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Nias people

Austronesian ethnic group

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  • 7 chapters

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Through Caste, Asia and Paleolithic

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The Nias people are a community that continues living within the norms and practices of their indigenous culture. The customary law of the Nias people is generally referred to as fondrakö, which regulates all aspects of life from birth to death. Historical evidence of megalithic structures and stone carvings that are found in the interior of the island proved that ancient Nias people practiced megalith culture. The caste system is also recognized in Nias society, whereby the highest level out of the 12 levels in the Nias caste system is Balugu. To reach this level of caste, one must be able to carry out big festivals by inviting thousands of people and slaughtering thousands of pigs for several days.

Origins

Mythology

According to the people of Nias, one of the mythical origins of the Nias tribe comes from a tree of life called Tora Sigaru'a which is located at a place called Tetehöli Ana'a. According to the myth, it is said that the arrival of the first human on Nias island began in the days of King Sirao, whose nine sons had been banished from Tetehöli Ana'a for fighting over the throne. Hence the nine sons of King Sirao were considered as the first people to set foot on the island of Nias.

Archaeological observations

Archaeological research has been conducted on Nias Island since 1999. The observations found that there has been human habitation on Nias island since 12,000 years ago through migration from Asia to Nias island during the Paleolithic period. There are indications of migration as far as 30,000 years ago. During that period the Hòa Bình, Vietnam civilization was similar to that in Nias island. Therefore, it was presumed that the origins of the Nias people came from an area in mainland Asia that is in modern-day Vietnam.

New genetic research has found that the Nias people of North Sumatra came from the Austronesian peoples. The ancestors of the Nias people are also thought to have come from Taiwan through the Philippines 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

Ten years of research involving blood samples of 440 Nias people in 11 villages on Nias island showed the Y-chromosome and DNA mitochondria of the Nias people are very similar to the Taiwanese aborigines and Filipino peoples. The observation has also found that the genes in today's Nias people no longer carry any traces of the ancient Nias people, as of those whose remains were found in the Togi Ndrawa cave, Central Nias. Archaeological findings of the stone tools found showed that humans lived in the cave over 12,000 years ago. The genetic diversity of the Nias people is very low compared to other groups of people, especially about the Y chromosome. This indicates that there was once a "bottleneck" population in the history of Nias. Studies have also found that the Nias people do not share any genes with ethnicities living in the Andaman-Nicobar islands in the Indian Ocean, which are geographically considered neighbours. Although it is known that there was a migration of the Austronesian peoples between Taiwan and the Indonesian archipelago including Nias, it is still uncertain if the migration started from Taiwan to Nias or vice versa.

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