Nias is an island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, separated by a dangerous 100 kilometre strait.  Its  isolation has created a unique culture. They called themselves Ono Niha. The pre-Christian religion was ancestor worship. They are now 80% Protestant, 10% Catholic and 10% Moslem.

Marriages had to be arranged between people from different clans to avoid inbreeding. Daughters were married to other clans and villages.

Nias people were hierarchical and divided into 3 classes; noble men, commoners and until the beginning of the twentieth century, slaves. Each class had levels. The chiefs were the highest, close to the gods. Noblemen governed.  Slaves were the lowest.

Nias was drawn into the international trade between China and India and Indonesia and Sumatra from the 8th century. Nias had copra, pigs and slaves (but no spices). The local aristocrats became rich, patrons of the arts and declared themselves gods. Their way of life largely continued until the 20th century, in virtual isolation, even after the Spice Trade ended.

Slaves were divided into 3 levels; prisoners of war, people who could not pay their debts, and criminals with a death sentence who had been pardoned. Prisoners of war were the lowest level and were sometimes sacrificed when human heads were needed for ceremonies. Slave trading provided great wealth and enabled the amassing of gold jewelry.

It was a tribal society. Each village had its own chief. The most impressive villages were in the south. One of the main reasons for war against other villages or clans was to procure slaves and to plunder gold ornaments.

Elderly people were respected and dead parents and ancestors worshiped. Ancestors were represented by wooden Adu Zatua sculptures and prayers and offerings were made to them. When someone died the family would carve the Adu Zatua, which was unveiled on the fourth day after death. They believed that the spirit of the deceased person was in the statue and everything that happened within the family was communicated to the statue.

Sacrifices to the Adu Zatua were made at births, weddings and deaths, and to request help. The statues were kept in the main room of the house. Some big traditional houses had hundreds of statues filling the entire room.

German Protestant missionaries, followed by Catholic missionaries, organised mass conversions and burnings of wooden ancestor figures from the mid-19th century. Many statues were also destroyed  during the ‘great penitence’ religious movement that swept Nias in 1916. As symbols of the old religion, they were seen as blasphemous idols.