Mentawai People
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Mentawai People
Mentawai (also known as Mentawei and Mentawi) people are the native 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 to 500 BCE. The Mentawai language belongs to the Austronesian language family. They 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 sp ...
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Nias
Nias ( id, Pulau Nias, Nias language: ''Tanö Niha'') (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre, but also includes the Batu Islands to the south-east and the small Hinako Islands to the west. Nias Island covers an area of (including the Batu Islands to the south and minor offshore islands). It is mostly a lowland area rising to around above sea level. There were 756,338 inhabitants on the island (including the Batu Islands and minor offshore islands) at the 2010 Census; at the 2015 Census this had risen to 798,506 and the 2020 Census resulted in a total of 880,550.Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2021. Geography and history It is located in a chain of islands parallel to the west coast of Sumatra; Simeulue is about northwest, and the Batu Islands (which are administered as part of Nias and have an ethnically similar populatio ...
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BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded public-service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks worldwide. Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming, and while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind previously broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, no ...
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Kurabit
Kurabit (also Kuraibi, Koraibi or Koraibit) is a traditional shield originating from the Mentawai Islands (generally from Siberut) off the coast of West Sumatra, Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui .... Description The Kurabit is a long, slightly curved wooden shield. It is made of a lightweight wood and has a coconut central boss. Its straight upper side is rather broad. Looking down it, the shield becomes a little narrower and then somewhat broader until about halfway. From here it tapers towards a blunt tip. Just above the centre the grip is cut out of the shield. The subsequent holes are covered using half a coconut shell attached by means of rattan. A Kurabit is usually decorated with geometrical, coloured motifs on both sides. Spirals (''patogalik'') ar ...
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Palitai
Palitai (or Palite, Parittei, Pattei) is the traditional knife of the Mentawai people, originating from the Mentawai Islands off West Sumatra, Indonesia. Description The Palitai has a straight and double edged blade. The handle is uniquely long, slim and curiously curved in shape. It is a knife with a smooth blade on both edges of which are sharpened and run parallel. The edges come together at the tip to the end in a sharp point. The blade has in the middle along the entire length an elevated rib. The steel used to produce blades was imported from Sumatra, as forging was unknown on Mentawai islands. The blades were finished in the desired form on the spot. The total length may vary from 30 cm to 1 m. The hilt of the Palitai is thin and long, at the blade still rather broad but becoming thinner to run long and elegantly into an almost sharp tip or decorated end. The hilt has a round thicker part just past half way. The Palitai is carried on the right, in the loin-cloth ...
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Loin Cloth
A loincloth is a one-piece garment, either wrapped around itself or kept in place by a belt. It covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks. Loincloths which are held up by belts or strings are specifically known as breechcloth or breechclout.U.S. National Park Service
Retrieved on 2009-12-22.

. Retrieved on 2009-12-22.
Often, the flaps hang down in front and back.


History and types

Loincloths are worn in societies where no other clothing is needed or wanted. Loincloths are commonly used as an

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Longhouse
A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often represent the earliest form of permanent structure in many cultures. Types include the Neolithic long house of Europe, the Norman Medieval Longhouses that evolved in Western Briton (''Tŷ Hir)'' and Northern France (''Longère)'' and the various types of longhouse built by different cultures among the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Europe *The Neolithic long house type was introduced with the first farmers of central and western Europe around 5000 BCE, 7,000 years ago. These were farming settlements built in groups of six to twelve and were home to large extended families and kin. *The Germanic cattle-farmer longhouses emerged along the southwestern North Sea coast in the third or fourth century BCE and may be the ancestors of sever ...
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