Flores

History

Prehistory

Before the arrival of modern humans, Flores was occupied by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human. The ancestors of Homo floresiensis arrived on the island between 1.3 and 1 million years ago.

As of 2015, partial remains of fifteen individuals have been found by a joint Australian-Indonesian research team, headed by Mike Morwood and Thomas Sutikna, and the dominant consensus is that these remains do represent a distinct species due to anatomical differences from modern humans. The most recent evidence shows that Homo floresiensis likely became extinct 50,000 years ago, around the time of modern human arrival to the archipelago.

Modern history

Flores was most likely first inhabited by Melanesians at least since 30,000 BC.

Portuguese traders and missionaries came to Flores in the 16th century, mainly to Larantuka and Sikka. Their influence is still discernible in Sikka's language, culture, and religion. The first Portuguese visit took place in 1511, through the expedition of António de Abreu and his vice-captain Francisco Serrão, en route through the Sunda islands.

The Dominican order played an important role on this island, as well as on the neighbouring islands of Timor and Solor. When the Dutch attacked the fortress of Solor in 1613, the population of the fort, led by the Dominicans, moved to the harbor town of Larantuka on the eastern coast of Flores. This population was mixed, of Portuguese and local islander descent and Larantuqueiros, Topasses, or, as the Dutch knew them, the 'Black Portuguese' (Zwarte Portugezen).

The Larantuqueiros, also known as Topasses, became the dominant sandalwood trading people of the region for the next 200 years. This group was observed by William Dampier, an English privateer visiting the Island in 1699:

These [the Topasses] have no Forts, but depend on their Alliance with the Natives: And indeed they are already so mixt, that it is hard to distinguish whether they are Portuguese or Indians. Their Language is Portuguese; and the religion they have, is Romish. They seem in Words to acknowledge the King of Portugal for their Sovereign yet they will not accept any Officers sent by him. They speak indifferently the Malayan and their native Languages, as well as Portuguese.

In the western part of Flores, the Manggarai came under the control of the Sultanate of Bima, in eastern Sumbawa. The Dutch effectively established their administration over western Flores in 1907. In 1929, the Bimanese sultanate ceded any control over Manggarai.

In 1846, the Dutch and Portuguese initiated negotiations to delimit their territories, but these negotiations led nowhere. In 1851, Lima Lopes, the new governor of Timor, Solor, and Flores, agreed to sell eastern Flores and the nearby islands to the Dutch in return for a payment of 200,000 Florins to support his impoverished administration. Lima Lopes did so without the consent of Lisbon and was dismissed in disgrace; however, his agreement was not rescinded. In 1854, Portugal ceded all its historical claims on Flores. After this, Flores became part of the territory of the Dutch East Indies.

During World War II, Great Britain, the Netherlands East Indies, and the United States imposed on Japan an embargo on rubber and oil and froze Japan's overseas funds. This was a strong incentive for Japan to get hold of the prosperous colonies of South East Asia, and its Operation "S" targeted the Lesser Sunda Islands – including Flores. On 14 May 1942, Labuan Bajo was the theatre of an amphibious landing by the Japanese Army landing force, and a Japanese Navy Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) landed at Reo. Japan occupied Flores until the end of the Pacific War. During that time, the Japanese administration and forces saw Christians as suspected Dutch sympathizers. They were exceedingly heavy-handed towards them in general, but not so much on Flores, where Christians were treated notably less harshly than in the neighbouring islands of Timor and Sumba. Remarkably, in Flores, the European priests and nuns were neither interned nor evicted throughout the occupation. According to Paul Webb (1986), this is because Florenese Christians were "too many to ignore": nearly half the population of Flores was Catholic and the Japanese, who could not afford to increase the size of their small occupation forces on the island, allowed European priests and sisters to stay at their posts rather than risking a general rebellion.

After the war, Flores became part of independent Indonesia.

On 12 December 1992, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale killed 2,500 people in and around Maumere, including islands off the north coast.

