Aru

The Aru languages are a cluster of about a dozen Austronesian tongues spoken across the low-lying islands of the Aru archipelago in the Arafura Sea. They form an interconnected dialect chain and, despite their proximity, do not belong to the Central Maluku group.

Aru society was built on lineage clans joined in two ritual alliances, Ursia and Urlima; trade in trepang, pearls, birds of paradise and slaves drew Banda, Bugis and Makassarese merchants long before any European arrived.

Portuguese navigators sighted the islands in the 1520s, and the Spanish captain Alvaro de Saavedra charted them in 1528. The Dutch East India Company signed its first contract with coastal villages in 1623 and opened a post on Wokam Island in 1659. The Tidore prince Nuku's anti-Dutch rising reached Aru in 1787, when Ujir people destroyed the Company garrison, until Banda-based troops suppressed the rebels in 1791.