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Sriwijaya was a trading center linking the west to the east. In Sriwijaya, it was known that
the spices were from Maluku brought to and traded in Sriwijaya by the Bacan kingdom,
which preceded the kingdoms of Ternate and Tidore. Similarly, there were sandalwood,
amber and honey from Timor.
At the end of the 12 century, Sriwijaya began to decline. Arabic, Chinese, Javanese
th
and Malay traders took the opportunity to further widen their trading business to Maluku.
Changes in trade routes, which were initially concentrated in Sriwijaya, opened direct access
to the places of origin of goods traded, affecting the development of new trade centers in
Maluku, Papua and East Nusa Tenggara such as Banda, Gorom, Geser, Hitu, Ternate, Tidore,
Atapupu, Kupang, Onin, Sran (Koiwai), Raja Ampat, and Wahai. Trade relations with Papua
were eliminated by traders in East Seram, which is geographally located closest to Papua.
Gorom and Seram Seas played a vital role in the trading network called sosolot, to connect
with Raja Ampat with Maluku up on the north west coast of Papua and with the land of
Papua namely Onin and Kobiai. Sosolot was also applied in East Seram, which was divided
into a number of coastal sosolot communities, individuals, families or community groups
to manage the trade monopoly in the bay or ports. Trade relations between the Seram
and Papua were cemented by the marriage between men from Seram and women from
Papua. Memorie van Overgave Onderafdeeling Fakfak, Controleur A. Vesseur reported that
in general the kings of Onderafdeeling Fakfak maintained the tradition of marrying women
from Seram, Buton or those of mixed blood (Ellen, 2003).
Miguel Roxo de Brito when sailing to Seram in the late 16th century (1581-1582), described
that Seram, which he called Serdanha, had a trade network with Timor. The inhabitants of
Serdanha built ships that they used to sail all the way to the island that produced sandalwood,
Timor. This suggests that traders from Seram played an important role in the network of
traditional trade between Maluku-Papua and Maluku- Timor, which connect these three
areas into one unified network of traditional trade in the East (Gelpke, 1994).
During the early development of trading ports in the east, in the mid-15th century,
traders, mainly Arabian, Javanese, Malay, and Makasarese came to Maluku and NTT
not only to trade, but also to spread Islam. They married local women and formed their
respective ethnic villages. Tome Pires reported that traders from Java and Malay who
embraced Islam, settled on the coast of Banda, but there was no king there and its
hinterland was still inhabited by non-Muslims. Not all people in important trade areas
embraced Islam. The people of Timor and Sumba, the timber-producing areas, remained
non-Muslim (Ricklefs, 2005). Until now, the communities of Arabian, Javanese, Malay, and

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