In 2017, two men were killed in Flores due to land disputes between warrior clans; the Mbehel, a West Manggarai mountain tribe, and the Rangko from Sulawesi island, who helped build Manggarai and were given land near Labuan Bajo by the Manggarai king.

On 15 August 2026, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck off the coast of Flores, killing at least 53 people and injured 135 others while generating tsunamis of 1.61 meters (5 ft. 3 in.) in height.

Administration

Flores is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province. The island along with smaller minor islands is split into eight regencies (local government divisions); from west to east these are Manggarai Barat (West Manggarai), Manggarai (Central Manggarai), Manggarai Timur (East Manggarai), Ngada, Nagekeo, Ende, Sikka and part of Flores Timur (East Flores). Flores has 35.24% of the East Nusa Tenggara provincial population as of 2023, and is the largest of all islands in the province, with the second-largest population (Timor has slightly more people).

The eight regencies are listed below from east to west, with their areas and their populations at the 2010 Census and the 2020 Census, together with the official estimates as of mid-2024.

Notes

• (a) only the eight districts of this regency situated on Flores Island are included in these figures; the three districts comprising Solor Island and the eight districts on Adonara Island are excluded.
• (b) West Manggarai Regency includes Komodo and Rinca islands off the west coast of Flores; these islands are part of a National Park and thus poorly inhabited.

The main towns on Flores are Maumere, Ende, Ruteng, Larantuka, and Bajawa, listed with their populations as of mid-2023.

• Ende: 87,723 inhabitants (sum of populations of four districts)
• Maumere: 77,909 inhabitants (excluding populations on offshore islands)
• Ruteng: 65,694 inhabitants
• Larantuka: 41,642 inhabitants
• Bajawa: 40,259 inhabitants

Flora and fauna

The Komodo dragon is endemic to Flores and surrounding islands and has been continuously present on Flores for at least 1.4 million years. Today, it is confined to a handful of small areas on Flores itself. Varanus hooijeri is a smaller extinct species of monitor lizard which occurred on Flores into the Holocene.

The endemic fauna of Flores includes some rats (Murinae), some of which are now extinct, ranging from small-sized forms such as Rattus hainaldi, Paulamys, and the Polynesian rat (which possibly originated on the island), medium-sized such as Komodomys, and Hooijeromys, and giants such as Spelaeomys and Papagomys, the largest species of which, the still-living Papagomys armandvillei (Flores giant rat) is approximately the size of a rabbit, with a weight of up to 2.5 kilograms (5.5 lb).

Flores was also the habitat of several extinct dwarf forms of the proboscidean (elephant relative) Stegodon, the most recent (Stegodon florensis insularis) of which disappeared approximately 50,000 years ago. The island before modern human arrival was also inhabited by the giant stork Leptoptilos robustus and the vulture Trigonoceps.

Seismology

Flores Island is bounded by active tectonic regions, with the Sunda Trench to the south and the Flores back-arc thrust fault to the north. As a result, the island experiences many earthquakes each year and, on occasion, tsunamis. The largest recorded earthquake in the region was the 1992 Flores earthquake and tsunami, a magnitude 7.8 event that caused Severe shaking on the Mercalli intensity scale. The Flores back-arc thrust is of particular interest to researchers as it is believed to accommodate the transition between the Sunda Trench in the west and the subduction of the Australian plate in the east. The Flores Thrust is approximately 450 km long and consists of a deep-rooted basal fault and many overlying imbricate thrust faults. The system is highly active, with more than 25 earthquakes of a magnitude 6 or above since 1960. In 2018, a large sequence of earthquakes (such as on the 5th of August and in July) in Lombok ruptured sections of the Flores Thrust. The dip of the main thrust fault of approximately 2–3° compared to the 3–4° dip of the subducting plate on the Sunda Trench leads some to believe that the fault could someday be the site of a subduction polarity reversal and begin subducting.

A volcanic eruption in southeast Flores triggered earthquakes that killed at least 10 people as of 4 November 2024. Authorities warned of the possibility of more earthquakes in the coming days.

