The History of Gaharu in Maluku: Oud in the Original Spice Islands

In the east of the Indonesian archipelago lies a handful of small islands that moved history more than their size suggests: Maluku, the original "Spice Islands." From these islands alone came the clove and the nutmeg before they were cultivated elsewhere on earth, and for their sake the fleets of the Arabs, the Chinese, and the Indians, then the Portuguese and the Dutch, crossed whole oceans. So where does oud stand in this heritage? Here the rivers do not tell the story of oud as in Kalimantan, nor does an old aromatic strait dominate as in Sumatra, nor does the genus Gyrinops lead the scene as a subject as in Papua; rather oud merges into the most venerable and most precious spice trade the world has known. This article is a reference guide to Maluku as a land of spices, and oud as a tributary in it.

The Spice Islands: why Maluku is unique

To understand the place of oud in Maluku, one must first understand what made these islands unique in the history of the whole world, and it is a matter that has no relation to oud to begin with but to the spices. For Maluku — or "the Moluccas" as it is sometimes rendered — was known in the sources by the name "the Spice Islands," because it was almost the only historical home of two of the most precious spices ever: the clove and the nutmeg, before their cultivation later spread to other places in the world.

This simple botanical fact — that two plants grow only here — is what made the entire history of the region. For when a precious product is confined to a single spot on earth, that spot turns into a global center of attraction. And it is related that the clove and the nutmeg reached fantastical prices in the ancient markets of Europe, until it was said that they were weighed against nearly their weight in gold; and we present this as a circulated image of their scarcity and value, not a precise figure.

And thus Maluku became a destination sought from the ends of the earth. The Asian traders came to it first, then the Europeans followed them, searching for the source of the spices directly with no intermediaries. And that was not a commercial luxury; for the search for a route to the "Spice Islands" was among the strongest motives behind the entire Age of Discovery. That is, these small islands were, in a real sense, one of the nodes around which the history of global trade revolved.

And this is the context in which the oud of Maluku ought to be read: not as the region's first product, but as one of the aromatics of a land in which fragrance and spice were a currency, a wealth, and a cause for wars. For when we look at oud here, we look at it as it is merged into a venerable commercial tradition that made scents and flavors into goods rivaling the precious metals. And this merging specifically is what distinguishes the story of Maluku from the rest of the origins of oud.

Oud within the aromatic basket of Maluku

After we have established that Maluku is a land of spices before anything else, we can now place oud in its correct position with honesty: it is in these islands a tributary, not a center. Maluku was not historically known as a major oud origin as Kalimantan or Sumatra were known, but rather was known for the clove and the nutmeg. However, oud — gaharu — was a part of the basket of aromatics and spices that the eastern region exported, moving within the same network that carried the clove to the world.

And from the botanical side, the oud of the east of the archipelago belongs mostly to the genus Gyrinops, not to the genus Aquilaria that dominates in the west, Maluku being in that like its neighbor Papua to the east of it. And we do not repeat here the explanation of the difference between the two genera in detail, for we devoted to it the Papua article; and whoever wants more about Gyrinops and its characteristics, let him review the oud of Papua and eastern Indonesia where we laid out the discussion of it. It suffices here to establish that the oud of Maluku belongs to the same eastern botanical school.

And the honest formulation that we adhere to in this chapter is to say: the eastern region of the archipelago used to export its diverse aromatics through its ports, and gaharu was one of these aromatics that moved with the current of the trade. But we do not claim that Maluku was a great oud center, and we do not inflate its role in the history of oud at the expense of precision. For the honesty of the reference requires that we place everything in its size: Maluku is a land of spices par excellence, and oud in it is a thread within a wider aromatic fabric.

And this situation has a subtle significance in itself: for the oud that comes out of a land in which the spices were the kings of goods carries in its context something of the venerability of that trade. When you acquire a piece of oud attributed to the east of the archipelago, you are acquiring a fragrance from the side that was the destination of the world for the sake of its scent and its flavor. And this symbolic context — not a claim of historical centrality — is what grants the oud of the region a special narrative flavor.

