"AROUND THE WORLD WITH Dr.DoDIDDILY AND THE DEE DOT'S"

WHICH IS BASED FOR PROTECTION INSIDE

THE SPICE ISLANDS 

Today the "Spice Islands" are known as Maluku (or The Molucca Islands).

A Schools Curriculum Project which follows the journey of Tim Severin as he retraces the steps of the famous explorer Alfred Russel Wallace in the Spice Islands of Indonesia. This project is coordinated by the University of Limerick, Ireland and has received financial funding from the Department of Education in Dublin and Bord na Gaeilge.

(WHICH WAS LAST UPDATED  IN JUNE 1996)

THIS IS THE KAI ISLANDS - By Pulau Kei Kecil

Halmahera, Seram, Buru, Ambon, Ternate, Tidore, Aru Islands, Kai Islands

These are main Spice Islands

Today the importance of the Spice Islands is as one of the few surviving areas of primary tropical rainforest with a rich natural history. In previous centuries the islands' importance lay with their name. As the source of cloves and nutmeg they were the focus of attention from traders since 300 B.C. or possibly earlier. Chinese, Indian and Arab merchants sought out these riches long before the European powers came to Maluku. The Arab connection, in particular, meant that the Muslim Influence was very strong. Individual sultans amassed great wealth and came to control the precious spice trade. Indeed, by the early 1500s, Maluku was known as Jazirat-al-Muluk or "Land of Many Kings."

It was at this time that Europeans first came to the Moluccas in search of cloves and nutmeg. They were highly valued as food preservatives. Wealthy ladies used to keep spices in lockets around their necks so they could freshen their breaths easily. Gentlemen added nutmeg to food and drink. Spices were also used for medicinal purposes, especially in the relief of colic, gout and rheumatism. Such great demand meant that the prices of nutmeg and cloves soared. To offset this crisis expeditions were launched to find the source of these spices and bring them directly back to Europe.

Christopher Columbus was searching for the fabled route to the Indies when he arrived at the Americas in 1492. Not long after this the Portuguese enforced their rule on parts of the Moluccan Islands. Along with the spice traders came military forces and missionaries keen on converting the natives of the islands. Conflict soon broke out and the Portuguese brutally crushed the islanders. The natives continued to disrupt Portuguese trade and everyday life in the islands and within a century they were replaced by the Spanish. They did not last long either and lost out to the Dutch who governed the islands between 1605 and 1945.

The period of Dutch rule is marked by the usage of vast plantations as a means of producing vast quantities of spices for the European markets. All the land was under the control of the Dutch East Indies Company and anyone caught selling land, however small, was executed. By the early 1800s new plantations of spices in Africa and India meant that there was a greater choice of supply available to the traders. As a consequence, prices fell and the Dutch were in trouble. It was around this time that Alfred Russel Wallace arrived in the Malay Archipelago.

Today, the Spice Islands make up Maluku Propinsi (or Maluku Province)

of the Republic of Indonesia.

Spice Islands (Moluccas): 250 Years of Maps (1521–1760)

The Indonesian archipelago of the Moluccas (or Maluku Islands), commonly referred to as the Spice Islands, lies on the equator north of Australia and west of New Guinea. Though there are hundreds of islands in the group (most are very small), only a handful figure prominently in the history of the European spice trade, including today’s Ternate, Tidore, Moti, Makian, and Bacan—essentially the ones shown on the surrounding maps. Until the 1700s, these rain-forested, luxuriant, volcanic islands were the only or best sources of such spices as cloves, nutmeg, and mace.
            Arab traders introduced cloves to Europeans around the fourth century but sought to keep their sources secret. Their monopoly was broken by the Portuguese after Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India around the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. The Portuguese strengthened their stranglehold on the spice trade during the sixteenth century, when they found the central locus of the spices to be these islands. One of the native traditions was to plant a clove tree when a child was born, linking the child symbolically to the life of the tree. When the Dutch took over control of the Moluccas in the seventeenth century, they eradicated the clove trees from all the islands except Amboina (and a few adjacent islands) in order to enforce the spice’s scarcity, keeping prices high. As a result, cloves were worth more than their weight in gold. But, as one might expect, the Dutch tactic also instilled hatred and fomented rebellion among the islanders. Gradually, the spice was cultivated in other places of the world, like Brazil, the West Indies, and Zanzibar, reducing prices and making the commodity more available.
            However, the historical significance of these islands cannot be overstated. Largely because of the magnetic force of spices, European ships risked sailing into unknown waters (Portuguese ventures down and around Africa), “found” a New World (Columbus’s crossing of the Atlantic), and first circled the globe (Magellan’s crossing of the Pacific).

