Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine October 2017 | Page 109

Travel | Sumba
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Anthropologists have described Sumba as home
to the world’s last surviving megalithic culture.
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5 Senses – Sound
PASOLA FESTIVAL
Anthropologists have described Sumba
as home to the world’s last surviving
megalithic culture. Like the lost civilisation
who once carved the uncanny Easter Island
heads or the Mayans who mysteriously
disappeared leaving only their great
pyramids among the rainforests of Central
America, the people of Sumba have often
been driven almost to ruin by their
obligation to build the mightiest tombs.
“Traditionally many men here are born
already in debt,” explains Ansel Mus Rangga,
an expert local guide with Backyard Travel.
“If their fathers or grandfathers were unable
to afford the great expense of building tombs
for family members who had died, then the
debt is passed on to the next in line.”
And the debt can be a huge one. Ansel
has driven me to central Sumba’s Anakalang
heartlands to see the island’s biggest tomb.
During the year in which the Umba Sawola
was being carved and transported here, the
ruling family sacrificed 350 buffalo along with
many other animals. The main tombstone is
estimated to weigh about the same as 10
elephants and needed 1,000 men to drag
it here from the quarry 3km away.
The Umba Sawola stone is almost
three times as heavy as the biggest rock
at Stonehenge, and to move it would
seem to be an impossible feat. Although
burial in megaliths was common in many
parts of the world in the Stone Age, Sumba is
one of the few places where the practice has
survived into modern times. The unique
monolithic culture of Sumba serves to
remind us that, if we work together,
few things are impossible.
After all, the people of Sumba have
been moving mountains for
thousands of years.
Thrill to the clamour of Sumba’s
famous Pasola festival, a ritualistic
horseback battle that is re-enacted each
year (in February and March) when groups
of spear-wielding warriors charge into each
other. These days the spears have been
replaced by blunt sticks, although it is
believed that if blood were spilled on the
sacred Pasola grounds, a rich rice harvest
would be guaranteed. Backyard Travel
can arrange visits to the Pasola.
www.backyardtravel.com
1 One of the souvenirs you can take home is a
miniature sculpture of one of Sumba’s stone carvings.
2 The Sumbanese way of horse riding, barefoot
and at full gallop.
3 Pasola festival is held around February/March
in a few western and southwestern Sumba villages.
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Saksikan serunya Festival Pasola
yang terkenal di Sumba. Ritual pertarungan
sekelompok penunggang kuda bersenjata
tombak ini diadakan setiap tahun (bulan
Februari dan Maret). Meski sekarang
tombak telah diganti dengan tongkat
tumpul, masyarakat masih meyakini
bahwa darah yang ditumpahkan
di tanah Pasola saat pertarungan akan
mendatangkan panen padi yang
melimpah. Backyard Travel dapat
mengatur perjalanan Anda ke Pasola.
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