Everything about Sumba totally explained
» This article is about the Indonesian island. For the village in the Faroe Islands, see Sumba, Faroe Islands.
Sumba is an island in
Indonesia, and is one of the
Lesser Sunda Islands. It has an area of 11,153 km², and the population was officially at 611,422 in 2005. There is a dry season from May to November and a rainy season from December to April. Historically, this island exported
sandalwood.
To the northwest of Sumba is
Sumbawa, to the northeast, across the
Sumba Strait (Selat Sumba), is
Flores, to the east, across the
Savu Sea, is
Timor, and to the south, across part of the
Indian Ocean, is
Australia. It is in the province of
East Nusa Tenggara. The largest town on the island is
Waingapu, with a population of about 10,700.
Before colonization, Sumba was inhabited by several small ethnolinguistic groups, some of which may have had
tributary relations to the
Majapahit Empire. In 1522 the first ships from Europe arrived, and by 1866 Sumba belonged to the
Dutch East Indies, although the island didn't come under real
Dutch administration until the twentieth century.
The Sumbanese people speak a variety of closely related
Austronesian languages, and have a mixture of
Malay and
Melanesian ancestry. Twenty-five to thirty percent of the population practises the animist
Marapu religion. The remainder are
Christian, a majority being Dutch
Calvinist, but a substantial minority being
Roman Catholic. A small number of
Sunni Muslims can be found along the coastal areas.
Despite the influx of western religions, Sumba is one of the few places in the world in which
megalithic burials, are used as a 'living tradition' to inter prominent individuals when they die. Burial in megaliths is a practice that was used in many parts of the world during the
Neolithic and
Bronze Ages, but has survived to this day in Sumba.
In popular culture
Sumba is mentioned in the May 2008 episode "
There's No Place Like Home" of the American television program
Lost, as being near the crash site of the fictional
Oceanic Airlines flight #815. According to a cover storyline in the show, the castaways wash up on the tiny uninhabited and uncharted island of Membata, southwest of Sumba. They stay there for a time, and then travel by raft to Sumba near the town of
Manukangga, where they're rescued.
Further Information
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