Society and culture

Languages

Many languages are spoken on the island of Flores, all of them belonging to the Austronesian family. In the west, Manggarai is spoken; Riung, often classified as a dialect of Manggarai, is spoken in the north-central part of the island. In the centre of the island in the regencies of Ngada, Nagekeo, and Ende, there is what is variously called the Central Flores dialect chain or linkage. Within this area, there are slight linguistic differences in almost every village. At least six separate languages are identifiable: from west to east, Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio, and Palu'e (which is spoken on the island with the same name off the north coast of Flores). Locals would probably also add So'a and Bajawa to this list, which anthropologists have labeled dialects of Ngadha. To the east, Sikka and Lamaholot can be found.

Djawanai (1983) precises that Ngadha somewhat deviates from Austronesian norms, in that words do not have clear cognates and the grammatical processes are different; for example, the Austronesian family of languages makes an abundant use of prefixes or suffixes (which form new words by adding extensions either before or after root-words, such as [per-]form or child[-hood]), whereas the Ngadha and Keo languages use no prefixes or suffixes.

Social organisation

The traditional social structure is based on complex extended family ties, where patrilineal and matrilineal lineages coexist and determine a strict social hierarchy within villages. It is similar to that in Lembata, East Nusa Tenggara; and is reflected in the spiderweb disposition of the rice fields around Cancar (16 km west of Ruteng): started as a pie centered on the point where buffaloes are sacrificed, the allotments originally shaped as pie slices were later divided transversally by the heirs.

Religion

The native peoples of Flores are mostly Roman Catholic Christians, whereas most other Indonesians are Muslim. As a consequence, Flores may be regarded as surrounded by a religious border. The prominence of Catholicism on the island resulted from its colonisation by Portugal in the east and early 20th-century support by the Dutch in the west. In other parts of Indonesia with significant Christian populations, such as the Maluku Islands and Sulawesi, the geographical divide is less rigid and Muslims and Christians sometimes live side by side. Flores thereby also has less religious violence than that which has sporadically occurred in other parts of Indonesia. There are several churches on the island. On 26 May 2019, Flores's St. Paul Catholic University of Indonesia was formally inaugurated by Indonesian Education Minister Mohamad Nasir, becoming the first Catholic university in Flores. Aside from Catholicism, Islam also has a presence on the island, especially in some coastal communities.

Totemism

Totemism is present, although anthropologists like Lévi-Strauss and historians like Robert Jones have eschewed the term "totemism" as an imprecise and artificial category of cultural phenomena. Forth (2009a), focusing on the Nage people of central Flores, argues that totemism manifests itself as a tendency to link people and plants, not as a totalizing form of analogical classification as described by Lévi-Strauss. He notes that many clans (woe) in Flores are named after various trees and that these trees have become taboo (pie), such that they must not be burnt or used as fuel (pie 'uge). The Nage people bear the name of the tamarind tree, Tamarindus indica, and thus avoid burning its wood.

A few clans are not named after plants, but also have taboos on particular trees. For example, the Wa or Ana Wa people, whose name means "wind" or "wind people, children", claim the nage or tamarind tree as taboo; the Dhuge people bear the name of a former village and taboo the zita tree (Alstonia scholaris); so do the Saga 'Enge people, whose name origin is not known.

The Nage people have plant totems but no animal totems—and, therefore, no taboo on killing and eating any animal. In contrast, their neighbours to the west, the Ngadha people, have 14 animal taboos and 16 plant taboos.

Textiles

Weaving on Flores utilizes cotton grown in the low-lying areas of the island. Each ethnic group on Flores has its own tradition of dyeing, weaving, and trading in textiles.

Dyes

The dyes used are essentially indigo, turmeric and morinda. Lamaholot people use maize starch to size the yarn before dying.

Blue (indigo)

indigo grows in the temperate zones at middle elevations; It is the most commonly used plant base for blues and black dyes. Bar a few exceptions, it is always used in ikat.

