pearling

Torres Strait pearl-shelling was almost entirely dependent on imported indentured labour from both Asia and the Pacific, the crew of the Combination's Three Cheers fleet being typical – 3 Europeans, 40 Japanese, 23 Filipinos, 12 Malays, 35 South Sea Islanders and 20 New Guineans.40 By the late 1890s, divers were having to go deeper for shell, and the majority were Japanese, who were the very best. Deep water full-dress helmet diving was not only dangerous, but a highly skilled occupation, and it took two or three years to train good men. Source: www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21533369.2005.9668351

When the pearling season commences on the Aru Islands, each of the three major boat types—sampans, belangs and junkos—are involved in collecting and transporting shell. Sampans: The sampans, dugouts of 3 to 6 meters that sometimes car-ried outriggers and a sail (and in Dobo even an outboard motor), are a multi-purpose inshore craft. They are employed in fishing, general transport, and pearl shell gath-ering. Many people could make sampans, and one could be con-structed at short notice anywhere on the Aru Islands. Belangs: The belangs seen on the foreshore at Dobo come in from villages, bringing pearl shell or copra (dried coconut) for sale. Usually there is a whole family on board. Junkos:The typical junko is a 10- to 20-meter-fong plank on-frame carvel-built vessel, with a counter stern, ketch rig and diesel engine. Source: www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/sampans-belangs-and-junkos/

Pearling has been carried out in Indonesian waters from very early times, with local divers collecting the shell. Some of the Indonesian divers went a con-siderable distance in search of shell. As Europeans extended their presence in the north of Australia, they saw Indonesians collecting pearls in Australian waters. The Aru Islands have been, and still are, one of the principal pearl-shell grounds in Indonesia. Al-though quite off the track of all European trade, these islands had by the early 19th century become the eastern terminus for the annual fleet of Bugis prahus from Ma-kassar (The Buginese are traders and seaborne colonists from south Sulawesi; see map, Fig. 2.) They were a source not only of pearls and mother-of-pearl, hut of such exotics as birds of paradise, tortoiseshell, trepang or sea slug, and edible birds’ nests. The British naturalist Alfred Wallace did the 1000-mile journey to the remote islands in a Bugis prahu in the 1850s (Fig. 4) and considered it quite an achieve-ment. “Even by the Makassar people themselves the voyage to the Aru Islands is looked upon as a rather wild and romantic expedi-tion, full of novel sights and strange adventures. He who has made it is looked up to as an authority, and it remains with many the unachieved ambition of their lives. I myself had hoped rather than expected ever to reach this “Ultima Thule” of the East…” (Wallace 1869:309). Source: www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/sampans-belangs-and-junkos/