Identification. Niasans inhabit the traditional homeland of the island of Nias, as well as the Batu Islands (which were settled from South Nias) and Hinako off the west coast of Nias. The name "Nias" is probably a foreign corruption of the indigenous name for the island, "Tanö Niha" (the land of men).

Location. Nias is located between 0° 30′ and l° 30′ N and 97° 00′ and 98° 00′ E, about 120 kilometers west of Sumatra, in Indonesia. It has an area of 5,450 square kilometers. The Batu Islands are a cluster of small islets 80 kilometers southeast, between Nias and Mentawai. The interior of Nias consists of forested hills up to 866 meters high. With 200-250 rainy days annually there are no distinct wet or dry seasons, although rain is heaviest from October to December.

Demography. In 1985 the population was estimated to be over 531,000 (including 22,583 in the Batu Islands) with an average density of 94.5 persons per square kilometer and an annual population growth of 2.6 percent.

Linguistic Affiliation. Nias belongs to the Western Malayo-Polynesian Branch of the Austronesian Language Family. Further research is needed to establish a subgrouping of Nias with other related languages, but attempts have been made to link it with Mentawai and Toba Batak. The language ( li niha: "the language of men") has five dialects, with a broad division between South Nias and the rest of the island. Batu Islanders speak the southern dialect. The Bible was translated into a northern dialect, and this has become the standard form. Bahasa Indonesia, the language of government bureaucracy and education, is not widely known among ordinary villagers.

Nias - History and Cultural Relations

The origin of the Nias people is unknown. There are striking cultural similarities with the Batak, Toraja, Ngaju Dayak, and peoples of eastern Indonesia, all of which belong to the same language family. But similar social systems can be found among peoples of highland Southeast Asia (Kachin, Chin, Naga). A diffusion of so-called megalithic cultures from Assam has been postulated, but more comparative research is needed to substantiate reconstructions. There is a myth of origin from the center of Nias, and clan pedigrees all connect ultimately to a few tribal progenitors. The great cultural variation in Nias cannot easily be explained therefore by a theory of separate waves of migration to the island. The only important external contact recorded before Dutch intervention is with Acehnese slave traders who brought gold, the supreme prestige object, needed for bride-wealth and feasts of merit. The slave trade led to the depopulation of large areas, and was only brought under control in this century. In 1857 the whole island came nominally under Dutch control, but Nias remained marginal to colonial interests until a change in policy toward the Outer Islands, which led to the complete conquest of the island in 1906. Traders from Sumatra, some of whom settled in the port of Gunung Sitoli, brought Islam to many coastal areas. Christianity was introduced by German Protestant missionaries in 1865, its geographical spread coinciding with colonial domination. It made little progress, however, until the traditional social structure and its ideological underpinnings were broken down by missionary and government interference, paving the way for a wholesale rejection of tradition. From around 1915 a series of apocalyptic conversion movements swept across the island. The character of Christianity in Nias today and its relation to traditional culture owe much to this period, which has come to be known as The Great Repentance. Postindependence Nias has seen some economic development and expansion of the administrative capital and an increasing centralization of power away from the villages.

Nias - Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. In 1985 80 percent of the population was Protestant, 15 percent was Catholic, and 5 percent was Muslim. Affiliation to an official religion is compulsory under national law.

Aspects of the traditional religion survive in the vernacular Christianity (e.g., in concepts of sin and misfortune). The ethos of social life derives from a non-Christian value system. Some spirit beliefs persist. Feasts of merit are intended partly as a means of winning the blessing and fertility dispensed by wife givers, who are thus in a position analogous to the gods (cf. "Batak"). In the old cosmology a creator god, Lowalangi, and his younger brother Lature Danö (center: Nazuva Danö) control the upper and lower world respectively. There was a priestly cult of the goddess Silewe. Man's daily welfare depended on the placation of patrilineal ancestral spirits and on the blessing of wife givers. His ultimate destiny lay with Lowalangi, who keeps men as his pigs. Sacrifices to forest spirits ensured success in the hunt. There were no clan totems.

Religious Practitioners. Traditional ritual experts (male or female) called ere performed life-cycle rituals, divination, and healing, interceding with ancestral spirits (represented in carved wooden figures), and with God in various manifestations. Some were experts in reciting oral traditions. The charismatic leaders of the conversion and revivalist movements have often been ere, and evangelists often claim the ere's oracular skills, albeit in Christian guise.

Ceremonies. Most stages of the life cycle are marked by ceremonies and, usually, by feasting. The complex systems of exchange and measurement were regulated by ritual. Epidemics, thought to be caused by profiteering, were remedied by expiatory sacrifices and a lowering of interest rates. In the center, annual clan ceremonies ( famongi ) involving abstention from work took place after the harvest. For any venture, the household ancestor figures were adorned and given offerings. Large-scale feasts of merit today retain an important place only in central Nias.

Arts. Fine wooden ancestor figures were once carved, as well as larger statues that were venerated before raids. Ornamented stone columns are found in South Nias; limestone seats with animal heads as well as a variety of columns are found in the center. Traditional arts are no longer practiced except in making souvenirs for tourists. Many fine statues and carvings are now in museums and collections abroad.

Medicine. The remedy for illness is indicated by the diagnosis of the cause by a diviner, healer, or Christian priest: counter-magic for sorcery, herbal palliatives for poisoning, placation of the ancestors by sacrifice to remove a curse, tribute to disgruntled wife givers, repentance to the Christian God (who, it is believed, punishes sin with disease and death).

Death and Afterlife. Only men who had performed feasts of merit, whose festive debts had been paid off, and who had been buried with full honors (including human sacrifice) could enter the Golden Paradise, tete holi ana'a, which seems to have been a replica of the earthly village. Ordinary men were left to rot and "became food for the worms."

Bibliography

Beatty, Andrew (1992). Society and Exchange in Nias. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Marschall, Wolfgang (1976). Der Berg des Herrn der Erde: Alte Ordnung und Kulturkonflikt in einem indonesischen Dorf. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.

Schröder, Engelbertus Eliza Willem Gerards. (1917). Nias: Ethnographische, geographische en historische aanteekeningen en Studiën. Leiden: N. V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij Voorheen E. J. Brill.

Suzuki, Peter (1959). The Religious System and Culture of Nias, Indonesia. The Hague: Excelsior.