Red (morinda and others)

Morinda citrifolia (mengkudu, keloré in Lamalera), extensively used in the archipelago as a source of red dye, does not grow well on Flores and, according to Hoopen, is scarcely used here. But its use is reported in N'Dona (just east of Ende), where it is mixed with various mordants including candlenut (kemiri, very oily nut). Barnes also reports its use in the villages of Ili Mandiri, East Flores – and describes at length the arduous process for its preparation and application. Close by, weavers from the village of Larantuka may use the tree called gemoli for red dye.

Powdered leaves of a plant (tree?) called "lobah" are used in N'Dona (east of Ende) to obtain bright reds.

Yellow (turmeric, mango, and others)

Yellow translates as kuma. In the Sikka area, turmeric was used for producing yellow monochrome warp stripes, as well as orange or green stripes by overdyeing with either morinda or indigo; sometimes, mango bark was used for that purpose.

At Doka in the 'Iwang Geté or Krowé region, a more durable deep mustard yellow is produced from turmeric, mango bark, Morinda citrifolia (mengkudu) tree bark (not root), jackfruit bark and powdered lime (kapur sireh). Dyers of that region also mix turmeric with mango bark. Another yellow was obtained from a combination of mango bark and morinda, without the addition of oil or loba.

At Ile Mandiri (East Flores regency) and Loba Tobi A beautiful yellow dye was obtained by boiling the wood chips of the 'yellowwood' tree, known locally as kajo kuma.

Manggarai used to export Arcangelisia flava (kayu kuning) to Java for the yellows in batik. Another export (from Flores and Adonara) in the same domain was a hardwood tree called kajo kuma, literally 'yellow wood', which gives a yellow dye. In the 1980s, it was still brought to Lembata for that purpose.

laban as a dye is hardly used any longer in the Lesser Sunda Islands.

Green colour

In some regions of Flores, such as East Flores and Ende, green is hardly found in any textile. Green warp stripes are most likely to be found in textiles produced in the area of Sikka Natar, and from Lamalera on Lembata island. It is produced almost exclusively by applying alternatively blue and yellow dyes, but in Lamalera region it is obtained by crushing leaves and using the green juice thus produced – notably from Annona squamosa (dolima).

At Nita Kloang in the region of Krowé (Sikka regency), a green dye is made from the edible leaves of the Indian Coral tree (dadap), which may include such species as Erythrina variegata, E. subumbrans, E. indica and E. fuspa). The tree is used as a shade plant for cocoa and coffee plants. For the dye, the leaves are crushed with turmeric root and powdered lime.

Synthetic dyes

The earliest aniline dyes may have reached Indonesia in the 1880s, and brought to Flores by the Dutch steamers that serviced Ende and Larantuka. Up to the 1920s, they were likely only blue, red and magenta rather than green.

It is impossible to say how quickly synthetic greens were incorporated into the weavings of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Any green that was included in early weavings from around the turn of the century is likely to have faded to blue or brown by now (Brackman 2009, 61). Indeed, by the 1950s and 1960s, more modern lightfast synthetic greens were being used in the stripes in the Sikkanese sarongs. They continue to be used in this way today without undermining the region's traditional textile culture. As of 2016, most areas of Flores still retain a degree of their former textile culture and still use synthetic green only sparingly, compared to other places that are losing or have lost their textile culture, such as Manggarai and Ngada. In Sikka, it seems that chemical green has been frequently used since at least the 1960s and probably earlier.

Textile particularities of some areas

Ilé Bura region

In the past, the whole Ilé Bura region was a major centre of weaving, which was an important contribution to family income. As of 2016, weaving is confined to just three villages – Lewo Tobi, Lewouran, and Riang Baring, the latter being the most active.

Iwang Geté region

People of the Iwan geté region produce a very distinctive ikat cloth: the widest bands (called ina geté) bear such motifs as lizard (teké), a circular motif seen on some antique plates (pigan uben), spinning wheel (jata selér), and pineapple flower (petan puhun).

