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| The traditonal Ngada village layout is two rows of high-roofed houses on low stilts. These face each other across an open space which contains ngadhu and bhaga and groups of human-high stone slivers surrounding horizontal slabs. The latter, which appear to be graves of important ancestors, have led to some exotic theories about the Ngada's origin. Traditionally, the Ngada believe themselves to have come from Java and they may have settled here three centuries ago. But stone structures which are in varying degrees similar to these 'graves' crop up in other remote parts of Indonesia- among them Pulau Nias, Sumatra's Batak Highlands, parts of Sulawesi, Sumba and Tanimbar- as well as in Malaysia and Laos. The common thread is thought to be the Dogson culture, which arose in Southern China and Nothern Vietnam about 2700 years ago then migrated into Indonesia, bringing, among other things, the practice of erecting large monumental stones (megaliths). This practice, it is thought, survived only in isolated areas which were not in contact with later cultural changes. | ||||||
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