Alfred Russel Wallace spent about **six months in the Aru Islands in 1857**, during his eight-year collecting expedition through the Malay Archipelago. His Aru stay became one of the most famous episodes in *The Malay Archipelago* because it gave him direct experience of **Papuan wildlife, birds of paradise, marsupials, tropical trade networks, and the biogeographic boundary between Asian and Australasian faunas**.

## When and why Wallace went to Aru

Wallace visited the Aru Islands roughly from **January to July 1857**. At the time he was based in the Dutch East Indies and was trying to obtain specimens from the far eastern part of the archipelago. Aru was especially attractive because it was known as a source of the celebrated **birds of paradise**, whose skins had long entered Asian and European trade.

For European naturalists, birds of paradise were almost mythical. Trade skins were often prepared without legs, which had helped create older legends that the birds were “footless” and lived perpetually in the air. Wallace wanted to see where they actually lived, collect specimens, and learn their habits.

He reached the islands after traveling eastward from the central Indonesian region, arriving at **Dobo**, then usually spelled **Dobbo**, the seasonal trading settlement on what is now Wamar/Wamma Island.

## The Aru Islands he encountered

The Aru Islands lie southwest of New Guinea, in what is today eastern Indonesia’s Maluku province. Wallace immediately recognized that, despite being politically and commercially connected with the Moluccas, Aru’s natural world was overwhelmingly **Papuan/New Guinean**, not western Indonesian.

He described the islands as:

- **Low, flat, and forested**, without mountains.
- Cut by narrow sea channels, mangrove-lined waterways, and swampy forest.
- Rich in sago, timber, birds, insects, shells, and marine products.
- Geologically and biologically connected with New Guinea.

This last point mattered greatly to Wallace. The seas around Aru are shallow, and modern geology confirms what Wallace inferred: during periods of lower sea level, Aru was connected to the New Guinea–Australian landmass, the Sahul Shelf. Its fauna therefore had more in common with New Guinea and Australia than with Borneo, Java, or Sumatra.

## Dobo/Dobbo: the seasonal trading town

Wallace first stayed at **Dobo**, which he described as a remarkable temporary trading settlement. During the trading season it filled with people from many parts of the region: Bugis, Makassarese, Chinese traders, Malay-speaking merchants, local Aru Islanders, and others.

The trade included:

- Birds-of-paradise skins
- Trepang/sea cucumber
- Tortoiseshell
- Pearls and mother-of-pearl shell
- Sago
- Forest products
- Cloth, tools, beads, weapons, and imported goods exchanged with local communities

Dobo impressed Wallace because it functioned with very little formal government. He portrayed it as a kind of rough but surprisingly orderly free-trade community. His description is one of the memorable social observations in *The Malay Archipelago*: a seasonal town, built largely of temporary houses, thriving on commerce, and then partly abandoned when the trading season ended.

Of course, Wallace’s interpretation reflects his own Victorian liberal and colonial assumptions. He admired the apparent commercial freedom of Dobo, but the wider system also involved unequal trade relations, regional dependency, and the extraction of natural resources through Indigenous labor and knowledge.

## Moving into the interior: Wokam/Wokan and Wanumbai

Wallace did not remain only in Dobo. To collect forest animals and birds, especially birds of paradise, he traveled into the interior of the larger island usually rendered in his writings as **Wokan** or **Wokam**. He stayed near the village of **Wanumbai**, where he lived much closer to the forest.

There he built or occupied a simple hut and worked as he usually did: shooting birds, preparing skins, collecting insects, hiring local assistants, and depending heavily on local hunters and guides. He traveled by canoe through narrow channels and forest creeks, often through mangroves and swampy lowland forest.

His routine involved:

- Going out before dawn to reach bird display trees.
- Hiring local men to guide him to promising places.
- Shooting specimens with a light gun.
- Skinning and preserving birds with arsenical soap or other preservatives.
- Collecting beetles, butterflies, and other insects.
- Packing specimens for shipment back to his London agent, Samuel Stevens.

His Malay assistant **Ali**, who accompanied him through many parts of the archipelago, was likely with him in this period and was important in collecting and preparing specimens.

## Birds of paradise

The most famous part of Wallace’s Aru experience was his encounter with the **greater bird-of-paradise**, *Paradisaea apoda*. Aru was one of the classic sources of this species in the bird-of-paradise trade.

Wallace was fascinated by their display behavior. He learned that male birds gathered at traditional display trees, where they called, danced, raised their wings, and showed off their long golden flank plumes. He described watching them in the early morning, when the birds were most active.

The greater bird-of-paradise was especially important because it was the species associated with the old “footless bird” myth. Its scientific name, *apoda*, literally means “without feet,” a legacy of the trade skins that had the feet removed. Wallace’s observations helped demystify the bird and place it in its real ecological setting.

He also obtained other Papuan birds, including parrots, pigeons, kingfishers, and other species associated with New Guinea’s fauna. Aru’s birdlife strongly reinforced his sense that the islands belonged zoologically to the Papuan region.

## Other animals Wallace observed or collected

Aru’s wildlife was crucial to Wallace’s thinking because it included many animals absent from the western Malay islands.

He noted the presence of Australasian/Papuan forms such as:

- **Marsupials**, including cuscuses and small kangaroo-like animals.
- **Cassowaries**, associated with New Guinea and Australia.
- Cockatoos and lories.
- Crowned pigeons and other Papuan birds.
- Birds of paradise.
- Papuan insects and butterflies.

Just as important were the animals that were absent. Aru lacked many typical Asian mammals such as monkeys, squirrels, cats, civets, and other placental mammals common west of Wallace’s Line. This contrast became part of Wallace’s argument that the Malay Archipelago was divided into distinct zoological regions.

## Collecting success

Wallace considered Aru one of his most productive collecting localities. He obtained a large number of specimens of birds, insects, shells,
