My Boy Ali Said To
Me, "Banyak Quot Bitchara Orang Aru "(The Aru People Are Very
Strong Talkers), Never Having
Been accustomed to such eloquence
either in his own or any other country he had hitherto visited.
Of an evening
The men, having got over their first shyness, began
to talk to me a little, asking about my country, &c., and in
return I questioned them about any traditions they had of their
own origin. I had, however, very little success, for I could not
possibly make them understand the simple question of where the
Aru people first came from. I put it in every possible way to
them, but it was a subject quite beyond their speculations; they
had evidently never thought of anything of the kind, and were
unable to conceive a thing so remote and so unnecessary to be
thought about, as their own origin. Finding this hopeless, I
asked if they knew when the trade with Aru first began, when the
Bugis and Chinese and Macassar men first came in their praus to
buy tripang and tortoise-shell, and birds' nests, arid Paradise
birds?
This they comprehended, but replied that there had always been
the same trade as long as they or their fathers recollected, but
that this was the first time a real white man had come among
them, and, said they, "You see how the people come every day from
all the villages round to look at you." This was very flattering,
and accounted for the great concourse of visitors which I had at
first imagined was accidental.
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