Mentawai people

The Mentawai (also known as Mantawai, Mentawei and Mentawi) people are the Austronesian people of the Mentawai Islands (principally Siberut, Sipura, North Pagai and South Pagai) about 100 miles from West Sumatra province, Indonesia. They live a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the coastal and rainforest environments of the islands and are also one of the oldest tribes in Indonesia. The Mentawai population is estimated to be about 64,000.

The Mentawai tribe is documented to have migrated from Nias – a northern island – to the Mentawai islands, living in an isolated life for centuries until they encountered the Dutch in 1621. The ancestors of the indigenous Mentawai people are believed to have first migrated to the region somewhere between 2000 and 500 BCE. The Mentawai language belongs to the Austronesian language family. hey follow their own animist belief system called Arat Sabulungan, that links the supernatural powers of ancestral spirits to the ecology of the rainforest. When the spirits are not treated well or forgotten, they might bring bad luck like illnesses and haunt those who forgot them. Mentawai also have very strong belief towards objects they think are holy. The people are characterized by their heavy spirituality, body art and their tendency to sharpen their teeth, a cultural practice tied to Mentawai beauty ideals.

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