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The Vanishing Sandalwood of Portuguese Timor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

John Villiers
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Extract

Like other decorative and aromatic woods, sandalwood has been in continuous and apparently insatiable demand throughout Asia since the earliest times of which there is any written record and especially in India and in China, where, during periods of prosperity, the consumption of exotic woods reached enormous proportions. Sandalwood was used as a cosmetic and perfume and in medicinal preparations, for the making of all manner of objects from fans, boxes and religious images to beds, couches and chests, and, above all, for burning as incense. It was exported to China and India from several Indonesian islands, includingjava, Borneo, Sulawesi and the Lesser Sunda Islands, especially Sumba, which was known to the Portuguese as the Island of Sandalwood, and Timor, where it was believed that the finest and most fragrant sandalwood was to be found.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , July 1994 , pp. 86 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1994

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References

Notes

1 See Schafer, Edward H., The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics (Berkeley 1963) 133–134.Google Scholar

2 See Villiers, John, ‘As derradeiras do mundo: The Dominican Missions and the Sandalwood Trade in the Lesser Sunda Islands in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in: II Semindrio International de Historia Indo-Portuguesa (Lisbon 1985) 573–586.Google Scholar

3 See Boxer, C.R., Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo: A Portuguese Merchant-Adventurer in South East Asia, 1624–1667 (The Hague 1967) 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Francisco, Cardim S.J., Relacdo da gloriosa marie de qualro embaixadores portuguezes da cidade de Macau… (Lisbon 1643) fls. 19–20, quoted inGoogle ScholarBoxer, C.R., The Great Ship from Amacon: Annals of Macau and the Old Japan Trade, 1555–1640 (Lisbon 1963) 166Google Scholar.

5 See Boxer, C.R., Antonio Coelho Guerreiroe as relacoes enlre Macaue Timor no comeco do seculo XVIII (Macau 1940).Google Scholar

6 Gomes, Ruy Cinatti Vaz Monteiro, Esboco hislorico do sandalo no Timor Portugues (Lisbon 1950) 19.Google Scholar

7 On Timor and the sandalwood trade in the eighteenth century see de Matos, A. Teodoro, ‘Timor and the Portuguese trade in the Orient during the 18th century’, in: de Matos, Artur Teodoro and Thomaz, Luis Filipe F. Reis eds, As relacoes enlre a India Portuguesa, a Asia do Sudeste e o Extremo Oriente: Actas do VI Seminário International de História Indo-Portuguesa (Macau and Lisbon 1993).Google Scholar

8 The principal terms of the three treaties are given in de Oliveira, Luna, Timor na historia de Portugal (3 vols.; Lisbon 1949-1952) I, 309–326. See alsoGoogle ScholarCastro, Goncalo Pimenta de, Timor. Subsidios para a sun historia (Lisbon 1944) 66–68Google Scholar.

9 Oliveira, , Timor I, 250.Google Scholar

10 On Nogueira Lisboa's controversial governorship see Oliveira, , Timor I, 211–238.Google Scholar

11 Ibidem, 233–234.

12 Ibidem, 234.

13 Goa, Arquivo do Governo Geral do Estado da India, 28 April 1811, quoted in de Morais, A. Faria, Solor e Timor Subsidios para a sua historia (Lisbon 1944) 138–169.Google Scholar

14 Ibidem, 165.

15 Quoted in Cinatti, , Esboco, 12.Google Scholar

16 See Dodge, Ernest S., Islands and Empires: Western Impact in the Pacific, and East Asia (Minneapolis and London 1976) 60–62.Google Scholar

17 Ibidem, 62–65.

18 Castro, , Timor: Subsidios, 72–76.Google Scholar

19 Wallace, Alfred Russel, The Malay Archipelago (7th ed., London 1880) 199.Google Scholar

20 Oliveira, , Timor III, 287.Google Scholar

21 See Hooker, M.B. and Villiers, John, ‘The Laws of Portugal and Spain’, in: Hooker, M.B. ed., The Laws of South-East Asia (2 vols.; London 1987-1988) II: European Laws of South East Asia, 127–128.Google Scholar

22 Wallace, , Malay Archipelago, 196–199.Google Scholar

23 Oliveira, , Timor III, 214.Google Scholar See also Hooker, , Laws II, 128.Google Scholar

24 Cinatti, , Esboco, 12.Google Scholar

25 Ibidem, 13, 19–22.

26 Castro, , Timor: Subsidios, 78.Google Scholar

27 Oliveira, , Timor III, 236–237.Google Scholar

28 Ibidem, 281–282.

29 Ibidem, 282–289.

30 Cinatti, , Esboco, 13–14.Google Scholar

31 Ibidem, 14–15.

32 Ibidem, 15–16.

33 Ibidem, 16.