Whether The Goram Group Formed Originally Part Of New Guinea Or
Of Ceram It Is Scarcely Possible To Determine, And
Its
productions will throw little light upon the question, if, as I
suppose, the islands have been entirely submerged within
The
epoch of existing species of animals, as in that case it must owe
its present fauna and flora to recent immigration from
surrounding lands; and with this view its poverty in species very
well agrees. It possesses much in common with East Ceram, but at
the same time has a good deal of resemblance to the Ke Islands
and Banda. The fine pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, inhabits Ke,
Banda, 11-Iatabello, and Goram, and is replaced by a distinct
species, C. neglecta, in Ceram. The insects of these four islands
have also a common facies - facts which seem to indicate that some
more extensive land has recently disappeared from the area they
now occupy, and has supplied them with a few of its peculiar
productions.
The Goram people (among whom I stayed a month) are a race of
traders. Every year they visit the Tenimber, Ke, and Aru Islands,
the whole north-west coast of New Guinea from Oetanata to
Salwatty, and the island of Waigiou and Mysol. They also extend
their voyages to Tidore and Ternate, as well as to Banda and
Amboyna, Their praus are all made by that wonderful race of
boatbuilders, the Ke. islanders, who annually turn out some
hundreds of boats, large and small, which can hardly be surpassed
for beauty of form and goodness of workmanship, They trade
chiefly in tripang, the medicinal mussoi bark, wild nutmegs, and
tortoiseshell, which they sell to the Bugis traders at Ceram-laut
or Aru, few of them caring to take their products to any other
market. In other respects they are a lazy race, living very
poorly, and much given to opium smoking. The only native
manufactures are sail-matting, coarse cotton cloth, and pandanus-
leaf boxes, prettily stained and ornamented with shell-work.
In the island of Goram, only eight or ten miles long, there are
about a dozen Rajahs, scarcely better off than the rest of the
inhabitants, and exercising a mere nominal sway, except when any
order is received from the Dutch Government, when, being backed
by a higher power, they show a little more strict authority. My
friend the Rajah of Ammer (commonly called Rajah of Goram) told
me that a few years ago, before the Dutch had interfered in the
affairs of the island, the trade was not carried on so peaceably
as at present, rival praus often fighting when on the way to the
same locality, or trafficking in the same village. Now such a
thing is never thought of-one of the good effects of the
superintendence of a civilized government. Disputes between
villages are still, however, sometimes settled by fighting, and I
one day saw about fifty men, carrying long guns and heavy
cartridge-belts, march through the village.
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