Ngadha region

Traditionally, in the Ngadha region, everyday clothing consists of a plain, stark indigo sarong. However, there is also a type of ikat, often referred to as Bajawa ikat after its capital, that features primitive-style designs and is made with only indigo dye. One characteristic of this ikat is the very intense blue, which is unique to this piece and nowhere else in the archipelago; this color comes from the high concentration of indigo achieved through prolonged and repeated steepings of the cloth in the tincture. It also means that the motifs, made by ties on the warp, should have come out white but are more often of a very pale blue because the pigment bath has had time to seep into the yarn beyond the resist of the ties.

Another characteristic of Ngadha ikat is its motifs. Horses (jara) are a frequent one, as they are a sign of high social rank; this ties up with the fact that decorated cloths were traditionally worn only by respected clan members. The particularity here is that they are executed as stick figures, by which they resemble some prehistoric cave drawings. This gives them a strikingly 'primitive' appearance and makes them highly sought-after items.

Most of the ikat on Flores is produced in villages located in the temperate, middle elevation zones, where indigo can be cultivated. The best known are Jerebuu and Langa, in a valley on the east side of the Inierie volcano, and Lopijo and Toni, tucked behind the rim of mountains that surround Bajawa, north of the same volcano. The latter are still very isolated and conservative, still using indigenous cotton and indigo only. The clothes from these localities are admired throughout the Ngadha region – and nowadays in New York and Singapore as well.

Tourism

The most famous tourist attraction in Flores is the 1,639-metre-high (5,377-foot) Kelimutu volcano, which contains three colored lakes, located in the district of Ende, close to the town of Moni. However, there is also the Inierie volcano near Bajawa. These crater lakes are located in the caldera of a volcano and are fed by a volcanic gas source, resulting in highly acidic water. The colored lakes change colors on an irregular basis, depending on the oxidation state of the lake from bright red to green and blue.

There are snorkeling and diving locations along the north coast of Flores, most notably Maumere and Riung. However, due to the destructive practice of local fishermen using bombs to fish, and locals selling shells to tourists, combined with the after-effects of a devastating tsunami in 1992, the reefs have slowly been destroyed.

Labuan Bajo, located on the western tip, is often used by tourists as a base to visit Komodo and Rinca islands. Labuan Bajo also attracts scuba divers, as whale sharks inhabit the waters around Labuan Bajo.

The Luba and Bena villages in Flores feature traditional houses. Bena is also noted for its Stone Age megaliths.

Larantuka, on the isle's eastern end, is known for its Holy Week festivals.

In recent years, local tourist firms around Kelimutu have begun promoting cycling tours around Flores, some of which take up to five or six days, depending on the particular program.

Economy

In addition to tourism, the main economic activities on Flores are agriculture, fishing, and seaweed production. The primary food crops being grown on Flores are rice, maize, sweet potato and cassava, while the main cash crops are coffee, coconut, candle nut and cashew. Flores is one of the newest origins for Indonesian coffee. Previously, most Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) from Flores was blended with other origins. Now, demand is growing for this coffee due to its rich body and sweet, chocolatey, floral, and woody notes.

In the 1980s, cotton crops were encouraged to generate income for the poorer subsistence farmers. It is planted in low-lying areas of the island.

Jackfruit, which occurs throughout the Indonesian archipelago – and elsewhere -, is specifically cultivated in Manggarai and Sikka regencies, and probably in every other regency.

Transport

There are at least six airports in Flores distributed along the island, ordered from west to east:

• Komodo Airport and Port of Labuan Bajo in Labuan Bajo
• Frans Sales Lega Airport or Ruteng airport
• Pahdamaleda Airport or Bajawa airport
• Turelelo Soa Airport in Bajawa
• H. Hasan Aroeboesman Airport or Ende airport
• Frans Xavier Seda Airport or Maumere airport
• Gewayantana Airport close to Larantuka city.