TANIMBAR ISLANDS

Tanimbar Islands located in southeast of Moluccass Islands, the biggest islands province in Indonesia. Due to the its remotedness, not many people ever visit or even heard about this islands and its culture. One traditional culture that almost extinct in Tanimbar is Tnabar Dance. Tnabar dance is more than just a showcase, it's an ancient Tanimbar people tradition to communicate with their ancestors, so the ancestors can preserve them. The Tnabar dance divided into two kinds of dance, Tnabar Ila'a (all performed by men) and Tnabar Fanewa (all performed by women). The uniqueness of Tnabar dance is the dance only can performed by a big number of people (at least 25-30 people), and there are several role in the dance.

The formation in Tnabar dance resembled a snake, since they believed all the Tanimbar people came from a snake. The dance basically is a song, sing by a song leader (called Kual Ralan), followed by some movement played by the rest of group. There are three song sing during the dance, and to start the song a dancer called Farai always perform a warcry lyric with a movement resembled an eagle. After the Farai the Kual Ralan will sing the song, while the Tiwal Ralan (four people inside the half circle played the Tifa, traditional Moluccans percussion) played the Tifa, and the others dancer make a slight movement. The dancer in the circle that have bigger part to move is the Ulu Kual (the first dancer in the line). This Tnabar Fanewa dancer is performed by Wadankou girls, played in Nurkat Village, Molu Maru District, in the National Education Day Celebration held in Nurkat. Wadankou, the remotest village in Tanimbar Islands, known as their well preserved tradition such as this dance, cakalele dance, Foruk (ancient poem tradition), Dobol (another upbeat dance from Tanimbar), and so on.

The island was first mentioned around 1365. Between 1658 and 1942, it was colonized by the Dutch East India Company and then by the Crown of the Netherlands. The Dutch administration relocated many local villages to the newly built island capital at Kayeli Bay for working at clove plantations. It also promoted the hierarchy among the indigenous people with selected loyal rajas placed above the heads of the local clans.

The island was occupied by the Japanese forces between 1942 and 1945 and in 1950 became part of independent Indonesia. During former President Suharto’s New Order administration in the 1960s–1970s, Buru was the site of a prison used to hold thousands of political prisoners.

Fun for all the children of the world with Dr. Dodiddily and the Dee Dot's

 A little bit about myself and my Sisters

                               

Kath, (far left) Sylvia, blonde (middle) Dorothy (me far right) Amy (Toni, in front)

     Dr. Dodiddily is one of four sisters. First there is my sister Sylvia, she is the eldest and the smallest. Then there is my sister Toni(Amy) she is two years younger than Sylvia, Toni lives in Kent. The next one born in 1944 was Dorothy, yes my lovelies this is my real name. I am three years younger than Toni. One more to come and that is my sister Kathleen, she is the baby of the family and she is  four years younger then myself. 

     We couldn never hand our cloths down to each other, we were all very different sizes, and anyone coming after me wouldn't have been able to wear anything I was such a tom-boy and thing were worn out long before Kath could have them.

     This is a very old picture of the four of us taken in Coed Poeth in North Wales, way back in 1952/3.                Gosh I am an Ancient Dragon, aren't I ! xxx.       

                                   

This is myself and my sisters in 1979 just 26 years later, we are with our mother who like myself was called Dorothy. We are from left to right  Sylvia, Toni, My Mum, Dorothy (me) Kathleen.

Jayden, Noah Rhys, Brody Leigh with Diddily in the background you can just see my grey hair.

WE CAN'T HAVE THE SPICE ISLANDS WITHOUT SPICE ISLAND FOOD... TAKE A LOOK AT THIS

India had spent the previous two millennia spreading its culture to the Spice Islands of the east.

THE SPICE ISLANDS

1521: Pigafetta, Antonio, ca. 1480/91–ca. 1534. “Figure of the Five Islands Where Grow the Cloves, and of Their Tree.” From volume 2 of Magellan’s Voyage: A Narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation. Translated and edited by R. A. Skelton (New Haven, Conn., 1969). Shown with the permission of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. [Rare Books Division]

On that day of Sunday I went ashore to see how the cloves grow. The tree is tall and as thick as a man. Its branches in the center spread out widely, but at the top they grow into a kind of peak. The leaf is like that of a laurel, and the bark of the color of brown tan. The cloves come at the tip of branches, ten or twenty together. These trees almost always bear more of them on one side than on the other, according to the season. When the cloves sprout, they are white; when ripe, red; and when dried, black. They gather them twice a year, at Christmas and again on the feast of St John the Baptist, because at these two seasons the air is most temperate, but more so at Christmas. And when the year is hotter, and there is less rain, they gather three or four hundred bahar* of cloves in each of those islands, and they grow only in the mountains. . . . Nowhere in the world do good cloves grow except on five mountains of those five islands. . . . We saw almost every day a cloud descend and encircle first one of those mountains and then the other, whereby the cloves become more perfect. (1:120–21)

*A bahar is a unit of weight approximating 400 pounds.

This wonderful map and information belongs to the http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/pacific/spice-islands/spice-islands-maps.html  where you can find many more journey's made my the explorers during the early years of sea travel.

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