About Nias Island

One of Indonesia's most exotic destinations, Nias Island combines a great surfing break, the most beautiful of beaches and a culture older than history. Nias has the size of  but outside of the months of June and July it is a quiet place and great to relax. The most important places on the island are Gunung Sitoli in the north, and Teluk Dalam in the south. Teluk Dalam is close to Lagundri/Sorake which has the best beaches and surfing. Lagundri/Sorake is called the CITY SURF  by tourist who ever visit Nias Island.

After the movement of Nias people from Gomo to others place, they were going to make a new settlement at the new area, and it might be close to their origin. One of the places they have reached is Teluk Dalam at the South of Nias Island.   In the time of inventing the new life style and the growing population, the people of Nias made the community of life more advanced and more organized.   Such as they built a village ruled by the land lord, the houses bigger,   the construction stronger, more finely, and the new rules.

Landlord (balugu) was the person who could make an extraordinary feast, built a big traditional house (omo sebua/omo hada), fed the people, or we can say “The richest person” at the time. Even in Nias Island they follow the paternalism, every person could be a landlord (balugu), and he should fulfill the requirements to be called as a landlord (balugu), such as to make a big feast, to feed the people, to build the traditional house some others requirements. Landlord (balugu) had a big influence to the people, and had a big role in deciding something pertaining to the village. Besides the system of life, he created the warriors to defense his authority, his power. The main idea is” SELF DEFENSE” or “Community Defense. Certainly he had the best warriors at the time. The warriors need to pass some test, one of them such Stone Jumping (Fohombo). During the past, this activity is showing the maturity of a man (ready to be a skillful and a great warrior, ready to take responsibility to be a husband, ready to defense the village or community, ready to die for the people and used to be meaning to win a war). Also this activity is influenced by the construction of village in South Nias, mostly traditional village in South Nias built in hill area to protect them from wild animal, uneasy access, get more the sun light or still be affected by their belief at the time which always close to the sun, as well as become as a fortress, and the village is blocked by trench.   The stone jumper used to jump over the enemies trench to get in to the trench and opened the enemies’ gate for his companion. To get in, the warrior need to be trained and must be a tough guy, so they made a practical through jumping the stone with height approximately 2 meters   However now it used to attract visitors, or to hold a village   celebrations.