ABSTRACT
The chapter begins by examining the evidence for describing the Nuaulu as an ‘ethnic group’, using references to them in the historical record stretching back to 1660, and locating them in relation to the geography of Seram, language classification and other adjacent cultural populations. A major issue is the customary differences between clans and why certain clans emerged as part of a shared linguistic collectivity engaged in exogamic exchange relations. The histories of individual clans are reported as far as available data permits, and special attention is paid to the circumstances under which Nuaulu clans moved to the coast after 1880 to form a displaced, but more concentrated, politically organized social assemblage within the Muslim domain of Sepa. After 1880 most clans became effectively separated from their traditional lands, and the chapter concludes by describing arrangements for land access at the present time.
