The History of Oud in Papua and Eastern Indonesia: Where the Genus Gyrinops Rules

At the far east of the Indonesian archipelago, where the familiar map of the origins of oud ends and another land begins, lies Papua: the western half of the island of New Guinea, the largest tropical island on earth. Here the rivers do not tell the story of oud as in Kalimantan, nor does an old commercial strait dominate as in Sumatra; rather the scene is ruled by a precise scientific detail that flips the equation: in the east of the archipelago another botanical genus of oud trees prevails, named Gyrinops, not the genus Aquilaria that dominates in the west. This article is a reference guide to the eastern frontier of oud: its land, its peoples, its different genus, its ports, and its rising place in the modern oud trade.

The geography of Papua and eastern Indonesia

To understand Papua oud one must understand the land in which it grows, for it is a land different from the islands of the west in an essential difference. Papua is the Indonesian portion of the island of New Guinea, which is the largest tropical island in the world; it occupies the western half of it while an independent country lies in its east. And Papua lies at the far east of the Indonesian archipelago, at the frontier where the world of Asia meets the world of Oceania.

The island is centered on a high central mountain range — of which the Maoke highlands and the central mountains are mentioned — rising up to peaks crowned with snow despite their equatorial location. And from these mountains slope dense rainforests counted among the most biodiverse and pristine forests on earth, then they turn near the coasts into wide plains and swamps. This gradation from the snowy peaks to the coastal swamps creates extremely diverse habitats, in some of which the oud trees grow.

And the feature that governs everything in Papua is the ruggedness and isolation. For the mountains are extremely steep, and the forests are dense and difficult to penetrate, and the land roads are limited to a far degree in the interior. And this harsh geography is not a marginal detail; it is the factor that explains later why Papua's entry into the regulated oud trade was late, and why the transport of oud in it relies on the sea and the air, not on the rivers as in Kalimantan.

And the geographic location of Papua deserves an additional pause, for it explains much. For it lies at the eastern edge of the Indonesian archipelago, where the nature of the land and the living creatures changes from what it is in the western islands; for New Guinea gathers between Asian features and other Oceanian ones in its plants and its animals. And this transitional location is part of the secret of its biodiversity, and it is also what makes its oud trees belong to a genus that prevails in the east more than it prevails in the west, as we will see in the following section.

Gyrinops: the other genus of oud

Here stands the essential difference that distinguishes the east of the archipelago from its west, and it is a scientific difference before it is a commercial one. For the oud trees do not all belong to a single genus; oud is produced by two main botanical genera: Aquilaria, which dominates in the west (Kalimantan, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula), and Gyrinops, which is mentioned to prevail in the east in Papua and what neighbors it. Both genera produce the aromatic oud by the same mechanism — the formation of the dark resin in response to the wound or the infection — but they are two botanically distinct genera.

And mentioned among the Gyrinops species in this region is the species Gyrinops versteegii in particular, even if identifying the species in the field is a precise matter difficult to be decisive about from the appearance alone. And what matters for the reader is to grasp the conclusion: when you speak of Papua oud you are mostly speaking of an oud whose source is the genus Gyrinops, not Aquilaria, and this alone makes the oud of the east of the archipelago a botanical story independent of the story of the west.

And this distinction is internationally recognized. For when the oud trees were listed in the CITES convention, the listing was not limited to Aquilaria; rather it included the entire genus Gyrinops, and that was in the year 2004 when the scope of the regulation was widened to comprise the two genera together. And we detailed this regulatory framework and what it means for the exporter and the importer in our guide on the CITES convention and the regulation of the oud trade; and it suffices here to point out that Gyrinops is not a marginal genus but a genus of oud recognized on an equal footing with Aquilaria in the international regulation.

What does this mean for the character and the market? With a maintained generality: the difference in the botanical genus may be reflected in the features of the fragrance, and the market deals with Papua oud as an independent school that has its lovers. But we do not exaggerate in loading this difference with more than it can bear; for the character is determined by many factors that go beyond the botanical genus alone — from the habitat to the age of the resination to the processing — and the final verdict remains at the burning, not at the botanical classification.

Papua the frontier: a relatively modern oud region

If Sumatra and Kalimantan are among the venerable origins of oud that the ancient trade routes knew, then Papua occupies a different position: the position of the frontier. For it is among the most recent oud regions to enter the regulated trade compared with the west, and that is for a direct reason: its ruggedness and its isolation, which kept its interior far from the wide trade networks for a longer time.

And this late position has another important face: it is mentioned that the very ruggedness that delayed Papua's entry into the markets kept its forests relatively less depleted compared with regions that were commercially exploited from a more distant time. And we say that with an honest generality that does not claim a precise measurement; for the meaning is that the difficulty of access that appears an economic obstacle may on the other side be a barrier that protected a part of the wild resources from early intensive gathering.

This frontier character makes Papua an interesting case in the history of oud: for it is not an extension of the story of the west but a relatively more recent chapter, which entered late and is still taking shape. And it is a real distinction from its two sisters in the series: for while Sumatra was tied to the Strait of Malacca and the ancient aromatics, and Kalimantan was tied to its network of transporting rivers, Papua emerges as the most recent, least depleted frontier.

