Ata Sikka - History and Cultural Relations



Native tradition attributes the foundation of the rajadom of Sikka to Don (g) Alésu, an ancestor of the royal house of Sikka Natar, who is said to have journeyed to Malakka where he converted to Christianity. Don Alésu then returned to Flores to found the domain of Sikka and to recognize the rajas of Nita and Kangae as his "left" and "right" hands. Documents from 1613 list Sikka as one of the (Portuguese) Christian states of the area. Under the Dutch, the three native domains and their rulers were separately recognized until 1929, when Nita and Kangae were united with Sikka to form a single domain under the raja of Sikka. The Dutch gave the rajadom of Sikka the status of an autonomous region ( daerah swapraja ) under the administrative supervision of the raja of Sikka, who shifted the seat of his government from Sikka Natar to the town of Maumere. The last raja of Sikka to serve as head of government, Ratu Mo'ang Bako Don Josephus Thomas Ximenes da Silva, died in 1952 and within a few years the territory and peoples of the rajadom became part of the modern Republic of Indonesia.


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