Stories I came across: the magic of Labuan Bajo
Labuan Bajo, from a small fishing village to a great place in history
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The Pearling Heritage of Labuan Bajo
Picture of Labuan Bajo, from the National Archives of Indonesia.
With its location at the center of the trading routes of the archipelago, at the eastern tip of the island of Flores, Labuan Bajo has been visited by many nations over the centuries. Ming dynasty ceramic pieces found by divers in the area are just one of the treasures the village has surrendered. Yet one of Labuan Bajo’s best claim to fame is its long history of being a pearling port. With the Bajo people who are excellent divers, the small village was host to pearling lugers’ fleets in the 1800s. Pearl divers under constant threat of sharks and deadly sea snakes, many victims of the bends or ‘diver’s paralysis’, with a difficult life at sea for months at a time, life was often harsh.
The arrival of the diving suits which the Indonesian divers could not get used to, gave work to the Japanese divers who could manage long and deep dives, taking jobs away from the local workforce, in Indonesia and in Australia equally.
In the 1600s till then end of the 1800s spices were not the only trade items with Europe. The oysters’ shells were used for making buttons in Europe and the pearls were prized by European royalty for their size, colors and shine. The pearls of the Pinctada maxima pearl oyster, are the largest pearl oysters in the world. They are either the Gold-lipped oyster and the Silver-lipped oyster. Their gems are large in size and vary from white to pink, silver or gold color.
Some famous exquisite pearls have come from Indonesia. Famous Pearl trader of the 1800s, Baadilla presented a giant pearl to Queen Emma of Netherlands in 1896 and later to her daughter Queen Wilhelmina he gifted a large pink pearl to adorn one of her favorite tiaras. These pearls were traded to some of the finest jewellers of the 1800 and 1900s, such as Mikimoto and Tiffany’s.
With industrialization and bakelite as a replacement for mother-of-pearl to make buttons, the industry crashed. Combined with over fishing, the pearling industry only came back to Indonesia in the 1970s with several Japanese pearling exploitations through the East of Indonesia.
The South Sea Pearls of the Indonesian waters are still some of the most prized pearls and they although they are only estimated as less than 10% in volume of the traded pearls every year, their value amounts to more than 50% of the value of pearl trade. There are still a few pearl farms in the waters around Labuan Bajo.
Don’t be fooled by the Chinese fresh water pearls imported in bulk and traded as Lombok or Flores pearls. The South Sea pearls are part of the heritage of Indonesia, they are the biggest pearls on the market and you can still find them at Mikimoto and Tiffany’s to this date.
Labuanbajo, early 1900s.
Robin Hilliard, the first Australian Expat in Labuan Bajo
Photo of a large tree in central Labuan Bajo, likely to be at the location of the Hilliard home.
Robin Hilliard was the son of a prominent Australian Pear Trader from Broome, Western Australia. Owner of a fleet of pearling lugers, Robin settled first in Kupang (West Timor) and moved to Labuan Bajo in the early 1900s with this Indonesian wife and his Australian partner, Alex Chamberlain. Little information can be found on his partner, but Robin Hilliard has left a few stories behind in Labuan Bajo.
Using Labuan Bajo as his base Tuan Robin (or Mister Robin as the locals would call him), built his business and his house in the center of this small fishing village. The location of his house is where is now sitting the new harbor’s Hotel.
In those days pearls were a by-product of the oyster fishing. The shells or mother of pearl were exported on a large scale up until the beginning of the 1900s. With industrialization and Bakelite as a replacement for mother-of-pearl to make buttons, the industry crashed and those owning pearling boat fleets lots their businesses.
Tuan Robin lived in Labuan Bajo with his family until the Japanese occupation. His wife escaped to Jakarta with the children and he was taken to the labor camps in Makassar, Sulawesi where he passed away in 1944.
Tuan Robin was most probably the first Australian Expat established in Labuan Bajo. Some of his children and grandchildren live in Jakarta and others live in Australia.
Labuan Bajo and the Bajo people
Picture of Labuan Bajo, from the National Archives of Indonesia.
The Bajo (or Bajau) people are a tribe of sea gypsies known for living in the South East Asian waters from Myanmar to Indonesia. With generations of nomadic sea life, they have acquired incredible fishing abilities and also, diving abilities. Their lungs are able to sustain deep sea pressure and long dives. For this they were known as great pearl divers.
Originally the Bajau Tribe comes from the Sulu Islands region in the Southern Philippines. In Indonesia, the most appearances of these tribes are in Eastern Indonesia, such as in the waters of Maluku, Raja Ampat, Sulawesi, to the northern part of Kalimantan.