The peoples of Papua and the knowledge of the forest

One cannot speak of Papua oud in isolation from its people, for they are the ones who know the forest and extract oud from it. And the indigenous peoples of Papua are not a single bloc, but multiple tribes distributed over the mountains and the valleys and the coasts, separated by the rugged terrain so that they vary greatly in their languages and their customs. And it is mentioned that Papua is among the most linguistically diverse regions of the world, with hundreds of languages attributed to it — and we mention that with a cautious generality that does not claim a specific number.

And this local knowledge of the forest is the true capital in the extraction of Papua oud. For the local oud extractors know where the trees grow, and how to distinguish the tree that carries the resin from the one that does not, and when the resination has matured. This is an inherited knowledge not acquired from a book, gaining its doubled value in a land whose interior is difficult to reach.

And this difficulty of access is not a passing detail; for reaching the habitats of oud in the Papuan interior is a grueling journey across mountains and forests that no roads penetrate. And this makes the extraction of oud here an activity that requires effort and knowledge and patience, and makes the supply chain from the forest to the port longer and harder than it is in more accessible regions. And from this angle, every piece of Papua oud carries in its path the trace of this ruggedness.

And it is worth cautioning about a terminological matter that we adhere to: we speak of oud extractors, not of hunters, because oud is extracted from the trees, not hunted. And this distinction is not formal; for responsible extraction rests upon a knowledge that distinguishes the tree carrying the resin from others, a knowledge that the people of Papua possess by virtue of their long connection with their forests. And when this knowledge is preserved and coupled with sustainable practices, it turns from a mere skill of gathering into a pillar for the continuation of the resource in a land whose forests are still nearer to their original pristineness.

The ports and transport in the east of the archipelago

Here another essential contrast between Papua and the west appears. For in Kalimantan the rivers were the roads by which oud descended from the interior to the coast. As for Papua, the rugged mountainous geography and the coastal swamps make the reliance on sea and air transport greater than on the rivers; for ships and planes connect the coastal centers with the isolated interior where the land roads fail.

And the outlets of Papua are distributed on its edges: Jayapura in the northeast, which is the most prominent regional center, and Sorong in the west at the "Bird's Head" region that forms the gateway of Papua toward the rest of the archipelago. And from these ports Papua oud connects with the wider Indonesian trade network whose extension toward the Arab world we explained in the history of the oud trade between Indonesia and the Arab world.

As for the far southeast, there lies Merauke, the southern outlet of Papua to whose name a character particular to it is tied. And we content ourselves here with mentioning it in the context of the geography of the east of the archipelago, since we devote to it an independent coming article in this series that details its story and its character; so its mention here is a preface, no more. And what matters in this section is to fix the difference: Papua oud moves by sea and air from ports scattered on the edges of a rugged island, not across rivers flowing to a single mouth.

The character and the local names

Oud in Indonesia generally is known by its local name gaharu, which is the name that comprises Papua oud as it comprises the oud of the rest of the islands. But when the talk moves to the character of Papua oud specifically, we enter the zone of the circulated impressions that necessitate reservation.

Papua oud is sometimes described in the common talk as having a bold or animalic character, or a green resinous breath; and we present this description as a common market impression, not a decisive verdict. For we do not exaggerate in generalizing a trait upon an entire region, and we do not affirm what cannot be verified except by actual burning. The character varies from one piece to another according to the habitat and the species and the age of the resination and the processing, and what holds for one sample may not hold for another.

And for whoever wants to verify for himself rather than content himself with the description, the truest path is direct experience. And for this reason we make it possible to get acquainted with Papua oud in the Papua oud collection, and we also devote to its northern outlet a special collection in Jayapura oud for whoever wants to distinguish at the level of the precise origin. And this oud falls within our wider family of natural oud and Indonesian oud with its multiple origins.

Papua in the modern oud trade

Papua oud today occupies the position of the rising source in the oud trade. For while the origins of the west were exploited for a long time, Papua emerges as a land that still has room in it, by virtue of its relatively late entry and its less depleted forests. And this makes it a place of increasing interest from those who search for new origins that carry a character different from the familiar western one.

And this position carries a responsibility as much as it carries an opportunity. For Papua being a less depleted frontier makes sustainability in it an opportunity that deserves preservation, not a resource depleted in haste, especially since the genus Gyrinops is listed in the CITES convention just like Aquilaria. And we presented how the oud industry generally moved from wild gathering to the farms, and what that means for sustainability, in wild and cultivated oud; and it is a context that acquires in a frontier like Papua a special importance.

And at Oud Treasure we look at Papua oud as an authentic part of the map of the origins we offer, not a mere marginal addition. We are keen on knowing the source, and we clarify the origin and the grade with transparency as we detail on the about us page. For whoever acquires Papua oud acquires a piece of the eastern frontier of oud, carried from another botanical genus and from a land among the most rugged and richest spots on earth. 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 third 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 air transport of Papua)
• The history of Sumatran oud: the land of the aromatics on the Strait of Malacca (where the genus Aquilaria prevails in the west, against Gyrinops in the east)

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

• The history of gaharu in Maluku: oud in the original Spice Islands
• 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 plains of Merauke and its southern savanna, unlike the central mountains of Papua)

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