KEI ISLANDS, a group of islands of the Moluccas, Dutch East Indies, lying on a ridge which extends south-eastwards from Ceram and continues to Timor Laut (alternative spelling, Ke; native, Ewaf). They are in the residency of Amboyna, and are separated by deep water from the Banda Isles to the west and the Aru group to the east and are situated between 5° and 6° 5' S., and 131° 5o' and 133° 15' E. They consist of Great Kei (Nuhu Yut ), Little Kei (Nuhu Roa and Kei Dula), the Kur group, and the Tayando group. The principal island is Great Kei, which is long (64 m.) and narrow, of Tertiary formation, and very moun tainous, with heights rising to nearly 3,00o ft. The mountains run down the centre of the island, whilst the coast is high, with steep cliffs. Kei Dula has low hills in the south and north-west, but the other islands are, comparatively, without high ground; most of them are encircled by shoals, and all are covered with dense forest, from which excellent timber is obtained. Excepting Great Kei, they are of Post-Tertiary formation, coralline limestone. The area of the whole group is 572 sq.m., and the pop. is 35,731 (33 Euro peans, 1o8 Chinese and 119 Arabs). The natives are described by Wallace as typical black Papuans, but since his visit to Kei there has been a pronounced admixture of Malay blood. Originally pa gans, the people to-day are largely Christian, the result of work by the Mission of the Sacred Heart, which Vas its headquarters for Kei, Timor Laut, and New Guinea here. There are, however, many Mohammedans, the result of Malay and Arab influence, which endeavours to spread Mohammedanism. Under the new regime old customs are tending to disappear, but where Christianity and Islam have not displaced them the division of pata-lima and pata siwa exists ; as well as three classes of society, melmel, an upper class, which appears to have come to Kei from the west, rinrin, made subject by the melmel, and iri, the descendants of slaves brought over from New Guinea. The old form of marriage is endogamic, and society is democratic in organization, untilled land being owned by the community, and cultivated ground by the individual. The right to the land is never alienated, so that a stranger cannot own it unless he marries into the community. Houses are built very simply, of bamboo and atap, sometimes on piles; and where the people are pagan there is a holy stone in the midst of a number of houses, also stone and wooden images, the "protectors" of the village: the cromlech is known in Kei. The Christian and Mohammedan people wear baju, or kabayah and sarong: the loin cloth is still used amongst the pagans. Amongst
interesting pagan customs, now dying out rapidly, are those of maintaining quietude amongst near female relatives of sailors on a voyage, to ensure a calm passage; the exorcism of evil spirits by tempting them to another spot, with sacks of rice ; the preser vation of an infant's soul which is "deposited" in a coconut shell, the latter being hung up beside the image of a worthy ancestor ; and the preservation of the navel-string of an infant, which is regarded as its brother or sister, and set in some spot where it may bring its "brother" or "sister" good fortune. At Banda Elat on the eastern side of Great Kei, midway along the coast, and also at Banda Eli in the north, there is a community of the original inhabitants of the Banda islands, who were expelled thence by the Dutch in the time of Jan Pieterzen Coen, and who have retained the Bandanese language, now unknown in Banda, and the Bandanese customs. They are Mohammedans, and clever smiths and potters; racially they appear to be Malay-Papuan,,but it is un likely that they have kept purity of blood. The Kei islanders have a quarrelsome nature, they are not given to cleanliness, and are not good agriculturists. They are, however, good at wood carving and basket-work, and they are first-class boat builders.
The flora of the Kei islands includes the fig and the ironwood tree, various palms (sago, areng, coconut, the latter thriving on quite high ground, over i,000 ft., as well as at sea level), man grove, and in the forests orchids and arboreal Liliaceae and Pan danaceae abound. Plantain, yams, maize, rice to a small extent, and tobacco are cultivated. Fishing and hunting add largely to the native dietary, which consists mainly of sago. The fauna comprises a wild pig and a cuscus, a small green lizard, a rare species of pigeon, Carpopliaga concinna, and red lories, a number of rare species of butterfly, including the black Papilio euclienor, a blue and black beetle, Eupliolus, a fine green floral beetle, Lo maptera Papua, Therates labia, and Tricondyla aptera, a wingless beetle shaped like a very large ant. There are many kinds of fish, in large quantities, and trepang and tortoise are found in great numbers on the reefs. Practically the only trade is in copra, timber, trepang and tortoise-shell. Roads are confined to the immediate vicinity of Langgur and the ports Tual (where the Gesaghebber, or resident magistrate, resides) and Elat, all of which are visited regularly by Dutch steamships. Wallace says Kei has no affinity with the Malay languages.
See A. R. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago (189o). (E. E. L.)