The Maluku Islands or the Moluccas are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located east of Sulawesi, west of New Guinea, and north and east of Timor. Lying within Wallacea, the Moluccas have been considered a geographical and cultural intersection of Asia and Oceania.
As it is a country with many different tribes and ethnic groups, the music of Indonesia itself is also very diverse, coming in hundreds of different forms and styles. Every region has its own culture and art, and as a result traditional music from area to area also uniquely differs from one another. For example, each traditional music are often accompanied by their very own dance and theatre. Contemporary music scene have also been heavily shaped by various foreign influences, such as America, Britain, Japan, Korea, and India.
Biak is the main island of Biak Archipelago located in Cenderawasih Bay near the northern coast of Papua, an Indonesian province, and is just northwest of New Guinea. Biak has many atolls, reefs, and corals.
The culture of Indonesia has been shaped by long interaction between original indigenous customs and multiple foreign influences. Indonesia is centrally-located along ancient trading routes between the Far East, South Asia and the Middle East, resulting in many cultural practices being strongly influenced by a multitude of religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Islam, all strong in the major trading cities. The result is a complex cultural mixture, often different from the original indigenous cultures.
Buru is the third largest island within the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. It lies between the Banda Sea to the south and Seram Sea to the north, west of Ambon and Seram islands. The island belongs to Maluku province and includes the Buru and South Buru regencies. Their administrative centers, Namlea and Namrole, respectively, have ports and are the largest towns of the island, served by Namlea Airport and Namrole Airport respectively.
Maluku is a province of Indonesia. It comprises the central and southern regions of the Maluku Islands. The largest city and capital of Maluku province is Ambon on the small Ambon Island. It is directly adjacent to North Maluku, Southwest Papua, and West Papua in the north, Central Sulawesi, and Southeast Sulawesi in the west, Banda Sea, Australia, East Timor and East Nusa Tenggara in the south and Arafura Sea, Central Papua and South Papua in the east. The land area is 57803.81 km2, and the total population of this province at the 2010 census was 1,533,506 people, rising to 1,848,923 at the 2020 census, the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 1,908,753. Maluku is located in Eastern Indonesia.
South Maluku, also South Moluccas, officially the Republic of South Maluku, is an unrecognised secessionist republic that originally claimed the islands of Ambon, Buru, and Seram, which currently make up the Indonesian province of Maluku.
Jaipongan, also known as Jaipong is a popular traditional dance of Sundanese people from Indonesia. The dance was created by Gugum Gumbira, based on the traditional Sundanese Ketuk Tilu music and pencak silat movements.
The Ambonese, also known as Moluccans, are an ethnic group of mixed Austronesian and Melanesian origin. They are majority Christians followed by Muslims. The Ambonese are from Ambon Island in Maluku, an island group east of Sulawesi and north of Timor in Indonesia. They also live on the southwest of Seram Island; which is part of the Moluccas, Java, New Guinea; on the West Papua side and other regions of Indonesia. Additionally, there are about 35,000 Ambonese people living in the Netherlands. By the end of the 20th century, there were 258,331 Ambonese people living in Ambon, Maluku.
Cakalele dance is a war dance from North and Central Maluku in Indonesia. Hybrid versions also exist among the natives of Sulawesi, Timor, and the Tanimbar Islands. The dance is performed by men, two of whom represent opposing captains or leaders while the others are the warriors supporting them. After an opening ritual, the captains engage in a mock-duel with a spear (sanokat) and long knife (lopu) while their supporters use a long knife in the right hand and a narrow wooden shield in the left hand. The shield is referred to as a salawaku, or by a local name such as the Tobelo o dadatoko. The cakalele originated as a way for the warriors to celebrate after a successful raid. Dancers dress in full warrior costume and are backed by the rhythm of the drum and gong (tifa) and fife (sulin).
Thomas Matulessy, also known as Kapitan Pattimura or simply Pattimura, was a famous Ambonese soldier who became a symbol of both the Maluku and Indonesian struggle for independence, praised by President Sukarno and declared a national hero by President Suharto. He has several namesakes in both the Netherlands and in the Indonesian archipelago.
Dance in Indonesia reflects the country's diversity of ethnicities and cultures. There are more than 1,300 ethnic groups in Indonesia. Austronesian roots and Melanesian tribal forms are visible, and influences ranging from neighboring Asian and even western styles through colonization. Each ethnic group has its own dances: there are more than 3,000 original dance forms in Indonesia. The old traditions of dance and drama are being preserved in the numerous dance schools which flourish not only in the courts but also in the modern, government-run or supervised art academies.
Kei is an Austronesian language spoken in a small region of the Moluccas, a province of Indonesia.
Buru people is an ethnic group mostly living on Indonesian island Buru, as well as on some other Maluku Islands. They also call themselves Gebfuka or Gebemliar, which literally means "people of the world" or "people of the land". Buru people are related to the eastern Indonesian anthropological group and from an ethnographic point of view are similar to other indigenous peoples of the island Buru. They speak the Buru language.
Papeda, or bubur sagu, is a type of congee made from sago starch. It is a staple food of the people indigenous to Eastern Indonesia, namely parts of Sulawesi, the Maluku Islands and Papua. It is also widespread in Papua New Guinea and serves as the counterpart to central and western Indonesian cuisines that favour rice as their staple food.
Serua is an almost extinct Austronesian language originally spoken on Serua Island in Maluku, Indonesia. Speakers were relocated to Seram due to volcanic activity on Serua. The language continues in communities in Waipia in Seram, where the islanders were resettled, along with those also from Nila and Teun. Here, the older generation retain the island language as a strong form of identity.
Sangirese or Sangihe people are one of the native people of the Sangir Islands in the northern chain of islands in Sulawesi and the southern part of Mindanao. The Sangirese people are fishermen and nutmeg growers in their home areas and also work as wage labourers in industrial crops enterprises in Bolaang Mongondow Regency and Minahasa Regency.
A tifa totobuang is a music ensemble from the Maluku Islands, related to the kulintang orchestra. It consists of a set of a double row of gong chimes known as the totobuang and a set of tifa drums. It can also include a large gong.
The tifa, tiwa or tiva is a single-headed goblet drum used throughout the Maluku Islands of Eastern Indonesia, where it is traditionally the "dominant instrument" in Maluku province music. The term tifa has been used outside of the Maluku Islands, including on the island of Java and on the island of New Guinea, in Indonesia's Papua province.
