The late 1950s and early 1960s — the height of the Kahar Muzzakar rebellion (1950–65) — was a period of relative instability for the Tukang Besi Island Bajo. In 1956–57, the Mantigola Bajo were forced to flee their settlement and most re-established themselves in Mola. According to Si Pallu, however, some Bajo from Mantigola (and after 1957 from Mola) continued to sail long distances on fishing and trading voyages around the Indonesian Archipelago and to the north Australia region, while others fished locally, not far from their settlement.
The following accounts of sailing and fishing activities in the period from the 1950s to the early 1970s are from men in their late forties to mid-sixties.
The first time I sailed to the region of Australia was to catch fish during the 1950s. I went with the old people to ngambai. At that time we still lived in Mantigola, it was before the rebellion. We carried 1 tonne of salt, that’s a lot of salted fish! We fished all day long and our bodies ached because there was so much work to salt and dry the fish. We caught so much fish we could fill the entire hold of the perahu with salted fish. After that I sailed all over, transporting goods to different places (Si Kariman, Mola Selatan).
After we moved to Mola, between 1959 and 1969, I sailed all over, transporting copra to Gresik, Surabaya [Java], Singapore, Tawao [Sabah], Sarawak. At that time we sailed perahu lambo, but we still used gaff sails [lama cangking]; it was before [the adoption of] gunter sails [lama sande]. The first time I sailed to Ashmore Reef was in 1970. Before this time, from before I was born, Bajo people sailed to Ashmore Reef to fish with nets [ngambai]. I heard many stories from my parents and old people. My father had a perahu he finished building in 1955, and after launching it he sailed to Ashmore Reef. But before my father had a perahu, my father’s brothers sailed with my grandfather’s perahu and went net fishing at Ashmore. Formerly, at Ashmore Reef there were coconut trees owned by Bajo from Mantigola. But after white people started living there, they chopped down the trees. Actually, in the past, those coconut trees marked the location of Ashmore Reef; from a long distance we could see Ashmore Reef. There are still a few tall coconut trees left (Si Acing, Mola Selatan).
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, we carried copra to Java, but in 1957 we couldn’t go out because of the rebellion. Sometimes we carried copra in the 1960s and 1970s. I also carried asphalt once during the rebellion period. But then, in the 1970s lots of motor boats became engaged in the trade in Maluku and we stopped carry copra. Around this time we went fishing for shark, not reef fish, with shark rattles and handlines (Si Kaharra, Mola Selatan).
In 1962, during the time of the PKI [Indonesian Communist Party], I carried copra. In 1972–73, I sailed to the Timor Sea and fished for shark and collected trochus shell (Si Nurdin, Mola Selatan).
My father used to sail a lambo with gaff rig and counter-stern to Ashmore Reef and fish using nets. Between 1969 and 1971, I carried copra from Maluku to Surabaya and in 1972 I went shark fishing in the Timor Sea (Si Mudir, Mola Selatan).
My father had three perahu and each perahu did different work; we sailed them and other people borrowed them too. After 1957 we sailed perahu lambo to carry copra from Maluku to Java. One time we carried copra to Sarawak. In the past when we sailed to Surabaya we could sail three times during the east monsoon. We also sailed to Singapore. I went to Singapore in 1982 and spent eight months doing labouring work around the harbour but barely earned enough to pay for the trip. In the early 1980s we stopped carrying copra and started fishing again (Si Akmad, Mola Utara).
Between 1962 and 1965 I sailed on my uncle’s perahu and carried copra from Maluku to Java. In 1967, we changed from gaff rig to gunter rig. In 1967, we carried asphalt between Kendari and Bone [South Sulawesi]. In 1968 I went to live in Central Sulawesi for nine years and after that returned to Mola (Si Hati, Mola Selatan).
In 1965 I carried copra. I caught turtle for Bali in 1972 and fished for shark in the Timor Sea in 1973 (Si Ntao, Mola Utara).
