Banda Islands

Nutmeg and mace grew wild on these ten small islands and nowhere else, and that accident of botany pulled the Banda group into world history. Bandanese traders carried the spice to Java and Malacca long before Europeans arrived, and Malay, Javanese, Chinese and Arab merchants came to the islands for it. The Portuguese reached Banda in 1512, but it was the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, that set out to control the crop outright, building Fort Nassau in 1609 and Fort Belgica in 1611 and forcing treaties on village leaders who had no tradition of handing over a monopoly.

The Bandanese resisted, traded with the English on Run and Ai, and killed the Dutch admiral Pieter Verhoeff and his party in 1609. In 1621 the governor-general Jan Pieterszoon Coen brought a fleet and destroyed Bandanese society: most of the population was killed, starved, enslaved or driven into exile — the numbers remain uncertain — and the groves were divided among Dutch planters, called perkeniers, who worked them with enslaved labour brought from elsewhere in the archipelago. England kept Run until the Treaty of Breda of 1667, when it exchanged its claim for Dutch recognition of English rule in Manhattan.

The monopoly held until the British occupied the islands during the Napoleonic wars and moved nutmeg seedlings to Ceylon and other colonies; prices fell, and Banda became a quiet backwater. In the 1930s the Dutch used it as a place of internal exile, sending the nationalists Mohammad Hatta, Sutan Sjahrir and Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo to live under guard in Banda Neira — houses that are now among the town's museums. After Indonesian independence the islands stayed remote, and tourism, nutmeg and fishing now support them.

Today's Bandanese trace their descent to the survivors of 1621 and to the many peoples brought in afterwards — from Java, Sulawesi, the Kei and Aru islands, China, Arabia and the Netherlands — and the islands' culture is the result of that mixing. Most people are Muslim, with a small Christian community, and the mosque and the church stand within the same small town. Malay of a distinctly eastern kind is the everyday language, and family networks reach across to Ambon and on to Java.

The most striking survival is the kora-kora, the long war canoe once used by Bandanese and Maluku fleets. Villages still build and race them, paddling in unison to drums, and the races are the great public occasion of the islands. The cakalele, a war dance in red cloth with sword and shield, is performed at ceremonies here as elsewhere in Maluku, and songs in Malay accompanied by ukulele-like instruments are part of any gathering.

Customary practice still governs a good deal. Sasi, the temporary closure of a stretch of reef or a stand of trees, is declared by village authority to let stocks recover, and its markers are respected. Nutmeg itself carries ritual weight, from the harvest to the drying racks outside houses. Visitors are noticed and greeted in a community this size, and a slower, more formal manner — greeting first, asking second — goes a long way.

About 22,000 people live in the whole group, most of them on Banda Neira and Banda Besar, with a few hundred each on Ai, Run and Hatta. Banda Neira is the seat of the district administration and holds the schools, the clinic, the harbour and the airstrip, so the rest of the islands look to it for everything official.

The economy rests on three things. Nutmeg and mace are still harvested from the old groves, dried on racks and shipped out, though world prices swing and the trees are ageing. Fishing, above all for tuna and skipjack, supplies the islands and the boats that carry the catch to Ambon. Tourism is the third, small but significant: diving, the volcano and the history bring a steady trickle of visitors, and many families let rooms or run boats.

Daily life turns on the sea and the supply ship. Much of what is eaten beyond fish, sago and garden vegetables arrives by boat from Ambon, so shortages and higher prices follow bad weather, and electricity and mobile coverage can be patchy. Mornings begin early, with fishing before dawn and school by seven; afternoons are hot and quiet; evenings are spent outside, on the seawall and in front of houses. Young people commonly leave for Ambon or Java to study or work, and the question of how many come back is the islands' long-running concern.

Fish dominates: tuna, skipjack and reef fish, grilled over coconut husks or fried and served with rice. The standard accompaniment across Maluku is colo-colo, a raw relish of chopped chilli, shallot, tomato and lime juice poured over the fish, and kohu-kohu, smoked fish tossed with grated coconut, beans and citrus, appears alongside it. Ikan kuah kuning, fish simmered in a yellow broth of turmeric, lemongrass and lime, is the comfort dish of the region.

Sago is the old staple and has not disappeared. Papeda, the glue-like sago porridge eaten with the yellow fish broth, is still made, and sago is baked into hard flat cakes and biscuits that keep for weeks — useful on islands where supplies come by ship. Cassava, sweet potato, plantain and garden greens fill out the rest of the plate, and rice is largely imported.

What sets Banda apart is spice. Nutmeg is used here as a fruit as well as a seasoning: the fleshy outer husk, discarded almost everywhere else, is candied into manisan pala, boiled into syrup for a cold drink, or made into jam. Mace, the red lacy aril around the seed, is dried separately and is the more valuable product. Kenari nuts from the tall shade trees planted through the groves are eaten roasted or set into sugar brittle, and sometimes ground into sauces. Coffee and tea are drunk very sweet, and ginger drinks are common in the wet months.