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Journal of Pacific Archaeology – Vol. · No. · EPUB: Ahead of Print
– RESEARCH REPORT –
1 Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, United Kingdom
2 Departemen Arkeologi, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas
Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 55281, Indonesia
* Corresponding author: dacg@cam.ac.uk
Submitted 6/4/19, accepted 23/6/19. First online 16/8/19.
Sago Oven Pottery Production in the Raja Ampat Islands
of the Far Western Pacific
Dylan Gaffney¹,* & Daud Tanudirjo²
ABSTRACT
is paper is the first ethnographic description of ceramic sago oven production in the Raja Ampat Islands
of West Papua. ese rectilinear ovens are widespread throughout eastern Indonesia, used to bake sago
flour into small ‘cakes,’ which can be stored during times of food shortage or used in exchange. Little is
known about the emergence of this technology in the past and so this modern baseline serves as an im-
portant link to understand production sequences in the archaeological record. is record will be central
to understanding sago processing in the deeper past, a key part of a wider system of forest exploitation in
the far western Pacific Islands.
Keywords: Sago; pottery ethnography; New Guinea
INTRODUCTION
Sago palm (Metroxylon sagu) is the core subsistence crop
for many of the islands of Southeast Asia and Near Oce-
ania, and the history of its cultivation in the circum-New
Guinea region is essential for understanding the long-
term processes of human behavioural adaptation within
these equatorial rainforest zones (Barker et al. 2007; Bar-
ton and Denham 2018). is paper documents sago oven
production on Arefi Island, off the north coast of Batanta,
representing the first ethnographic description of pottery
manufacture in the Raja Ampat Islands. e Raja Ampat
group is situated at the very interface of Wallacea and the
Pacific, a transitional zone between Malesian and Papua-
sian floras, where sago is the key economic plant species.
Pottery is today made at three locations in Raja Ampat:
Arefi and Yensawai around north Batanta, and at Kabilol
in Waigeo’s Mayalibit Bay (Fig. 1). Sago ovens are the only
objects still produced but in the past this was likely to have
been more varied and more widespread (see Petrequin
and Petrequin 2006). As we know almost nothing about
pottery manufacture in the area (both ethnographic and
archaeological), this study forms a crucial present-day link
to archaeological artefacts found in the island group. ese
ceramics present a unique proxy to describe the emergence
of sago flour processing in the Asia–Pacific region. Because
sago flour products can be stored for long periods, this has
several important implications, including the production
of surplus for exchange, risk reduction throughout the
annual cropping cycle, as well as the ability to provision
groups for long-range sailing trips.
SAGO OVENS IN EASTERN INDONESIA AND
WESTERN NEW GUINEA
Sago ‘ovens’ or ‘moulds’ are common in eastern Indone-
sia. ese are known as forno in Raja Ampat or forma in
Maluku, from the Dutch vorm and Portuguese forna. eir
production is documented ethnographically on Mere Is-
land near Halmahera (Petrequin and Petrequin 2006: 354),
Seram (Ellen and Latinis 2012), Saparua (Ellen and Glov-
er 1974; Petrequin and Petrequin 2006: 366), and Ambon
(Spriggs and Miller 1979) in central Maluku, south in the
Kai Islands (Petrequin and Petrequin 2006: 379), and the
Aru Islands (Veth et al. 2005), and in Cenderawasih Bay at
Serui, off the northwest coast of New Guinea (Petrequin
and Petrequin 2006: 398). As noted by Ellen and Latinis
(2012), they were recorded in coastal Seram as early as the
mid-nineteenth century by Alfred Wallace (1869: 291), the
mid-eighteenth century on the Bird’s Head by omas For-
rest (1779), and the sixteenth century by Antonio Galvao
(1544). Similar ovens are also reported from nineteenth
century museum collections deriving from Sulawesi to
western New Guinea, although they are notably absent
from eastern New Guinea even in sago production areas
(see Ellen and Glover 1974).
Sago oven fragments are represented in archaeologi-
cal assemblages from Hatusua on Seram (Latinis 2002),
Wa ng i l mi d d e n i n t h e A r u I s la n d s ( Ve t h et al. 2005), and at