Ata Tana 'Ai - History and Cultural Relations

The mythic histories of the ceremonial domains of Tana 'Ai recount the arrival of ancestors who founded the Tana 'Ai clans ( sukun ) and established Tana 'Ai society by the delegation of rights to land and rituals to later ancestors. Direct contact with Europeans came later to the Ata Tana 'Ai than to other peoples of the regency of Sikka. Dutch records to the year 1905 rarely mention the Tana 'Ai region, and Dutch colonial officers began making irregular patrols in the mountains only in the 1930s. Sovereignty over Tana 'Ai was, until the Dutch confirmed the present boundary in 1904, a point of dispute between the rajas of Larantuka (East Flores) and Sikka. Until the 1970s, the principal medium of contact between the Ata Tana 'Ai and outsiders was the Catholic Church, whose mission was staffed primarily by European priests. Since 1970, the regency government has established roads, markets, and schools in the interior of the region.

The Tana 'Ai region is wholly contained within Kecamatan (district of Talibura). The northern region of the district includes, in addition to those of the Ata Tana 'Ai, communities of speakers of Lamaholot, the language of Larantuka (Kabupaten Flores Timur) to the east of Sikka. The Ata Tana 'Ai and Ata Sikka call the Lamaholot speakers of Kabupaten Sikka "Ata Muhang." Despite differences of language, relations of the Ata Tana 'Ai with the Lamaholot-speaking people of the eastern slopes of the Ili Wukoh Range are generally closer than with Sara Sikka-speaking peoples to the west. Ata Tana 'Ai trade regularly with the people of Watubuku on the south coast of East Flores and occasionally cooperate with communities of western Larantuka in the performance of rituals. Some intermarriage of Ata Tana 'Ai with people of Sikka Natar has occurred since the Ata Sikka began opening coconut plantations on the south coast of the Tana 'Ai region in the 1930s.