In the hot season the smaller islands suffer from a serious shortage of water. Village wells might dry out completely. Cisterns which catch rainwater offer the only relief. Then, instead of water, palm wine is drunk. This is the fermented juice tapped from the flowering stems of the koli palm and the coconut palm. The dry season is pre-eminently the opportunity to brew a strong drink, sopi, from this palm wine. This is done with a simple distillation apparatus made from bamboo. Eighty litres of palm wine produce eight litres of sopi. This drink is indispensible for the traditional feasts and it is also an important medium of exchange for obtaining food.
On Aru the hot season is the traditional time for pearl diving. Pearls, mother-of-pearl and other products of the sea such as tripang (sea cucumber, Holothurioidea) and agar-agar (seaweed) are bought by the local Chinese merchants. Nowadays a few Japanese companies are also cultivating pearls in these waters.
Wild pig and buffalo are hunted in the forests of the interior; in Aru deer and kangaroo are also hunted. On very special occasions the meat of these animals forms part of the festive feast. Domestic pigs are also kept in the village and goats are kept in fields outside the village.
Because of difficult economic circumstances on the islands, large numbers of island-dwellers live semi-permanently on Ambon or Seram (Central Moluccas), or even in Irian Jaya, the Indonesian half of New Guinea. The lack of medical and educational facilities in Maluku Tenggara also induce many to leave. The medical care for an entire island is often in the hands of only a few nurses. The larger islands have a health centre. Opportunities for education have been improved by the authorities in recent years; besides a sekolah dasar or primary school, many villages now have a secondary school.
Tall koli palms are characteristic of the landscape of many islands in Maluku Tenggara. In the hot season fermented, tapped from the flowering stems of the trees, is drunk instead of water.
Language
Austronesian languages are spoken on almost all the islands, as they are in most of Indonesia. The exception is in two villages in the southeast of the island of Kisar, where the inhabitants speak Oirata, a non-Austronesian language.1 The dozens of Austronesian languages spoken in Maluku Tenggara, according to a recent classification, belong to the Central Malayo-Polynesian (CPM) group of languages. The Austronesian languages of the Central Moluccas and the islands to the east of Sumbawa, such as Flores, Sumba and Timor, are also CPM languages.2
The languages spoken in western Maluku Tenggara, 24 in all, are classified as a sub-group of CPM languages.3 The people of Luang believe they are all derived from the ancient language of Luang, which in their eyes was once the cultural centre of this region. The languages of Aru, Tanimbar and Kei in eastern Maluku Tenggara form two separate sub-groups of the CPM group of languages.4 Despite great linguistic heterogeneity, a clear language affinity can be observed throughout the whole of Maluku Tenggara. One striking fact is the linguistic unity of the Kei islands, the pride of the inhabitants.5
Malay was introduced to the region centuries ago through trading contacts. Moluccan Malay is peppered with Portuguese and Dutch words and is still the lingua franca. It has been assimilated into Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia which is taught in schools.
A fish trap is set on the bottom of the sea; coral stones are used to prevent it from being washed away.
Religion
According to 1990 statistics, half the population of the Southeast Moluccas (158,107 inhabitants) belong to the Protestant church. About 23 percent (66,770) are Roman Catholics and more than 21 percent (61,360) are Moslem. The small residual category belong to other faiths.
Islam was the first modern world religion to arrive in Maluku Tenggara. From the 15th century onwards, the people of Kei and Aru, in particular, were introduced to Islam though their trading contacts with the Javanese and Malayans. It was only in the second half of the last century, however, that Islam built up a large following, originally on Kei and then on Aru.
Protestant Christian belief came with the arrival of the Dutch in the 17th century. The conversion of the population sometimes occurred in an abrupt and forced manner. The first attempts at conversion failed; it was only at the beginning of this century that Christianity began to make headway (see Chapter II).
From the end of the 19th century onwards Roman Catholic missions were also active, first on the Kei islands and then on the Tanimbar islands. Missionaries of the Sacred Heart—dispatched by the Dutch province of the Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis Jesu (MSC)—were active there and did a great deal of work in the social and medical fields. The people of Aru were only introduced to Roman Catholicism in the 1960's.
Today, branches of the Moluccan Church, Gereja Protestan Maluku, the successor of the Protestant mission in 1935, are found all over the district. This church practically has a monopoly in the western islands. In addition, there are also Seventh Day Adventist churches in Tanimbar. The Moslems and Roman Catholics are concentrated in the eastern islands. The Dutch Catholic missionaries who worked here have now been largely replaced by Indonesians. The last Dutch bishop of the diocese of Amboina, of which Maluku Tenggara is part, was succeeded by an Indonesian in 1994.
The activities of the mission at the beginning of this century were characterized by the heavy-handed suppression of the traditional religions of Maluku Tenggara. Central to these was ancestor worship. In the traditional notions of the universe the contrast between heaven and earth played a large role. In the past, the cosmic entities were sometimes represented as a masculine sun god and a feminine earth. In a "holy marriage,'' they provided for the continued existence of life on earth.
Traces of old religions and former fertility rites— extremely important on the preponderantly infertile islands—can still be found. Ancient rituals have melded with western celebrations such as Christmas and the New Year's feast Nor is the role of the ancestors a thing of the past! Great influence on the lives of their descendants is attributed to them throughout the islands.
Social Organisations
Southeast Moluccan society, like many others in Indonesia, can be typified as a "house society," in which the house forms one of the most important social units. In former days a single large house built on poles, with smaller annexes, could constitute a whole village. There were also larger-scale village complexes with a great number of houses, however. The villages were situated in isolated, easily-defendable locations, such as hilltops or headlands, and were surrounded by a thick stone wall. This strategic position was to provide protection in frequent violent wars. At the beginning of this century, the colonial administration required the village peoples to settle in new, more easily controllable villages along the coast.
Much has changed over the course of time. In the modern villages, houses built on poles are scarcely to be found any longer and bricks have replaced wood as the basic building material. Moreover, the authorities are attempting to discourage large households consisting of three generations, in favour of single-family households. As a consequence, the traditional rules concerning descent and residence have come under pressure. On Leti, Lakor, Luang, Sermata and Damer, descent was determined for centuries through the female line; after marriage, the man went to live in the family house of. the woman. On Damer this situation has changed and— as on most of the other islands—the male line is sustained. In the Babar islands both principles apply side by side and in various hybrid forms.6
On
