Page 23 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

Portuguese and Spain from Tidore, Ternate, and Halmahera, the close relationship of this
Maluku kie raha island and the surrounding area did not experience a lot of decline.
So be it, it could be ensured that the inhabitants of big islands in the Western part of
Nusantara world had long been involved in the trading relationship and even sometimes
in politics as well, with the inhabitants residing in the small islands in the Eastern part. If
the possibility of relationship dynamics were already like this then should we still wonder if
the blood mixture was also a frequent thing—even very likely—to happen? This reciprocal
relationship had started even since the period of kingdom system which was not equal yet
to become part of the political tradition in these small islands. When the maritime talk and
historical bond had become more friendly then the differences in languages—not just the
difference in vocabulary—as if they had just become meaningless constraints. A system of
cultural communication seemed to have just been created like that. Even the difference
in anatomy among the inhabitants who seemed to come from different races had just
vanished when the trading and cultural relationship were involved.
However, when the academic desire has instantly attracted scientists to find out
the weird culture being faced, then at that time there are many kinds of differences to
be questioned. How many languages are used by the people all over the country? Why
is a small island possible to have two to three even more different languages? How was
it possible that the differences in physical and languages happen to those who live in
different islands? When such questions have been asked then the cultural relationship and
even the differences of civilization rate are allegedly just making more problems.

Melanesia and Austronesia in Historical Dynamics
After moving around for some time in Indonesian islands, finally—in 1859—Alfred
Russell Wallace, a British scientist and explorer, came to a conclusion that the region
actually consisted of two parts—the West and the East—which were different. The animals
existing in both regions, which were separated by the strait between Kalimantan and
Sulawesi and went on to the strait of Lombok, turned out not to be the same. There were
animals only found in the West which did not exist in the East or if the same animal was
found in both areas, its physical characteristics were different. When Thomas Huxley
popularized the findings of Wallace (1868) then the world of knowledge knew more about
what was called the Wallace Line. Wallace’s book entitled The Malay Archipelago (1869)
was a classic work describing the structure and history of the nature in the Nusantara

Introduction 23

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