John Borthwick ventures to the Indonesian island of Sumba in search of the perfect wave
Sumba makes Bali seem like Manhattan. This high, undulating island of 11,150sqkm is home to about 500,000 people who, despite their veneer of missionary Christianity, remain animists and ancestor worshippers. Roughly halfway between Bali and Timor, the island is, according to Australian anthropologist Lawrence Blair, “a time capsule of our earliest beginnings”. Within minutes of leaving the airport at Tambolaka in western Sumba, I notice men sporting ikat turbans and parang swords cantering along the road on tough little horses.
These ponies and their equally sturdy riders are the stars in Sumba’s celebrated ritual, the Pasola, battles on horseback that take place each February and March.
In this dangerous war game, hundreds of horsemen thunder across a large field flinging wooden spears at each other. The national government still allows the jousts to take place but these days insists that the spears at least be blunt. Officials realise they have no chance of banning the tournament as Pasola is far more than a display of machismo and horsemanship. It is integral to the island’s animist Marapu belief system. Despite the blunted spears, serious injuries are common and there are even occasional deaths. Rather than regretting these, the Sumbanese believe that blood spilled on the earth during Pasola will ensure a fruitful harvest and their survival.
