The Nage are an indigenous people living on the eastern

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

n islands of

Flores Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Administratively, it forms the largest island in the East Nusa Tenggara Province. The area is 14,250 km2. Including Komodo and Rinca islands ...

(chiefly in the eponymous

Nagekeo Regency Nagekeo Regency (sometimes written as Nagé Kéo) is a regency on the island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia, comprising the territory of the Nage people in the south and of the Kéo people in the north (in Aesesa and Wolow ...

), and

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

. They are descended from the indigenous population of

They are largely assimilated by the neighboring people. They speak

Nage The Nage are an indigenous people living on the eastern Indonesian islands of Flores (chiefly in the eponymous Nagekeo Regency), and Timor. They are descended from the indigenous population of Flores They are largely assimilated by the neighbor ...

, one of the major languages in the

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

group.

Agriculture

The Nage people mainly engaged in manual

slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of shifting cultivation that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a Field (agriculture), field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody p ...

farming (tubers, rice, corn), hunting and gathering. Until the middle of the 20th century, communal land ownership with large families participation were still preserved. They live in cumulus-type settlements, located on the slopes of mountains and surrounded by stone walls. Houses are piled up in rectangular position and connected by an open gallery into a single complex, which is intended for joint residence of several large families.

Lifestyle

The clothes of the Nage people are loincloth and skirt or ''kain''. Women fasten it over the breast, and men around the waist. The diet is dominated by plant based foods (cooked groats and tubers with spicy seasoning), while meat is eaten only on holidays. Agrarian cults have survived and are still being practiced. Before the sowing, rites of cleansing the field and the grains of rice will be performed on the first new moon, before the start of cultivating the fields.

Study of the tribe

In 1940, Officer Louis Fontijne produced a

Dutch Colonial Service Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

study entitled ''Grondvoogden in Kelimado'' (Guardians of the land in Kelimado), Kelimado being a region included in the Nage district of central Flores. Commissioned as an investigation of indigenous land tenure and leadership, the study was the only comprehensive description of Nage society and culture produced during the colonial period. In 1983, anthropologist

Gregory Forth Gregory L. Forth is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta. He earned his PhD from University of Oxford in 1980. Beginning in 1986, Forth was a professor at the University of Alberta for over thirty years. Forth is a fello ...

renewed interest in the tribe, revisiting the islands while seeking a copy of Fontijne's complete study. Forth has also hypothesized a possible connection between the local stories of the Ebu Gogo, a creature in Nage mythology, and the discovery of ''

Homo floresiensis ''Homo floresiensis'' , also known as "Flores Man" or "Hobbit" (after Hobbit, the fictional species), is an Extinction, extinct species of small archaic humans that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of Homo sapiens, ...

'', a possible species of extinct hominid, hence a renewed interest in the tribe. (Abstract, Wiley Interscience)

References

External links

* - an example of Nage art * * {{Portal, Indonesia Ethnic groups in Indonesia Flores Island (Indonesia)

Agriculture

Lifestyle

Study of the tribe

See also

References

Further reading

External links