10 kilometres south of Bajawa, the near-perfect cone of Inerie stands tall over Ngada territory. The verdant highlands around the volcano are dotted with many ancient villages, of which Bena is the most famous, perched on a lip of land rearing up over the adjacent valley. Here, the houses of wood, bamboo and alang-alang grass line a series of interlocking terraces populated with megalithic structures, culminating in a shaded lookout and a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Catholicism had arrived in Bajawa only in 1978, and beneath the thin veneer of this new religion, ancestor worship was clearly alive and well.
In Bena there were constant reminders of the village forebears. Soon after we arrived, Dino pointed out three kinds of totems whose numbers corresponded to the founding group of settlers. The umbrella-shaped ngadhu represented male ancestors, depicting warriors clothed in alang-alang with a ribbon tied around the head, their wiry arms brandishing a spear and knife. Miniature houses, known as bhaga, stood for female ancestors, and these were of special significance in matrilineal Ngada society. Between the structures, small standing stones pierced the ground, each one symbolising a child within the founding group.
Dino was quick to add that the totems were not limited to the central communal area. Each house in Bena belonged to a separate clan, and those descended from the original ancestors displayed a miniature house or a warrior on the ridge of their roof, signifying their position as a men’s or women’s clan.
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