The
Mentawai Islands are a chain of about seventy islands and islets off the western coast of
Sumatra in
Indonesia.
Siberut (4,030 km²) is the largest of the islands. The other major islands are
Sipura,
North Pagai (
Pagai Utara) and
South Pagai (
Pagai Selatan). The islands lie approximately 150 km off the Sumatran coast, across the
Mentawai Strait. The indigenous inhabitants of the islands are known as the
Mentawai people. The Mentawai Islands have become a noted destination for
surfing.
Following the Pleistocene glaciation, the Mentawai Islands were separated once more from the Sumatran mainland by rising sea levels. The Mentawai people are estimated to have arrived on the islands somewhere between 2000 and 500 BCE, migrating from the north through Siberut and then moving south to Sipora and the Pagai islands. Their Austronesian language, their customs and habits of life indicated as early as Crisp's report an origin that was distinct from the nearby coast of Sumatra.
The Portuguese were aware of the islands early in the 17th century a map dated 1606 shows Siberut as "Mintaon". In August 1792 John Crisp, an employee of the British East India Company, visited the Pagai ("Poggy") islands at his own expense to study the Mentawai people. His account was published in 1799,[1] providing the first details of the Mentawai people in western literature. The Mentawai Islands officially became part of the Dutch East Indies on 10 July 1864, not having been subject to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. In 1901 the German Royal Missionary Society established a presence on the south coast of North Pagai island at the invitation of the Dutch colonial authorities. The first missionary was murdered, and it wasn't until 1915 that the first person was converted, with the program then being extended to other islands.
After Indonesian independence, Catholic Italian missionaries established a presence in the islands. Post-independence government policies relocated the indigenous population into villages, in contrast to their traditional dispersed house groups (uma), with the aim of promoting "development". Cultural tourism started to develop in the late 1980s, and when in the mid-1990s world-class waves were discovered by some Australian surfers, surfing tourism started to develop.
