Abui people
Two women in dance outfit from Worbain, southeast of Alor Island.
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (Approximately 16,000 (2000)) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Indonesia (Alor Island) |
|
| Languages | |
| Abui language, Alor Malay, Indonesian | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism; predominantly), Animism (traditionally), Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Papuan people |
The Abui are an indigenous ethnic group (also known as Barawahing, Barue or Namatalaki) residing on Alor Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Abui people are spread across the districts of South Alor, East Alor, and Northwest Alor in Alor Regency. Abui people speak the Abui language, as well as Indonesian, and a Malay-based creole, Alor Malay.
The term Abui is an Abui word that means ‘mountains’ or alternatively ‘enclosed place’.
Abui people refer to themselves as Abui loku ‘the mountain people’. The bare term Abui is often associated with the large mountain range in central Alor, Abui foka, and is often contrasted to the smaller mountain range in the Kabola/Adang speaking area Abui kiding in the bird's head of Alor. The language is referred to as Abui tanga in the Takalelang variety (the most well-studied variety) and Abui laral in the Welai, Mola, and Mainang varieties. The glossonym Abui was first introduced by Cora Du Bois in the late 1930s after the ethnonym was already in circulation.
This ethnonym is also used in Alor Malay/Indonesian to refer to Abui speakers.
According to Abui oral tradition, Abui people settled in Alor in ancient times and did not find other settlers there. Later some of them moved to the Kabola peninsula. The same tradition accounts that they dwelled in caves in the mountains in the Mainang area. In this area also some rock art is found. Abui refer to neighbouring tribes as ‘younger siblings’ or as ‘new arrivals’. However, the oral tradition in Alor serves too often as a political instrument. The oral tradition has not been verified by archaeological research yet.
The American anthropologist Cora Du Bois studied and lived among Abui people from 1937-1939 in the village of Atimelang, resulting in the publication, The People of Alor. Around the same time, the Dutch sociologist Martha Margaretha Nicolspeyer published a study of the Abui social structure.
Abui people from Takpala village engage in a traditional dance known as lego-lego, in which dancers move in a circular pattern. Gongs and mokos are also beaten.
The original religion of the inhabitants of Alor Islands was animistic until much later when Protestant missionaries arrived. Majority of the Alor Island communities are Christians, except for those living along the coast line tend to be Muslims as most of the Muslims living there migrated from other islands.However, several coastal communities, particularly in the Bird's head, tend to be Muslim, and this includes the Alorese (the only Austronesian speaking group in Alor Pantar) and Kui ethnic groups.
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Wikipedia