Chief’s House

Sumatra


Bawomataluo's two streets meet opposite the impressive chief’s house, which is thought to be both the oldest and the largest on Nias. You can poke around its heavy wooden-beamed interior and admire the drum that signals the beginning and end of meetings, as well as the original wooden carvings and rows of pigs’ jawbones. Outside is the chief’s stone throne, next to a large stone phallus and stone tables where the deceased were once left to decay.


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