The sultanates of Ternate and Tidore

The talk of Maluku is not complete without pausing at a striking political and religious phenomenon that arose upon the wealth of the spices: the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore. For on two small adjacent volcanic islands in the north of Maluku, two rival Islamic sultanates arose that drew their power and their wealth from the monopoly of the clove that grew in their range. They competed over influence and trade a long competition, and each of them came to have its allies and its regions of control.

And the most beautiful thing in this story, from the angle of the history of civilization, is that Islam reached this farthest end of the archipelago through trade, not through conquest. For the rise of two Islamic sultanates in the far east of the islands of Indonesia means that the caravans of the Muslim traders and their ships carried the creed along with the goods to where the clove grows. And Ternate and Tidore are mentioned as among the oldest Islamic kingdoms in this far east of the Malay world — and we mention that with an honest generality without specifying particular dates.

And the connection here to the history of oud is not contrived. For the very trade network that carried Islam to Ternate and Tidore is the one that connected the east of the archipelago with the wider world, and among it the Arab world of which oud was an authentic part of its culture. That is, the spices, the creed, and the fragrance all moved on the same routes; and whoever understands how Islam reached the Spice Islands understands at the same time how the eastern aromatics — and among them gaharu — used to find their way to distant markets.

And Ternate and Tidore remain witnesses to a rule that recurs in the history of the archipelago: that rare natural wealth makes centers of power. For as the rivers in Kalimantan made routes of trade, and the Strait of Malacca in Sumatra made a global market, the clove in Maluku made two sultanates. And this distinction in the source of power — a spice, not a river nor a strait — is the essence of what makes the story of Maluku independent of its sisters in this series.

The islands and ports of the spices

Maluku is not a single island but an archipelago of scattered islands, and each island of it has its position in the map of the trade. Among the most prominent of them is Ambon, which became with time one of the most important centers and ports in the region and a meeting point for trade and administration. And when we speak of the movement of the aromatics — and oud among them — across Maluku, we are speaking of ports of this kind that gather the goods of the small islands and re-export them to the wider network.

And the Banda Islands occupy a special standing, for they are the famous home of the nutmeg; a handful of very small islands that were for centuries the almost only source of this precious spice. As for Halmahera, the largest of the islands of Maluku, it extends with its oddly-shaped arms to the north and forms a part of the range of the neighboring sultanates of Ternate and Tidore. And for whoever wants to get acquainted with the oud attributed to this island specifically, we devote to it the Halmahera oud collection within our eastern origins.

And the feature common to all these islands is that the sea is the road. For in a scattered archipelago like this, there is no room for a river transport like the one Kalimantan knew, nor for a land road connecting the islands; rather ships alone are what transport the spices and the aromatics between one island and another, and from the islands to the great ports, and from them to the world. This purely island-maritime character distinguishes the movement of the trade of Maluku from the other regions of the archipelago.

And this variance in the means of transport is not a marginal detail but a key to understanding each region on its own. For while the oud of Kalimantan descended with the courses of the rivers of Borneo, and the fragrance of Sumatra gathered at the Strait of Malacca, the aromatics of Maluku — and among them gaharu — moved aboard ships between hundreds of islands. For the geography of each land writes the manner of its trade, and the geography of Maluku is a geography of sea and islands par excellence.

The Arabs, the eastern trade, and the struggle for monopoly

Before a single European ship trod the waters of Maluku, the spices of these islands had cut their road to the world since a distant time at the hands of the traders of Asia. For the Arab, Chinese, Indian, and Malay traders wove a long trade network that carried the clove and the nutmeg — and the aromatics that accompanied them — from the east of the archipelago through the ports of the center and the west to India, the Arabian Peninsula, and China. And we presented the extension of this current toward the Arab world in the history of the oud trade between Indonesia and the Arab world, and it is the same current in which the gaharu of the east moved.