In the early 1980s I stopped carrying copra. Before that I used to carry copra to Surabaya which we bought on Taliabo Island [Maluku]. I could carry 5 tonnes of copra (Si Mohammad, Mola Utara).
These accounts show that the diverse fishing and trading activities of Bajo from Mantigola and Mola continued uninterrupted from 1949 until the early 1970s. The main form of fishing was still net fishing for reef fish which was dried for later sale. The use of the gaff rig provides further evidence for voyaging during the 1950s and early 1960s as the Bajo only adopted the gunter rig sail in the late 1960s.
These accounts also reveal that some Bajo became involved in new trading activities, especially in the transportation of copra from Maluku for sale at Gresik and Surabaya on Java. Copra was also taken as far as Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. The extent of Bajo involvement in perahu trading prior to the 1950s is unknown. Si Badolla stated that Bajo from Mantigola engaged in carrying copra using perahu lambo well before World War II. It appears that during the 1960s perahu trading across the Indonesian Archipelago and to neighbouring countries was an important economic activity for many Mola Bajo.
Many Bajo ceased to engage in perahu trading activities in the early 1970s and returned to shark and trochus fishing in the Timor Sea as their main economic activity. In the early 1950s, net fishing for reef fish was commonly practised at places such as Ashmore Reef, but by the early 1970s shark fin and trochus fishing had largely replaced net fishing. The Kahar Muzzakar rebellion in Southeast Sulawesi and the migration of Bajo from Mantigola to Mola in 1957 must have had some effect on patterns of fishing. Other marine products, such as trochus shell and shark fin, were probably commanding a higher price than dried reef fish towards the end of this period. Regional economic growth in the late 1960s also stimulated increased exploitation of marine resources.
From the 1940s to the early 1980s, Bajo from Mantigola and Mola were engaged in a diverse range of activities dictated by a mix of individual preferences, weather conditions and economic factors. The latter included the availability of capital and market prices for cargoes and marine products. While some Bajo preferred trading, others focused on fishing. As in many fishing communities, people alternated between the two pursuits depending on the particular social, economic and political situation at the time, as well as the seasonal cycle. The role of Bajo from the Tukang Besi Islands in the local Butonese perahu trading sector, as well as in fishing activities in the Timor Sea, is already documented in the literature (Dick 1975; Hughes 1984; Evers 1991; Southon 1995: 45–9).
Trading first became popular in 1940, when the Dutch East Indies Government, following the impact of the 1930s world economic depression, began to monopolise the copra trade and fix market prices. Despite the devastating impact of the Japanese occupation on local perahu shipping and trading in the islands (Dick 1975: 79), the government monopoly was revived after World War II, and while copra from Sulawesi was all supposed to pass through a government trading centre in Makassar, price controls created an illegal smuggling trade which resulted in perahu from Selayar and Sulawesi transporting copra to Surabaya and Singapore where prices were actually much higher (Heersink 1994: 67). It would appear that Bajo from Mola may have been involved in these copra smuggling activities.
According to Southon (1995: 44), the Butonese people of Lande began building and sailing perahu lambo in the 1940s, partly in response to opportunities created after World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s the informal trading sector expanded throughout eastern Indonesia because of problems in the formal sector. The Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (Royal Navigation Company), which had dominated trade in previous decades, was expelled from Indonesia in 1957, and the modern shipping sector was suffering the effects of political instability and economic contraction (ibid.: 45). The informal perahu trade in copra and cloves remained important in the Tukang Besi economy through the 1960s and 1970s, but a formal shipping business financed by ethnic Chinese investors began transporting cargoes in large motorised vessels after 1967. The subsequent decline in the Butonese perahu trading sector was compounded by a dramatic fall in the price of copra in 1972, and this forced the Bajo traders back into fishing (ibid.). This is the when my Bajo informants say that they resumed fishing activities in the Timor Sea. The Bajo entry into the trade of live turtles to Bali also began in the 1970s.