The name of Labuan Bajo may be due to the Bajo people migrations with different fishing seasons. Labuan or pelabuhan means port in Bahasa Indonesia.
The Burden Komodo expedition & New York Central Park Zoo
Inspiration for the first King Kong movie in 1933
William Douglas Burden was an explorer, an adventurer and the curious mind behind the one of the earliest recorded expeditions to Komodo Island. Having heard of the giant reptiles and their island, Burden set sail to Indonesia in 1926 on an expedition financed by the Vanderbilt. Burden left his steamship in Surayaba to take a Dutch government ship to Labuan Bajo where he borrowed a pearling luger from a foreigner established in Labuan Bajo, which had been made idle by the fall of the trade. This foreigner was most probably Robin Hilliard.
Burden accompanied by his wife Katherine Curtin White and a big game hunter named Emmett Reid Dunn, spent 5 Months on the island of Komodo. Sensational stories of encounter with wildlife, scorpion bites and of course Mrs Burden coming face to face with a dragon, made the headlines surrounding their reports of the exhibition.
Of the 5 live specimens brought back to New York, only 2 made it to their new home at the Central Park Zoo. Great Dragon exhibition of the zoo was opened to great acclaim and to this date is listed as one of the most visited exhibitions held at the zoo with over 30 000 people visiting within the first week.
A film producer friend of Burden was inspired by the stories of Burden and his wife on the island of Komodo. Merian C. Cooper went on to create one of the earliest blockbusters of Hollywood, King Kong. Fearful the dragons would not be appealing to moviegoers; the giant ape became the main character. And Mrs. Burden’s name was changed to Fay Wray’s the heroine of the film we know.
Komodo Expeditions
The History of discovering Komodo
One of the earliest western expeditions recorded was in 1910 by Lieutenant Jacques Karel Henri van Steyn van Hensbroek who was stationed on Flores Island for the Dutch colonial administration. Intrigued by rumours of a large size reptile living on the nearby island of Komodo he set out to Komodo to investigate for himself. Native pearl fishermen had also been reporting stories of gigantic, prehistoric animals living on Komodo Island.
He armed himself, and accompanied by a team of soldiers, landed on the island. After a few days, Hensbroek managed to kill one of the lizards and returned with a photo and the skin of the animal, which he sent to Pieter Ouwens, then director of the Java Zoological Museum and Botanical Gardens in Buitenzorg (now Bogor). The animal was not a crocodile of any sort, but a large monitor lizard. Ouwens realised that this animal was new to science and published the first formal description of the animal in 1912.
Following expeditions killed and examined carcasses of dragons, specimens brought to New York by Burden (1926) and to the Netherlands by the Dutch administration (1932-1938). Few of these dragons made the trip but too many were killed during these experiments.
The best way to discover Komodo National Park today, is with the Phinisi ships.
The Phinisi
The Phinisi ships, Indonesia naval heritage
The Indonesian Phinisis are traditional handmade wooden ships, gaff rigs, with two masts and 7 sails. Traditionally, the Phinisis do not have booms and would sail in the direction of the favorable winds, planning their routes according to the monsoon.
The Phinisis are the ships which insured the trading of wood, rice and spices between the islands, and could be found as far as the Andaman Islands and India, often seen in the Malacca straights and also in the Philippines and South Pacific. Famous in Australia, the ‘mother ships’ as they were called by the aboriginals, brought wood and spices for trade against sea cucumber.
Made by hand and chisel by the Konjo people of Ara in Sulawesi, the Phinisis’ hull is made of iron wood which is one of the most-dense woods available. The Konjo people were their builders and the Bugis from Sulawesi also, their sailors.
The ships are constructed in such a way that the hull allows for heavy cargo to act as ballast. The marine engineers of Napoleon Bonaparte were sent to Indonesia to study their hulls in order to improve the fleet of Napoleon with features of the Phinisis.
In the modern era, Phinisis have been used to transport tourists wanting to discover the Indonesian archipelago. Many operators still hire the Bugis as captains to sail the ships. Many are anchored in the bay of Labuan Bajo as it serves as a base for many of them to cruise the Komodo National Park.
Of the modern Phinisis, two ships stand apart from the rest: Dewi Nusantara is a liveaboard and it stands apart for her size with 18 cabins and the luxurious Silolona (or her smaller sister Si Datu Bua, both pictured here), for her 60 meters in length and only 5 cabins.