The Bugis Landed There First

Posted on August 25th, 2010 at 3:26 pm by Akhyari

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Long before European colonialists extended their influence into Australia, the Makasar, the Bajau, and the Bugis built elegant, ocean-going schooners in which they plied the trade routes. Intrepid and doughty, they traveled as far east as the Aru Islands, off New Guinea, where they traded in the skins of birds of paradise and medicinal masoya bark, and to northern Australia, where they exchanged shells, birds’-nests and mother-of-pearl for knives and salt with Aboriginal tribes. The products of the forest and sea that they brought back were avidly sought after in the markets and entrepots of Asia, where the Bugis bartered for opium, silk, cotton, firearms and gunpowder.

The Bugis sailors left their mark and culture on an area of the northern Australian coast which stretches over two thousand kilometers from the Kimberley to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Throughout these parts of northern Australia, there is much evidence of a significant Bugis presence. There are the remains of Bugis buildings on islands, Bugis words have become part of the Aboriginal languages and Bugis men and their craft feature in the indigenous art of the people of Arnhem Land.

Each year, the Bugis sailors would sail down on the northwestern monsoon in their wooden pinisi. They would stay in Australian waters for several months to trade and take trepang (or dried sea cucumber) before returning to Makassar on the dry season off shore winds. These trading voyages continued until 1907.

Some Bugis married Aboriginal women and took them back to South Sulawesi where they had children. Aboriginal words like balanda, wurupiah, prau and dopulu all come from Makassar.

As Thomas Forrest wrote in Voyage from Calcutta, “The Bugis are a high-spirited people: they will not bear ill-usage…They are fond of adventures, emigration, and capable of undertaking the most dangerous enterprises.”

The expertise of Bugis-Makassar sailing the ocean was trustworthy, they went up to the overseas territory of Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Thailand, Australia, Madagascar and South Africa. In fact, they also went to Cape Town. Moreover, in South Africa there is a suburb named Maccassar, as a sign of local residents to remember their ancestors homeland.

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