Sikka: Traces of A Kingdom

Dino skillfully drove the minivan through impossibly narrow roads, sandwiched between steep slopes and the southern beaches of eastern Flores, with patches of renovation work along the way to our destination. Sikka Natar was a sleepy beachfront village where only a little remained from the time when it was the political center of a kingdom controlling much of the eastern portion of the island. When the last king of Sikka died in 1954, however, the capital had shifted to Maumere in the northern coast.

Not far from where Dino parked the car a big timber structure built on large stilts stood in solitude. The silence was only broken by the sound of crashing waves and the giggles of two children playing football inside the derelict building. It was Lepo Geté, the former residence of Sikkanese royal family. Across the somber palace laid the tombs of some of Sikka’s deceased royal family members, clad in bright ceramic tiles with wooden crosses mounted on each tomb.

“In Flores people often bury the bodies of their dead family members in front of their houses,” Dino said and quickly added, “so when a ceremony is being held in the house the dead person’s spirit can join.”

In many parts of Indonesia animism is still widely practiced alongside with the religions that later came to the archipelago, and Flores is no exception.

“But the true benefit of burying the dead bodies in front of their houses is to prove their ownership of the property if a dispute arises many years later,” he explained.