Nias is the name of the largest island within a small archipelago of the same name that lies some 150 kilometers off the west coast of Northern Sumatra.
Until the consolidation of Dutch rule in the early 20th century, Nias was home to one of the Indonesian archipelago’s most vibrant aristocratic warrior cultures. The Isle of Nias can be roughly divided into three culturally distinct zones; north, south, and central Nias. Each region has a distinctive dialect, architectural style, and aesthetic variations. In central Nias, all traditional villages were built on hilly redoubts in the interior of the island. To the south, villages are dominated by great, tall houses (omo sebua) of powerful chieftains. These elaborate and imposing edifices extolled the status of aristocrats in a highly stratified society. Constructed on massive ironwood and teak pilings, a chiefly dwelling served as a defensive keep that housed an extended clan.
Massive buttresses, set at 45-degree angles extended upwards from the base of a great house to the top of the outermost pilings, provided protection from the frequent earthquakes for which this area is renowned. The interiors of these sophisticated and stately structures featured finely-planed tongue-and-groove paneling in gleaming hardwoods, such as teak and red palm wood.
Carved utilitarian objects, complex ornamentation, shrines, and imposing statues of venerated ancestors (adu) in wood and stone created a further sense of the nobility's prerogatives within a microcosmos that affirmed and magnified their glory.
The great Nias clan houses to the south of the island were set in rows around handsome stone plazas. Outside of these elaborate dwellings, massive carved stone seats, platforms, decorated dolmens, and menhirs were arrayed in honor of nobles and ancestors who vied to elevate their status and immortalize their feats.
The houses of Northern Nias are round and less imposing than the monumental structures of the Central and Southern regions. However, they housed singularly impressive Adu Sihara Salawa statues that are associated with North Nias. Most of the fine surviving ancestor figures from the north of the island were collected in the days of early Christian missionary activity in the area during the second half of the 19th century.
Inter-clan conflicts, headhunting raids and rituals, slave trading, and the valorization of violent prowess were fundamental features of Nias civilization. Merit and noble rank were attained through prescribed rituals and copious consumption of sacrificial pigs. This reflected the ostentatious, swashbuckling martial ethos of traditional Nias culture until the populace’s mass conversion to Christianity precipitated the breakdown of Nias traditions, in what was then known as ‘de grosse reue’ (the great repentance).
Notable artworks from Nias include ancestral images in various mediums, ritual wooden carvings, martial accouterments, cleverly fashioned items of everyday usage, stone monuments and memorials, as well as gold ornaments that commemorated achievements and the titles received for sponsoring opulent feasts of merit.
Nias masterworks are situated in museum collections in prestigious locations including Museum Nasional Indonesia, Museum Pusaka Nias, Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, The British Museum, Musée du Quai-Branly, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Weltmuseum Wien, Yale University Art Gallery, The Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and de Young Museum.
Jerome Feldman's books and writings on Nias provide a fine basis for further inquiries into the wonders of this region’s artistic heritage, history, and cultural traditions.