Charting the Journey from Tatar Sunda to the Spice Islands Expedition through WikiRempah Bandung

When people hear the word spices, most immediately think of Maluku, Ternate, Tidore, Banda, or the centuries-old trade routes that connected the Indonesian archipelago with Europe.

Yet the history of spices does not belong solely to Eastern Indonesia. In Tatar Sunda (the Sundanese homeland), spices have long been part of everyday life, from home cooking and traditional medicine to the expressions and vocabulary preserved in the Sundanese language.

Together with Hasnanf, Pijri Paijar, Adhiiik, Tanto Wijaya, and Mirani Pramitasari, Wikimedia Bandung Community continued the WikiRempah initiative launched by Ana Ainina, Supardi Sahabu, and Sofi Solihah. 

WikiRempah is an initiative funded through the Wikimedia Foundation’s Rapid Funds program and carried out in collaboration with communities supported by Wikimedia Indonesia.

Sharing Knowledge About HotCat

During this meetup, Mirani Pramitasari also shared her knowledge about an alternative way to enable HotCat, a tool that helps registered users remove, edit, and add categories to Wikipedia pages, this time on Sundanese Wiktionary.

HotCat is not yet available in the preferences section of Sundanese Wiktionary, but it can still be used by adding JavaScript code to each user’s common.js page. During the session, participants learned how to copy the code from Mirani’s common.js page and adjust the URL to their respective usernames, making it easier to add categories to entries. The meetup then focused on three Wikimedia projects in the Sundanese language.

Recording Spice Vocabulary in Sundanese

Using Lingua Libre and Wiktionary, participants recorded the pronunciation of various spice names in Sundanese. The goal is to preserve and share knowledge about spices through the voices of native speakers.

Writing Sundanese Wikipedia Articles on Historical Sites in Eastern Indonesia

In September, the expedition team will visit a number of historical sites across Ternate, Tidore, Jailolo, Bacan, and Makassar.

These places stand as witnesses to the history of the global spice trade. Fortresses, ports, royal palaces, and historic settlements formed part of the network that connected the Indonesian archipelago with Asia, the Middle East, and Europe for centuries.

Compiling a Sundanese Wikibook of Eastern Indonesian Recipes

Spices come to life through food, and the flavors of Maluku have found their way to Bandung, the City of Flowers. Inspired by this connection, the community began compiling traditional recipes from Maluku and North Maluku for Sundanese Wikibooks.

Beyond documenting recipes, contributors also introduce the culinary philosophies, local ingredients, and distinctive uses of spices that characterize each region. Through this effort, Sundanese readers can explore the culinary heritage of Eastern Indonesia in their own language.

Achievements of Wikimedia Bandung contributors during the meetup:

• 10 Sundanese Wikipedia articles on historical buildings in Eastern Indonesia
• 12 recipes on Sundanese Wikibooks, currently in the Incubator
• More than 50 entries on Sundanese Wiktionary
• More than 50 recordings of local Sundanese dialects using Lingua Libre

The result can be found through https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Komunitas_Wikimedia_Gorontalo/Kopdar_WikiRempah_di_Bandung/home

Bagus Pradipa | CC BY-SA 4.0

Why Should the Sundanese Community Be Involved?

The answer lies in the long history of the Indonesian Spice Route. For centuries, Maluku has been known as the world’s primary source of cloves and nutmeg, commodities that attracted merchants from across the globe.

Yet the journey of these spices did not end in the islands where they were grown. Before continuing to India, the Middle East, and Europe, they passed through ports along the northern coast of Java, including the Sundanese region.

Ports such as Banten, Sunda Kalapa, and Cirebon became important hubs within this trading network. They were places where spices were redistributed and where people from different parts of the archipelago met through commerce and maritime exchange.

Although Tatar Sunda was not a major producer of cloves or nutmeg, it played an important role in the history of the spice trade as a center of transportation, trade, and cultural exchange.

Historical records reflect this connection. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the ports of the Sunda Kingdom were active international trading centers visited by merchants from many regions, including Maluku. Portuguese accounts from the sixteenth century also describe how spices from Maluku were traded through ports in Java before being distributed to wider international markets.

The arrival of European powers further strengthened the link between the two regions. The Portuguese first reached Maluku in 1512 in search of spices and later established relations with the Sunda Kingdom through the 1522 treaty. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) subsequently gained control of Maluku while making Batavia the administrative and commercial center of the Dutch East Indies. From that period onward, Maluku and Tatar Sunda became interconnected parts of the same spice trade network.

For this reason, the Wikimedia Bandung Community’s documentation project is not simply about telling the story of another region. It is also an effort to reconnect the history of Tatar Sunda with the Indonesian Spice Route by preserving and sharing that knowledge in the Sundanese language.