Page 278 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

center of Malacca was founded by a prince from Palembang named Parameswara. He
managed to escape when Palembang was attacked by a Majapahit military force in 1377.
He finally got to Malacca around the year 1400. He found it to be a good port, because it
could harbor sailing ships in all seasons, both the northwest and east monsoon, and it was
situated at the narrowest part of the Malacca Strait. He successfully developed Malacca
into a large international port, a port of transit for the produce from the maritime Trade
Zone Bay of Bengal the maritime trade Zone of the Java Sea, in addition to produce from
China that included various types of porcelain, silk, and jewelry. Traders from Majapahit
marketed or exchanged the products that they got when trading in Maluku with the
products of the west zone such as textiles, tapestries, and Indian silk fabric.
During the time of the east monsoon, sailors and merchants from Papua, especially
the people of Biak and Noemfoor pursued maritime trade to the east. They brought with
them produce such as sago, birds of paradise, and tortoiseshell scales to trading centers in
Maluku including Tidore, Ternate, Seram, Nusa Laut, and Buru, and to Gorontalo, Selayar
in South Sulawesi, and to the islands of East Nusa Tenggara. They traded or exchanged
their commodities for various types of porcelain including Ben bepon, a type of plate,
textiles, various kinds of fabrics from Timor including weaving from Rote, Sabu, Flores,
Alor and Sumba (Kamma, 1981: 60, Sinaga, 2013: 35).
The relationship between sailors and traders from Papua with commercial centers
in the eastern Indonesian islands was very close. That was why some of them, through
the process of this trade, settled on the island of Halmahera, a group popularly known as
the Sawai. There were also some who settled in North Seram. The close relationship was
also marked with support and assistance provided by troops from Biak led by Gurabessi
to Tidore, when the kingdom was at war with the VOC in 1649. There were 24 boats
containing reinforcements for the kingdom of Tidore (Kamma, 1981: 61). In addition, this
trade network also influenced population distribution. While on the island of Halmahera
and North Seram, there are the Sawai; in Alor archipelago, particularly on the island of
Pantar, there are groups of people such as the Lebang people who have languages which
are related to languages in Papua, for example the Thaiwa language.
When the northwest monsoon blew, the Majapahit merchant fleet sailed back home
exploring the east coast of the island of Sumatra and the north coast of Java. On their
return voyage, they would make a stop at important ports along the way. Commodities
traded on the east coast of Sumatra included gold, camphor, pepper, silk, amber, honey,
wax, sulfur, iron, cotton, and rice. On the north coast of Java, gold, tamarind, and foodstuffs

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