Then came the turning point that made Maluku a stage for one of the most famous struggles of commercial history: the arrival of the Europeans searching for the source of the spices directly. For the powers competed — the Portuguese first, then the Spanish, then the Dutch — over control of these islands and the monopoly of their spices. And that was not a quiet commercial competition; rather it was interspersed with alliances with the local sultanates and struggles over the forts and the ports, because whoever owns Maluku owns the source of the most precious good of its time.

And in this struggle the Dutch East India Company (VOC) emerged, which sought to impose a strict monopoly on the trade of the clove and the nutmeg. And we mention this context with an honest generality: for the point is that Maluku was a target of organized monopoly policies that wanted to confine the production of the spices and their distribution in a single grip. And this face of the history of the region — the struggle for monopoly — is a real and distinctive context of Maluku over the other origins of aromatics in the archipelago.

And what concerns us in the story of oud from all of this is one thing: that Maluku was never isolated islands, but a node in the global aromatics trade since before the Europeans and after them. And the oud that came out of this region moved in an extremely vital commercial space, made first by the network of the Asian traders then reshaped by the European struggles. For when we trace the eastern gaharu, we trace it against the backdrop of one of the richest stages of trade the world has known.

Maluku and oud today

Maluku remains today an eastern source region within the wide map of Indonesian oud, even if its great fame remained tied to the spices, not to oud. For the oud attributed to the east of the archipelago — including Maluku and its neighbors — is traded as a part of the eastern botanical family dominated by the genus Gyrinops, which grants it a distinctive position alongside the more venerable origins of the west.

And the matter of sustainability acquires in this east a special importance, like the rest of the regions of oud. For the genus Gyrinops was listed in the CITES convention alongside Aquilaria, and the regulation of the oud trade became a framework that comprises the origins of the east as it comprises the west; and we detailed this framework and what it means for the exporter and the importer in our guide on the CITES convention. Likewise the wider transformation from wild gathering to managed cultivation — which we presented in wild and cultivated oud — is a context that concerns the regions of the east as much as it concerns others.

And at Oud Treasure we look at the oud of Maluku and the east of the archipelago as an authentic part of the map of the origins we offer. We are keen on knowing the source, and we clarify the origin and the grade with transparency as we show on the about us page, and we place the oud of the region within our wider family of natural oud and Indonesian oud with its multiple origins. And whoever wants to get acquainted with the oud of these islands specifically finds it in the Maluku oud collection.

For whoever acquires an oud attributed to Maluku acquires a fragrance from the original "Spice Islands": a land in which the clove was worth gold, upon whose wealth sultanates arose, and for whose sake empires struggled. And oud here is a tributary in this heritage, not its axis — but a tributary that carries in its context something of the venerability of the greatest aromatics trade the world has known. And for whoever wants to place this origin in the wider context of the history of oud, he will find the complete picture in our comprehensive guide on the history of oud.

Read also

This article is the fourth of a regional series, each of which we devote to one of the origins of oud. Issued from it so far:

• The history of Kalimantan oud and its trade: from the forests of Borneo (where the rivers transport oud, unlike the sea and islands of Maluku)
• The history of Sumatran oud: the land of the aromatics on the Strait of Malacca (against the Spice Islands in the east)
• The history of oud in Papua and eastern Indonesia: where the genus Gyrinops rules (the detail of the genus prevailing in the east)

And among the episodes we are working on within the series:

• The history of gathering oud in Sulawesi: the island of the sailors and the intermediaries
• The history of Merauke oud and its relation to the Merauke region (the far southeast of Papua on the frontier of Papua New Guinea)

And these guides may also be of use to you:

• The history of oud: how did it travel from the forests of Southeast Asia to the Arabian Peninsula?
• The history of the oud trade between Indonesia and the Arab world
• From wild oud to the farms: how has the oud industry changed through history?
• Why is oud subject to the CITES convention? A guide to the regulation of the oud trade
• A guide to Indonesian oud: the origins and the grades