Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
governing a lower race, has never yet been worked out. The application of our 'political
economy' to such cases invariably results in the extinction or degradation of the lower race;
whence we may consider it probable that one of the necessary conditions of its truth is, the
approximate mental and social unity of the society in which it is applied. I shall again refer
to this subject in my chapter on Ternate, one of the most celebrated of the old spice-islands.
The natives of Banda are very much mixed, and it is probable that at least three-fourths of
the population are mongrels, in various degrees of Malay, Papuan, Arab, Portuguese, and
Dutch. The first two form the basis of the larger portion, and the dark skins, pronounced fea-
tures, and more or less frizzly hair of the Papuans preponderates. There seems little doubt
that the aborigines of Banda were Papuans, and a portion of them still exists in the Ké is-
lands, where they emigrated when the Portuguese first took possession of their native island.
It is such people as these that are often looked upon as transitional forms between two very
distinct races, like the Malays and Papuans, whereas they are only examples of intermixture.
The animal productions of Banda, though very few, are interesting. The islands have per-
haps no truly indigenous Mammalia but bats. The deer of the Moluccas and the pig have
probably been introduced. A species of Cuscus or Eastern opossum is also found at Banda,
and this may be truly indigenous in the sense of not having been introduced by man. Of
birds, during my three visits of one or two days each, I collected eight kinds, and the Dutch
collectors have added a few others. The most remarkable is a fine and very handsome fruit-
pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, which feeds upon the nutmegs, or rather on the mace, and
whose loud booming note is to be continually heard. This bird is found in the Ké and Mata-
bello islands as well as Banda, but not in Ceram or any of the larger islands, which are in-
habited by allied but very distinct species. A beautiful small fruit-dove, Ptilonopus diade-
matus, is also peculiar to Banda.
