
is much too dry for Macassan agriculture. Had Indonesia faced the tropical
rain forests and savannas of northeastern Australia, the Macassans
could have settled, but there is no evidence that they ever traveled that far.
Since the Macassans thus came only in small numbers and for temporary
visits and never penetrated inland, just a few groups of Australians on a
small stretch of coast were exposed to them. Even those few Australians
got to see only a fraction of Macassan culture and technology, rather
than a full Macassan society with rice fields, pigs, villages, and workshops.
Because the Australians remained nomadic hunter-gatherers, they
acquired only those few Macassan products and practices compatible with
their lifestyle. Dugout sailing canoes and pipes, yes; forges and pigs, no.
Apparently much more astonishing than Australians' resistance to Indonesian
influence is their resistance to New Guinea influence. Across the
narrow ribbon of water known as Torres Strait, New Guinea farmers who
spoke New Guinea languages and had pigs, pottery, and bows and arrows
faced Australian hunter-gatherers who spoke Australian languages and