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History of Enggano Since no archaeological research has ever been done on Enggano, nothing is known about the prehistory of Engganese culture. We can only speculate about early developments on the island. Local stories suggest a place of origin somewhere in the hills, but migration from overseas seems more realistic. Although the name 'Enggano' [13] suggests early contacts with Portuguese ships, the oldest published information on the island comes from the journals [14] of the first Dutch ships that went to Indonesia. On the 5th of June 1596 four ships under the command of Cornelis de Houtman [15] approached land.
It appeared to be an island. Although some crew members tried to go ashore to get fresh supplies, they returned to their ships after seeing some natives who appeared to be very aggressive. In 1602, 1614, 1622, and 1629 other Dutch ships came to Enggano and sometimes succeeded in trading some goods. However, in general the population was not inclined to seek much contact with the visitors. In 1645 the Dutch colonial administration in Batavia sent two ships to get slaves from Enggano. In the fierce fighting two Dutch soldiers were killed, but the other soldiers succeeded in capturing 82 people. On the way back to Batavia six of the Engganese died. The fate of the other captives is not known. It is likely that they never returned to Enggano, and died as slaves in Batavia. The expedition was not considered a success, so for a long time the Dutch lost their interest in Enggano. More than a hundred years later, in 1771, the Englishman Charles Miller visited Enggano. His experiences were published in 1778, and translated into Dutch in 1779. Another century later a Mr. R. Francis [16], trader in coconut oil, stayed on Enggano during the periods 1865-1866 and 1868-1870 [17] . He must have made a deep impression on the Engganese people, for they were still talking about this Mr. Francis in the 1930s when the German linguist Hans Kähler [18] visited the island. We have to wait for the nineteenth-century until contact with Enggano becomes more intense. We find a description of the trading activities of Buginese sailors with Engganese people in an article of 1854 by the Buginese trader Boewang [19]. Around that time Dutch government officials also began to visit Enggano. Since there has never been a permanent Dutch government station on the island, officials from Bengkulu visited Enggano on 'inspectietochten' (inspection trips). In 1852 Von Rosenberg stayed on the island for two weeks. He published his findings in an article (1855) and a book (1878). Although his account does not give a very accurate description of the island's culture, it is the first attempt at a more scientific approach. Helfrich's article of 1888 is also very helpful. O.L. Helfrich worked as a civil servant (controleur) in Bengkulu, and he visited Enggano several times. The most important researcher of Enggano culture, however, is undoubtedly the Italian traveller Elio Modigliani. In 1891 he stayed on the island for eight months, and his book 'L'isola delle donne.Viaggio ad Engano' (1894) is still an important source of information, not only because of the text, but also because of the illustrations. In 1994 those illustrations were greeted with great surprise on Enggano.
When Modigliani was on Enggano some villages were still located in the hills. Soon after this, all the Engganese moved to the coastal areas. Population decline In the second half of the nineteenth-century the Dutch authorities began to worry about a rapid decline in the population on Enggano. They sent medically trained researchers to the island to find out the possible causes of this decline. The results were not satisfactory, and the reasons for the rapid decrease in the original Engganese population were never clearly revealed. It is most probable, however, that diseases like cholera, malaria and syphilis, had severely affected the Enggano population in the 1870s. By the beginning of the twentieth-century there were only a few hundred Engganese left. In 1994 some 1600 people were living on Enggano. About 60 per cent of the population claimed to be of genuine Engganese descent.
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