Sumba : The Marapu Land, where Nature Culture & People Live in Harmony

AIRVŪZ STAFF NOTE : Take a video tour of the Indonesian island of Sumba in this beautiful piece from contributor ibnukf, which combines drone and ground camera footage. Sumba is one of the main islands in the province known as East Nusa Tengarra. Covering a bit over 11k square km (a little over 4k square mi.), the island has an estimated population of around 750k as of 2019. The island is distinguished by a large group of adherents of Murapu, an ancient animistic religion whose followers make up about a third of the Sumba population.

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Sumba (Indonesian: Pulau Sumba) is an island in eastern Indonesia. It is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has a highly stratified society based on castes. This is especially true of East Sumba, whereas West Sumba is more ethnically and linguistically diverse. Twenty-five to thirty percent of the population practices the animist Marapu religion. The remainder are Christian, a majority being Dutch Calvinist with a substantial minority being Roman Catholic. A small number of Sunni Muslims can be found along the coastal areas. Sumba is famous for ikat textiles, particularly very detailed hand-woven ikat. The process of dying and weaving ikat is labor-intensive and one piece can take months to prepare.