Banggai Erotic

The Banggai take their name from an island and from a crown. They are the native people of the Banggai Archipelago, a scatter of islands off the eastern arm of Sulawesi in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province. For centuries, being Banggai meant belonging to the Banggai kingdom, whose ruler held the title Tomundo. Most Banggai live on Peling, the largest island. The smaller island of Banggai to the south was the royal seat. Today the islands are divided between two regencies, Banggai Kepulauan and Banggai Laut. Many Banggai also live across the strait on the mainland around Luwuk. On the islands they live alongside Bajau communities, the region's sea people.

Their language, also called Banggai, belongs to the small Saluan-Banggai group of Sulawesi languages, part of the Austronesian family. Its closest relatives are spoken by the Saluan and Balantak on the peninsula facing the islands, so the water between them has worked more like a road than a border. Nearly everyone also speaks Indonesian, the language of school, government and trade.

Most Banggai are Muslim. That goes back to the long period when the kingdom was a vassal of the Sultanate of Ternate, far to the northeast. There are also Christian communities, and older beliefs about ancestors and the spirits of land and sea have not fully faded under either faith. The Dutch took control of the kingdom in the colonial era, and after independence it became part of Indonesia. The palace in Banggai town is no longer a seat of power, but it is still the center of the old court's ceremonies.

The best-known of those ceremonies links the islands to the mainland. It is called Tumpe. Every year, the first eggs of the maleo are collected near Batui on the mainland and carried across the sea to Banggai as an offering to the old court. The maleo is a large bird found almost nowhere but Sulawesi, and it buries its eggs in warm ground instead of sitting on them. The custom grew out of Batui's old duty to send tribute to the Banggai rulers. It is still done with full ceremony, and it shows how long a relationship can outlast the political order that created it. Everyday life depends on the sea and the garden: fishing, coconuts grown for copra, and root crops. The islands are especially known for their many local varieties of yam, called ubi Banggai, which islanders treat as a staple of their own.