Mentawai Islands Regency

The Mentawai Islands are a group of islands belonging to Indonesia southwest of Sumatra. They belong to the province of Sumatera Barat ( West Sumatra ).

Population

The inhabitants of the Mentawai Islands are among the most primitive peoples of Indonesia and speak their own language Austronesian. In contrast to the Minangkabau on the adjacent mainland, they were not Islamized, but hung until well into the 20th century animistic nature religions. Through intensive missionary activities, however, a large part of the Mentawai islanders to Christianity has become one (about 80 %, of which 2/3 Protestant and 1/3 of Catholics ).

Geography

They are - through the strait Selat Mentawai separately - about 130 km off Sumatra include approximately 6,700 km ² and has 77 376 inhabitants ( 2011). The largest islands are Siberut, Sipora, Nordpagai ( Pagai Utara ), Südpagai ( Pagai Selatan ) and to the south the smaller Sanding.

To the north, beyond the Strait Selat Siberut, lie the Batu Islands, in the South are mega and Enggano.

History

After the last ice age, the islands were separated by rising sea levels and thus created the Mentawai Strait of Sumatra. From 2000 BC the ancestors of today's Mentawai residents reached first, the northernmost island of Siberut, and settled successively the southern neighboring islands. They differ in language and customs of the inhabitants of Sumatra.

1606 appeared Siberut for the first time as Mintaon on a Portuguese map of 1792 reached a ship of the British East India Company the Pagai Islands. In July 1864, the islands were officially part of the Dutch East Indies. Beginning of 1899 the Mentawai Strait was explored by the German Valdivia expedition. 1901 taught German missionaries on Nordpagai a station. After Indonesian independence were Catholic missionaries from Italy. Since the 1970s, was beaten on Siberut wood, until 1993, half of the island was made a national park under protection. From the 1980s, the government promoted tourism, from the mid- 1990s, Australians discovered the islands for surfing.

Management

The Mentawai islands form since 1999 within the province of West Sumatra, a government district ( kabupaten ) with its capital Tua Pejat on Sipora, which in turn into four districts ( Kecamatan ) is divided.

Nature

The islands are flat and partially covered by tropical rain forests. In addition to indigenous peoples such as the Sakhai who still live according to their animist traditions, the islands are inhabited by the drawn people from Java and Sumatra. Tourism occupies a modest but growing importance.

The islands are home to a number of endemic species, including several primates such as the Kloss Gibbon, the pig-tailed snub nose, the Pagai macaque, the Siberut macaque and the Mentawai langur.

Disasters

As a result of the earthquake off Sumatra in 2004, the seismic activity beneath the island group has greatly increased, so that this area is increasingly observed as aftershock epicenter.

As a result of an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 south-west of the base of the plate it came on 26 October 2010 to a tsunami with at least 449 dead and hundreds injured, missing and homeless. The introduced as a result of the 2004 tsunami early warning system worked, the alarm was due to the short distance to the epicenter of the islands, however, too late. The day before, a tsunami alert was triggered as a result of an earthquake measuring 7.5 on Indonesia.