Among the Spice Island Sago-eaters

From The Spice Islands Voyage: The Quest for Alfred Wallace, the Man Who Shared Darwin’s Discovery of Evolution, by Tim Severin (Carroll & Graf, 1997), pp. 142-144:
More than a century before Wallace’s visit, the people of Gorong were still habitual sago-eaters. Toman upon toman of sago flour was stacked up in the little shops of [...]

Japanese Soldier Ethnographer in Indonesia, 1944-45

From: Peter T. Suzuki and Reiko Watanabe Reiger (2003), A Japanese Soldier’s Ethnography of Molu Island (Tanimbar): Ken Sasaki’s Account (1944-1945), Archipel 66: 161-199 (doi: 10.3406/arch.2003.3789).
Moru Shima Ki: An Account of Molu Island by Ken Sasaki
Following is a description of my time on Molu Island from June 19, 1944 to May 20, 1945. Seven Japanese [...]

Sultanate of Ternate as a Colony

From The Spice Islands Voyage: The Quest for Alfred Wallace, the Man Who Shared Darwin’s Discovery of Evolution, by Tim Severin (Carroll & Graf, 1997), pp. 183-185:
The volcanic island of Ternate, where Wallace first stepped ashore in January 1858, was at that time nominally ruled by an eccentric one-eyed Sultan. An octogenarian, he liked to [...]

Rediscovering Waigeo: At the Bird’s Head of New Guinea

From The Spice Islands Voyage: The Quest for Alfred Wallace, the Man Who Shared Darwin’s Discovery of Evolution, by Tim Severin (Carroll & Graf, 1997), pp. 155-156:
The small villages of the Moluccas have a habit of relocating suddenly. The villagers – usually no more than a dozen families – frequently change the location of their [...]

“If Dobbo has too little law, England has too much”

From The Spice Islands Voyage: The Quest for Alfred Wallace, the Man Who Shared Darwin’s Discovery of Evolution, by Tim Severin (Carroll & Graf, 1997), p. 74:
During the five months he spent on the islands, Wallace witnessed an extraordinary transformation overtake Dobbo. Throughout January there was a steady arrival of boats and traders, 15 big [...]

Christianity and Belanda Migrants in Indonesia’s Far East

From The Spice Islands Voyage: The Quest for Alfred Wallace, the Man Who Shared Darwin’s discovery of Evolution, by Tim Severin (Carroll & Graf, 1997), pp. 29-30:
The spread of Christianity and Islam was the greatest change to island life since [Alfred Russel] Wallace had been there. When Wallace had come to Kei, the islanders were [...]

Foreign Policy on Indonesia vs. Burma

In Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government, Dan Twining compares recent positive developments in Indonesia with negative developments in Burma.
Indonesia’s political revolution was also spurred by a regional wave of democratization that spread from the Philippines in 1986 to South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Mongolia, and beyond over the following decade. After free parliamentary elections, Indonesia held its [...]

Early Research on New Guinea-area Preposed Genitives

In my dissertation on word-order change in the Austronesian languages of New Guinea, I reviewed some of the earliest published typological research in the area. Here is a glimpse of what obsessed some of the earliest European researchers.
Over most of the territory occupied by Austronesian (AN) languages, genitive (or “possessor”) nominals (= GEN) follow head [...]

Jenkins in Jakarta

The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea, by Charles Robert Jenkins with Jim Frederick (U. California Press, 2008), pp. 163-165:
Once we touched down in Jakarta, my wife was there on the tarmac along with throngs of media…. The bus ride into the city took two hours. I had never seen [...]

Hijab vs. Koteka: West Papua Culture Clash

From Throwim Way Leg: Tree-Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds—On the Track of Unknown Mammals in Wildest New Guinea, by Tim Flannery (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998), pp. 224-225:
From the air, my first view of Wamena was a broad, grassy valley dotted with traditional Dani hamlets surrounded by incredibly neat and extensive sweet potato and vegetable gardens. [...]