He Was
Kindly Treated When Ill, And Was Brought Back To Me With The
Balance Of The Dollars He Had Not Spent.
The Wanumbai people, like almost all the inhabitants of the Aru
Islands, are perfect savages, and I saw no
Signs of any religion.
There are, however, three or four villages on the coast where
schoolmasters from Amboyna reside, and the people are nominally
Christians, and are to some extent educated and civilized. I
could not get much real knowledge of the customs of the Aru
people during the short time I was among them, but they have
evidently been considerably influenced by their long association
with Mahometan traders. They often bury their dead, although the
national custom is to expose the body an a raised stage till it
decomposes. Though there is no limit to the number of wives a man
may have, they seldom exceed one or two. A wife is regularly
purchased from the parents, the price being a large assortment of
articles, always including gongs, crockery, and cloth. They told
me that some of the tribes kill the old men and women when they
can no longer work, but I saw many very old and decrepid people,
who seemed pretty well attended to. No doubt all who have much
intercourse with the Bugis and Ceramese traders gradually lose
many of their native customs, especially as these people often
settle in their villages and marry native women.
The trade carried on at Dobbo is very considerable.
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