The Mentawai islands are located some 130 km to the west of the west coast of central Sumatra, specifically the province of West Sumatra and its provincial capital Padang. There are four islands in the group. The largest, and most northerly is Siberut. Immediately to the south is Sipora which lies a little way to the north of the two islands which complete the group, North and South Pagai.
The islands are administered under the umbrella of the province of West Sumatra, one of 33 constituting the Republic of Indonesia. They form a lower level adminstrative unit on their own, the recently formed Kabupaten (Regency) of (the) Mentawai (Islands) (Kabupaten Kepulauan Mentawai, formerly Kabupaten Padang/Pariaman) which is further divided into a number of districts, or Kecamatan. The islands are divided amongst four such Kecamatan: North Siberut, South Siberut, Sipora, and North and South Pagai which together constitute one Kecamatan. Population figures (c.2000): North Siberut, 15 161; South Siberut, 14 757. Sipora, 12 840. North and South Pagai, 20 974. (Source Regional Autonomy Website). For further information on Regional Autonomy relating to the islands click here.
The inhabitants of the islands in the present can be divided into indigenous and immigrant populations. The origins of the indigenous people are briefly described elsewhere. They all speak dialectical variants of the language indigenous to the Mentawai Islands, with most speaking the Indonesian national language and a minority the Minangkabau language. The indigenous language dialects are spoken in North Siberut, South Siberut, Sipora, and the Pagai Islands. Immigrants include people from North Sumatra (Batak), West Sumatra (Minangkabau) who represent the bulk of the non-indigenous population, and Javanese, along with representatives at one time or another of most of the other ethnic groups in Indonesia as well as the odd Euroamerican residing in a professional capacity (missionary, research, social/humanitarian aid).
On Siberut people mostly live in small settlements[1] dotted along the major rivers or close to the coast. They commute back and forth between dwellings in the settlement and dwellings located on ancestral land at varying degrees of distance from it. There they raise pigs and pursue a variety of horticultural activities, such as harvesting fruit when in season, durian and jackfruit for example, along with many other naturally occurring species. Chickens are often raised close to the settlement. Sago palms are also tended in low-lying swampy locations, usually contiguous with a river.
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