Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine October 2017 | Page 107
Travel | Sumba
105
We turned into the narrow canyon,
walled with sharp coral, which was
the entrance to Waihola village.
2
1 A Sumbanese boy riding
through Wairinding hills, carrying
a sack of corn. Sumba and horses
are inseparable.
1
“Most people in Sumba are considered
nominally Christian but the local religion,
Marapu, still prevails,” explained Tiger when
we stopped to quench our thirst with coconuts
which he hacked down from a tall palm and
opened with the sword that hung permanently
from a sash at his waist. “Mostly it’s the old
people who know the ways of the spirits –
or a few youngsters, but only if they are
still from the Marapu religion.”
We turned into the narrow canyon, walled
with sharp coral, which was the entrance
to Waihola village. Even today, entering the
village is like climbing to some hilltop citadel.
The steep thatch-roofs of the houses rise
through the swirling smoke of cooking fires
like the hats of giant wizards huddled around
a cauldron. Set back under the wide brims,
like dark eyes, are the twin doors reserved
for the entrance of men (on the right) and
women (on the left). Likewise, male and
female effigies on the roof beams invite
the ancestors to enter the houses.
These homes were clearly designed for
effective defence: the wraparound verandas
2 Ratenggaro is said to boast the
tallest roofs in Sumba, with this
house rising to about 25 metres.
provided a raised platform from which the local
men could fight, and the inside of the steep roof
was where food stores and valuable heirlooms
could be kept. War was a way of life here and
many villages still retain a ‘skull tree’, although
stripped of their gruesome adornments.
Dato Daku had told me how, growing up in this
village, he’d had to walk 6km to school each day,
as well as make trips to the river with his mother
and seven siblings to collect water. Today Dato
works for Sumba Foundation, the organisation
which has been instrumental in improving lives
in many Sumbanese villages. Since the foundation
was established in 2001, it has set up 300 wells
and water stations, built and supplied schools
for 4,200 students, and built four clinics that
care for more than 25,000 people.
One slice of heaven that you should not pass up
when visiting Sumba is Weekuri Lake, an exotic
lake separated from the sea by a rocky cliff,
which promises visitors fun swimming
opportunities and the pleasure of enjoying the
blue waters from the shore. The word weekuri
comes from the Sumba language, meaning water
derived from grated coral that passes on to the
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