100
5 Transoceanic Trade and Migration (2)
paths used in the early settlement of the Pacific and of Madagascar in the Indian
Oceans.
It seems clear that the continued history of maritime migration, both within and
beyond the Spice Island region, triggered by conflict and defeat, was related to the
spice-trading history of the region. Perhaps, we have suggested, such conflict was
even determined by periodic surges in the international demand for spices and by
corresponding conflict and destabilizations of the spice trade. Certainly tradition
confirms that tribal defeat in battle was nearly always the trigger for more dangerous
distant oceanic migrations. An ancestral expression captures the risk-laden impasse
faced by such immigrants: “If we stay we die. If we go we die. Let’s go!”
The Spice Islanders’ possession of unique and valuable spices gave them a trading resource of enormous value. It is easy to imagine the impetus this would have
given the Spice Islanders, from their earliest history, to develop the maritime skills
and technologies needed for them to advance from local to regional to inter-regional
and international spice trading. By the time of Maui the Navigator’s visits to New
Zealand and Hawaii, in about AD 100 by our calculation (see Chapter 19), spices
from the Spice Islands and the Indonesian archipelago were already reaching the
Roman Empire and Europe. Eventually through the far-flung extent, road systems
and maritime organization of the Roman Empire and its trading connections, spices
would become a prized luxury across much of the known world and hold that place
till the late 18th century.
We have suggested that although, arguably, the spice trade shaped world history –
most obviously in the last 2,000 years – it may also have shaped a long local history of conflict in Island Southeast Asia that may have triggered the initial Lapita
expansions into the Pacific and possibly numerous subsequent expansions, of which
the initial and possibly subsequent colonizations of Madagascar, Japan and Hawaii
are examples. A Lapita-age first settlement of New Zealand and the colonizations of
New Zealand by Maui and successive descendants of Maui over the next 700 years,
which are recorded in tradition, may fit the same pattern.
Prehistorians tend to see the expansion of the so-called Lapita peoples, though
extending over 500 years, as the sole expansion from Island Southeast Asia. A Spice
Island background challenges this. Polynesian, and presumably proto-Polynesian,
societies are and were tribal. Warfare centring on possession of the Spice Islands
may have taken place between proto-Polynesian tribes as readily as between such
tribes and the invading lanky blackskinned foreigners described in oral traditions.
There may have been a long anterior history of conquering tribes being forced to
migrate. The whare wananga oral traditions suggest this: the earliest of the successive migrations recorded in these traditions seem to have been within the Indonesian
archipelago.
We have suggested that tribal conflict in the Spice Island region was perhaps
encouraged in the early centuries AD by foreign traders seeking to gain control of spice sources. This historical context throws light on Maui the Navigator’s
exploratory voyages to New Zealand and Hawaii, seeking possible refuges for his
people in the case of future defeat, and confirms our reading in Chapter 16 of the
oral traditions of Maui’s visit to New Zealand with its oblique recording of the
5 Transoceanic Trade and Migration (2)
paths used in the early settlement of the Pacific and of Madagascar in the Indian
Oceans.
It seems clear that the continued history of maritime migration, both within and
beyond the Spice Island region, triggered by conflict and defeat, was related to the
spice-trading history of the region. Perhaps, we have suggested, such conflict was
even determined by periodic surges in the international demand for spices and by
corresponding conflict and destabilizations of the spice trade. Certainly tradition
confirms that tribal defeat in battle was nearly always the trigger for more dangerous
distant oceanic migrations. An ancestral expression captures the risk-laden impasse
faced by such immigrants: “If we stay we die. If we go we die. Let’s go!”
The Spice Islanders’ possession of unique and valuable spices gave them a trading resource of enormous value. It is easy to imagine the impetus this would have
given the Spice Islanders, from their earliest history, to develop the maritime skills
and technologies needed for them to advance from local to regional to inter-regional
and international spice trading. By the time of Maui the Navigator’s visits to New
Zealand and Hawaii, in about AD 100 by our calculation (see Chapter 19), spices
from the Spice Islands and the Indonesian archipelago were already reaching the
Roman Empire and Europe. Eventually through the far-flung extent, road systems
and maritime organization of the Roman Empire and its trading connections, spices
would become a prized luxury across much of the known world and hold that place
till the late 18th century.
We have suggested that although, arguably, the spice trade shaped world history –
most obviously in the last 2,000 years – it may also have shaped a long local history of conflict in Island Southeast Asia that may have triggered the initial Lapita
expansions into the Pacific and possibly numerous subsequent expansions, of which
the initial and possibly subsequent colonizations of Madagascar, Japan and Hawaii
are examples. A Lapita-age first settlement of New Zealand and the colonizations of
New Zealand by Maui and successive descendants of Maui over the next 700 years,
which are recorded in tradition, may fit the same pattern.
Prehistorians tend to see the expansion of the so-called Lapita peoples, though
extending over 500 years, as the sole expansion from Island Southeast Asia. A Spice
Island background challenges this. Polynesian, and presumably proto-Polynesian,
societies are and were tribal. Warfare centring on possession of the Spice Islands
may have taken place between proto-Polynesian tribes as readily as between such
tribes and the invading lanky blackskinned foreigners described in oral traditions.
There may have been a long anterior history of conquering tribes being forced to
migrate. The whare wananga oral traditions suggest this: the earliest of the successive migrations recorded in these traditions seem to have been within the Indonesian
archipelago.
We have suggested that tribal conflict in the Spice Island region was perhaps
encouraged in the early centuries AD by foreign traders seeking to gain control of spice sources. This historical context throws light on Maui the Navigator’s
exploratory voyages to New Zealand and Hawaii, seeking possible refuges for his
people in the case of future defeat, and confirms our reading in Chapter 16 of the
oral traditions of Maui’s visit to New Zealand with its oblique recording of the