Makassan Contact With Australia
Makassan trepangers from the southwest corner of Sulawesi (formerly Celebes) visited the coast of northern Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to collect and process trepang (also known as sea cucumber), a marine invertebrate prized for its culinary and medicinal values in Chinese markets. The term Makassan (or Macassan) is generally used to apply to all the trepangers who came to Australia, although some were from other islands in the Indonesian Archipelago, including Timor, Rote and Aru.
Read more about Makassan Contact With Australia: Fishing and Processing of Trepang, The Voyage To Marege' and Kayu Jama, Physical Evidence of Makassan Contact, Effect On Indigenous People of Australia, Current Situation
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