You might wonder where Nias is. It is a beautiful natural island located outside of and north of West Sumatra in Indonesia but in the Indian Ocean.
My wife had a research project in there for a couple of days, and what better chance is there to tag along than this. She has had a few projects there before and therefore knows the history and culture quite well. As we experienced the island head-on I learned many intriguing facts about this mysterious island to say the least.
On the surface, Nias is just another surfing paradise. Nr. 2 in the world behind Hawaii says the locals. In many ways it feels like a paradise. That’s the feeling you get when swimming amongst colorful fish in the crystal clear ocean.
In the area we stayed we could get coffee from espresso machine, eat halal food and see white people stumbling towards the shore for another surf session. Here they have a few hotels and inns but just outside this mere street, only locals as far as we can see and go.
The island has a reputation for having cannibals, which stands true, even if it isn’t widespread anymore like it used to be. Perhaps they did it to gain power of some sort instead of being related to killing and/ or disrespect. Part of their culture we can find so many mystical beliefs and practices. One rather natural practice is that they were warriors at heart. Physical power was and still is very important to the people of Nias.
When we were at the beach we found a big stone structure similar to the one in the picture above. I was told that the Nias people must be able to jump over the stone to be an adult and get married. As shocked as I was, this one above topped it. It even sounds unreal, like how can anyone who want to get married jump over this tower of a stone structure? Let me tell you, I saw them jumping over it with my own eyes.
They put on traditional Nias outfit and prepared for the jump with a kind of dance-like jumps, leading up to a run – everything bare feet, and jumping over while doing a 180 rotation. Just unbelievable. Two guys, doing is again and again. It’s part of their culture to do it for fun as well it seems, not only ceremonial.
Inside of the biggest house in the village we visited with the stone jumpers, the owner was right there sitting, welcoming visitors with open arms. A nice guy to have a chat with even if we both had broken Indonesian language ability. I noticed the lizard ornaments hanging around and was told that back in the day when they were fighting wars, the king would get signs from the lizards surrounding the village. When they were making certain noises, it was a sign that it was time to go to war, as if they knew the perfect timing and also had a connection with the king. I believe the king was also powerful as he was due to having several supernatural powers.
In the black and white photo above you can see the jaws of pigs. They had to sacrifice a number of pigs to officially build a house. The king’s house required 100 pigs and you would literally see them all hanging around the main hall.
Some crazy facts about this structure is for example that the architect had to kill himself by jumping from the top of the building after constructed so he couldn’t build it ever again. It was something he consented to with honor.
There has been Japanese experts respecting the fabulous strength of the structure, making it almost completely immune to earthquakes for example. Apparently it’s a design that is of the strongest in the world and can’t be recreated, except maybe with modern technology, expertise and a lot of resources.
To make the structure even stronger they put the skulls of their slain enemies under each wood beam or plank. They believes in many things that’s hard to wrap our brain around, but did everything with purpose. It’s fascinating.
Nias can seem scary in many ways, yet it becomes so apparent in there that they’re just people like us. The driver I had for 4 hours as I went back to the capital and a car full of locals was a very normal guy. He spoke some English, listened to music from the bigger islands in Indonesia and no problem talking about respect between religion or respect between people. Altogether I felt safe in the hands of the locals.
