The Lamahalot or Solorese people are an indigenous tribe located on Flores Island,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, and some smaller islands around it ( Solor,

Adonara Adonara is an island in the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia, located east of the larger island of Flores in the Solor Archipelago. To the east lies Lembata, formerly known as Lomblen. Adonara is the highest of the islands of the archipelago, re ...

, and

Lomblen Lembata is an island in the Lesser Sunda Islands, also known as Lomblen island; it is the largest island of the Solor Archipelago, in the Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia. It forms a separate regency of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur. The leng ...

). Lamaholot people speak the Lamaholot language with different dialects, the number of speakers counts between 150,000 and 200,000. Lamaholot people's famous traditional dance is a war dance known as ''Hedung''.

History

Since the 16th century the territory of the Lamaholot was the object of the claims of the Sultanate of Makassar, Portugal and the Netherlands. Until the middle of the 19th century Lamaholot were under the Portuguese colonial administration, then under the Netherlands in 1859–1942, and until the middle of the 20th century they were formally submitted to the Rajas of Larantuka and

Language

The Lamaholot language belongs to the

Malayo-Polynesian languages The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeas ...

of the Austronesian languages family. The language is divided into many dialects, or possibly distinct languages as Adonara language, the most common are the Western Lamaholot (Muang and Pukaunu), Lamaholot (Taka, Levotaka, Mandiri Island), and Western Solor. Language is a means ''lingua franca'' for wide communication between the numerous ethnic groups living in the area around Larantuka and Solor. On the island of Flores, the Lamaholot people speak Bahasa Nagi ( Larantuka Malay) and Mandarut language, a dialect of the

Malay language Malay (; ms, Bahasa Melayu, links=no, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , Rejang script, Rencong: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spo ...

Religion

Most Lamaholot people are Roman Catholics. Some of them are Muslims or devotees of a traditional monotheistic religion who believe in a god whom they call ''Lera Wulan Tanah Ekan'' (The combined power of the Sun, Moon, and Earth), death cults and shamanism. The Lamaholot people also preserve rich verbal and musical folklore.

Family

Traditional social organization is strictly based on patrilineal birth. They also maintained a characteristic of descent line that divides into "origin groups" or phratries. Marriages occur across on the

matrilateral The term matrilateral describes kin (relatives) "on the mother's side". Social anthropologists have underlined that even where a social group demonstrates a strong emphasis on one or other line of inheritance (matrilineal or patrilineal), relativ ...

side, with a marital settlement of

patrilocal residence In social anthropology, patrilocal residence or patrilocality, also known as virilocal residence or virilocality, are terms referring to the social system in which a married couple resides with or near the husband's parents. The concept of locat ...

. The family unit is small.

Economy

The main occupation is manual tropical farming. Dominant agricultural crops are such as corn, dried rice, millet, yam, cassava, sweet potato, legumes, pumpkin, various fruits and vegetables. Fishing is developed on the coast. Livestock plays an auxiliary role. The main dietary food includes boiled corn and rice with vegetable and fish seasonings. Residents of a number of coastal villages specialize in intermediary trade in textiles, clothing and agricultural implements. In the Lamalera village on

island and Lamakera village on Solor island, whaling is developed.

Lifestyle

Traditional cumulus settlements (in the mountains) are surrounded by a dense hedge of corals, houses are skeleton-pillared, rectangular, with a high steep roof. Before the beginning of the 20th century, there were long houses. Modern settlements are coastal farms, the dwelling is designed for a small family. They also adopt Malay-style clothing.

References

Ethnic groups in Indonesia {{ethno-stub