JILOLO, Gilolo, or Djilolo (properly Jailolo or Djailolo, and in the native tongue Halmahera or Halema-hera, i.e., the mother or great land), is one of the larger islands of the East Indian archipelago,’forming part administratively of the Dutch residency of Ternate. The equator cuts across the southern peninsula, the most northerly point of the island lying in 2° 13' N. lat., and the southern extremity in 0° 52' S. A large proportion of Jilolo is practically terra incognita, though information has somewhat accumulated since Wallace complained in 1856 of the smallness of our knowledge in regard to it. The area is stated at 6410 square miles; the extreme irregularity of the outline, however, renders the estimate a peculiarly precarious one. Jilolo may be said to consist of four peninsulas so arranged as to enclose three great bays (Kaou, Bitjoli, Weda), all opening towards the east,—the northern peninsula being connected with the others by an isthmus only 5 miles wide. On the western side of the isthmus lies another bay, that of Dodinga, in the mouth of which are situated the two islands Ternate and Tidore, whose political celebrity so far exceeds that of their larger neighbour Jilolo. To the north-east of the northern peninsula we have the considerable island of Morotai, and to the west of the southern peninsula the far more important island of Batchian. The northern peninsula is full of mountain chains, which give clear evidence of former volcanic activity; and at least one of the summits, Tolo or Gunong Api (3000 feet), was not quite extinct in the 16th century according to Valentijn’s report. At present the crater, as described by Bernstein, is 200 feet deep, and contains a small lake. Gunong Tabello is higher than Tolo, and Gunong Mamuya has a similar ...altitude. In the south of the peninsula lies a lake, Talaga Lamo (the Tela-galina of Bernstein’s account), about 4 or 5 miles long. The principal village is Galela, situated on a bay of the same name on the east coast, in a well-cultivated plain which extends southward and inland. The three remaining peninsulas, which have been less explored, seem to be hardly so mountainous. The whole island is clothed with a prolific vegetation, some of the more important features of which will be found described in Teysmann’s paper in the Report of the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg. Rice is grown by the natives, but the sago tree is of far greater importance to them.
The people of Jilolo are for the most part pagans, living in a very backward state of civilization. Attempts to Christianize them have been made with but small success by the missionaries of the Utrecht Society, who have their chief stations at Swakenora and Dokolamo, near Lake Talaga Lamo (see Berigten der Utrechlsehe Zendingsvereeniging, 1869). Μ. Achille Raffray gives the following description of the Halmaherians in Tour du Monde, 1879, where photographs of a number of the natives will be found. “They are as unlike the Malays as we are, excelling them in tallness of stature and elegance of shape, and being perfectly distinguished by their oval face, with a fairly high and open brow, their aquiline nose, and their horizontally placed eyes. Their beards are sometimes thick; their limbs are muscular; the colour of their skins is cinnamon brown. Spears of iron-wood, abundantly barbed, and small bows and bamboo arrows free from poison are their principal weapons.” According to Teysmann they have temples {sabuas) in which they suspend images of serpents and other monsters as well as the trophies procured by war. They believe in a better life hereafter, but have no idea of a hell or a devil, their evil spirits only tormenting them in the present state.
The Portuguese and Spaniards were better acquainted with Jilolo than with many other parts of the archipelago; they called it sometimes Batu China and sometimes Moro. It was circumnavigated by one of their vessels in 1525, and the general outline of the coasts is correctly given in their maps at a time when separate portions of Celebes, such as Macassar and Menado, are represented as distinct islands. The current name of the island (Jilolo) was really that of a native state, the sultan of which had the chief rank among the princes of the Moluccas before he was supplanted by the sultan of Ternate about 1380. His capital, Jilolo, lay on the west coast on the first bay to the north of that of Dodinga. In 1876 Danu Hassan, a descendant of the sultans of Jilolo, raised an insurrection in the island for the purpose of throwing off the authority of the sultans of Tidore and Ternate; and his efforts would probably have been successful but for the intervention of the Dutch.
See J. P. C. Cambier, “Rapport over Tidoreesch-Halmahera (1825) “Beknopte Woordenlijst van Talen op Tidoreesch-Halmahera''; and Robidé van der Aa, “viuchtige Opmerkingen over de Talen der Halmahera groep ”—all three in Bijdr. tot de T. L. en V. Kunde van N. Ind., 1873; Meinicke, “Dr Bernstein’s Reise in den Nördl. Molukken,” in Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 1873; Dr Hamy, “Les Alfourous de Gilolo," in Bull, de la Soc. de Géogr. 1877 (based on information from Raffray); Teysmann, in Bijdr. tot de T. L. en V. Kunde, 1878, translated in Annales de l’ Extrême orient, 1879.
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