3.8 Ancient Spice Island Trading and Cultural Links with Mesopotamia
55
father’s absence in the South Island where he had gone to kill the giant octopus,
Te wheke-o-mutu-rangi. Their blood stained a rock at Te rimupapa, which is still
known as Mohuia after Kupe’s daughter.
It is an intriguing fact that Maori curvilinear tattooing patterns and wood-carving
patterns are unlike any others in Polynesia yet resemble those of the Sepik/Ramu
region of New Guinea. This similarity may have its origins in ancient Spice Island
trading links with the region. The preservation of ancient patterns is perhaps most
likely to have occurred if New Zealand (as we shall argue in Part II) was colonized
early and directly from the Spice Islands. Independent evolution of the same patterns
is, of course, a possibility and, if this is the case, would suggest both significant time
depth and long isolation for the descendants of the first colonists in New Zealand.
The links in curvilinear tattooing and wood-carving patterns and in the practice
of scarification may support the possibility that a Spice Island colony was established in the Sepik/Ramu area 6,000 years ago when an inland sea existed and made
possible trade with the highlands, the source of Bird of Paradise plumes. Of all
highland language families, the Engan family (which consists of languages spoken
in Enga and in the neighbouring areas of the East Sepik and the Southern Highlands
provinces) has the largest number of Austronesian loan words [24]. The inland sea
was converted to marsh about the time of the first Lapita migrations and there is a
suggestion that some people from this area were forced by the changing conditions
into migrations at this time and that others may have joined local non-Austronesian
tribes and adopted their languages.
All of this suggests that long-distance maritime spice and plume trading from the
Spice Islands and the Sepik/Ramu area of New Guinea may well have been practiced 6,000 years ago. The betel nut from the Sepik/Ramu and the ‘Ubaid figurines
are both dated to 5,800 years ago. That some at least of this trade was carried out
by cold-adapted Spice Island traders seems probable, since Atholl Anderson [15]
claims a later date for cargo ships sailing between the Middle East and India and
does not suggest their penetration of Island Southeast Asia.
Despite increasing genetic evidence for an indigenous Spice Island or Wallacean
ancestry for the Lapita and Polynesian peoples, the obvious connection between this
ancestry and the maritime trading history of the Spice Islands has not been made.
Once this connection is considered, the possibility that the Polynesians’ ancestors
were indigenous long-distance spice traders seems natural. Who more likely than
the Spice Islanders themselves to trade the cloves that grew uniquely on the five tiny
clove-producing islands off the western coast of Halmahera, and to trade nutmeg,
cinnamon and mace from the Banda islands in the southern Moluccas?
The evidence presented above suggests that the Spice Islanders had probably
been long-distance and international maritime traders for thousands of years before
they began to explore and colonize the Pacific. For, as we have seen, there is a clear
archaeological connection of Spice Islanders 13,000–8,000 years ago to obsidian
sources in the Bismarcks, possibly evidence of their trading obsidian to Sabah from
Lou Island and Talisea 6,000 years ago, and certain evidence of international spice
trading in the discovery of the Terqa cloves available to a middle-class family in
Syria nearly 4,000 years ago. Possessing control of, or access to, cloves, unique to
the Spice Islands, we believe, would have been a strong motivation for the Spice
55
father’s absence in the South Island where he had gone to kill the giant octopus,
Te wheke-o-mutu-rangi. Their blood stained a rock at Te rimupapa, which is still
known as Mohuia after Kupe’s daughter.
It is an intriguing fact that Maori curvilinear tattooing patterns and wood-carving
patterns are unlike any others in Polynesia yet resemble those of the Sepik/Ramu
region of New Guinea. This similarity may have its origins in ancient Spice Island
trading links with the region. The preservation of ancient patterns is perhaps most
likely to have occurred if New Zealand (as we shall argue in Part II) was colonized
early and directly from the Spice Islands. Independent evolution of the same patterns
is, of course, a possibility and, if this is the case, would suggest both significant time
depth and long isolation for the descendants of the first colonists in New Zealand.
The links in curvilinear tattooing and wood-carving patterns and in the practice
of scarification may support the possibility that a Spice Island colony was established in the Sepik/Ramu area 6,000 years ago when an inland sea existed and made
possible trade with the highlands, the source of Bird of Paradise plumes. Of all
highland language families, the Engan family (which consists of languages spoken
in Enga and in the neighbouring areas of the East Sepik and the Southern Highlands
provinces) has the largest number of Austronesian loan words [24]. The inland sea
was converted to marsh about the time of the first Lapita migrations and there is a
suggestion that some people from this area were forced by the changing conditions
into migrations at this time and that others may have joined local non-Austronesian
tribes and adopted their languages.
All of this suggests that long-distance maritime spice and plume trading from the
Spice Islands and the Sepik/Ramu area of New Guinea may well have been practiced 6,000 years ago. The betel nut from the Sepik/Ramu and the ‘Ubaid figurines
are both dated to 5,800 years ago. That some at least of this trade was carried out
by cold-adapted Spice Island traders seems probable, since Atholl Anderson [15]
claims a later date for cargo ships sailing between the Middle East and India and
does not suggest their penetration of Island Southeast Asia.
Despite increasing genetic evidence for an indigenous Spice Island or Wallacean
ancestry for the Lapita and Polynesian peoples, the obvious connection between this
ancestry and the maritime trading history of the Spice Islands has not been made.
Once this connection is considered, the possibility that the Polynesians’ ancestors
were indigenous long-distance spice traders seems natural. Who more likely than
the Spice Islanders themselves to trade the cloves that grew uniquely on the five tiny
clove-producing islands off the western coast of Halmahera, and to trade nutmeg,
cinnamon and mace from the Banda islands in the southern Moluccas?
The evidence presented above suggests that the Spice Islanders had probably
been long-distance and international maritime traders for thousands of years before
they began to explore and colonize the Pacific. For, as we have seen, there is a clear
archaeological connection of Spice Islanders 13,000–8,000 years ago to obsidian
sources in the Bismarcks, possibly evidence of their trading obsidian to Sabah from
Lou Island and Talisea 6,000 years ago, and certain evidence of international spice
trading in the discovery of the Terqa cloves available to a middle-class family in
Syria nearly 4,000 years ago. Possessing control of, or access to, cloves, unique to
the Spice Islands, we believe, would have been a strong motivation for the Spice