Unveiling Loloda Historiography on the West Coast of Halmahera Through an Approach to the Non-Austronesian Local Languages of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This paper aims to describe the importance of Loloda, as a part of the non-Austronesian languages of the west coast of Halmahera, to the improvement of the historical works on the world of Maluku, especially on the Loloda Kingdom. Through this paper, the message that Loloda is the source language that cannot be ignored in writing Loloda’s history itself will be delivered. The result of this study indicates that, despite its linguistic diversity, Loloda, as part of the non-Austronesian language family, is not yet dominantly used to write Loloda’s history. All the books and references about Loloda as a kingdom don’t make Loloda language as an approachment or the source language in writing, both written by local authors and foreign authors, even though there are some poems whose contents are about the heroic warfare in Loloda early in the twentieth century, which have been used. The language used in general of a limited number of references about Loloda’s history is precisely the Malay or the ethnic language of Ternate. Apparently the superior Malay language of Ternate is very strong in the development of Loloda language which tends to be an inferior language in its own territory. A historical research methodology used in this study, supported by a linguistic and ethnographic approachment, generally includes four stages: (1) heuristic, such as archives, newspaper, magazines, books, and scientific journals that can be found and collected from archival and literature institutions in Loloda, Ternate, and Jakarta and also in the Netherlands (interviews (oral tradition) were also conducted); (2) verification, which is done by analysis and synthesis of all historical sources; (3) interpretation for all sources’ verification results; and (4) historiography, which involves writing history and concluding it.