Indonesian ethnography

Indonesian ethnography or Indonesian anthropology is the study of the ethnographic or anthropological components of the Indonesian population. Its cultural components are the subject of cultural anthropology, and the physical ones of physical anthropology.

The indigenous people of Indonesia are of predominantly Malay origin. The most differentiated ethnic groups are the Javanese and Sundanese —who live mainly in Java and Madura—, the Balinese, on the island of Bali, and the Bataks in Atjehnese, in Sumatra. Other minority groups distributed throughout the islands are about twenty Malay ethnic groups, several million Chinese and other inhabitants of Asian origin. The number of Dutch people, which was estimated at around 60,000 at the end of the 1950s, has fallen to less than 10,000.

Ethnic groups in Indonesia

Ethnic groups

There are 1,340 recognized ethnic groups in Indonesia. The vast majority of them belong to the Austronesian peoples.

According to ethnic classification, the largest ethnic group in Indonesia is the Javanese, who make up about 40% of the total population. The Javanese are concentrated on the island of Java, particularly in the central and eastern parts. The Sundanese are the next largest group; their homeland is located in the western part of the island of Java and the southern tip of Sumatra. The Sunda Strait is named after him. Malays, Batak, Madurese, Batavi, Minangkabau and Bugis are the next largest groups in the country.

Many ethnic groups, particularly in Kalimantan and Papua, have only hundreds of members. Most of the local languages belong to the Austronesian language family, although a significant number of people, particularly in eastern Indonesia, speak unrelated Papuan languages. Chinese Indonesians make up just under 1% of the total Indonesian population according to the 2000 census. Some of these Chinese-ancestry Indonesians speak several Chinese languages, most notably Southern Min and Hakka.

The classification of ethnic groups in Indonesia is not rigid and in some cases unclear due to migrations, cultural and linguistic influences; for example, the Bantenese may be considered by some to be members of the Sundanese people; however, others argue that they are completely different ethnic groups as they have their own distinct dialects. This is also the case for the Badui people, who share many cultural similarities with the Sundanese people. An example of a hybrid ethnicity is the Batavi people, descendants not only of marriages between different native Indonesian peoples, but also of intermarriage with Arab, Chinese and Indian immigrants since the colonial era of Batavia (present-day Jakarta).

Ethnic groups with more than one million members

Ethnic distribution

The islands' mountain and sea barriers have protected the character and customs of many different ethnic groups, with great differences from valley to valley and even from city to city. The more isolated ethnic groups, living in the highlands of the large islands, Borneo, Sumatra and the Celebes, have remained unchanged until recently, in fact, until the arrival of Christian missionaries in the XIX. Even so, each island or group of islands east of Java has maintained its own character. Some islands, such as Bali, with a long Hindu and Buddhist tradition, differ markedly from the country's Muslim majority.

It is possible to establish a division of the ethnic groups between the east and the west of Indonesia, and add to this the original population of China and the increasingly numerous Indians and Europeans (Dutch descendants of the settlers).

Western Islands

The population in the east of the country can be divided into three main groups: rice societies, coastal traders, farmers and fishermen, and self-sufficient slash-and-burn farmers in the interior. The former, formerly Hindu and now Muslim, rice farmers in Java, Madura and Bali, make up three-fifths of the country's population, with a strongly traditional culture, made up mainly of Javanese (one-third of Indonesia's total population), Sundanese, Maduran and Balinese. The second group, the coastal Islamized peoples, are more heterogeneous, and include the Sumatran Malays and, from southern Celebes, the Makassarese and the Bugis. The third group, the mountain cultivators, who change their cultivation areas every few seasons and where the climate does not permit rice, tend to be small and isolated ethnic groups, such as the Batak, Toraja, Dayak, Kayan, Ngaju and Embaloh. Two groups stand out in the western islands, the Minangkabau, devout Muslim rice farmers with a matrilineal society, and the North Sulawesi Menadonians, a Christianized coastal community.

Eastern Islands

The inhabitants of this region are characterized by the traditional cultural divide between the coast and the interior, with beach towns and brush towns. The Moluccas islands fulfill this pattern. Typical of the coast are the Ambonians, who live on the island of Ambon and neighboring islands. This difference is especially notable in western New Guinea, with trading societies along the coast and isolated ethnic groups in the mountains of the interior.

Ethnic groups by region

[Traditional costume of the biak village.

Some ethnic groups are "indigenous" from certain regions of Indonesia. Due to migration within Indonesia (as part of the government's transmigration program or otherwise), significant proportions of those ethnic groups reside outside their traditional regions.

• Java: Javaneses (tenggerese, osing, banyumasan, etc.), sondans (banteneses, badui), cireboneses, batavi, madureses
• Madura: mature
• Sumatra: Malays, aceh, gay, wings, batak, minangkabau, rejang, lampung, nias, mentaweian, engganese, kubu, sekak and others.
• Kalimantan: dayak, banjar, malayos, kutai and others.
• Sulawesi: makassarese, bugines, mandaese, minahasa, toraya, gorontaloan, Bajau and others.
• Minor Islands of the Probe: bali aga, sasak, sumbawa, bimanes, manggarai, lamaholot, dawan, tetun, helong, roti, savu, sumba, aloreses and others.
• Molucas: alfur, amboness, nuaulu, manusela, wemale, tanimbares and others.
• Papua: dani, bauzi, asmat, amungme and others.

Non-indigenous ethnic groups

Throughout Indonesian history, various ethnic groups of foreign origin spread across the country in various waves of migration, generally settling in urban centers and rarely settling in rural parts of the country.

• Chinese: the most important ethnic minority of foreign origin in Indonesia, with an official amount of about 2.8 million, although other sources estimate them between 2 and 4 million. The Chinese began to migrate to Indonesia in the centuryXVIwith significant waves in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They are mainly concentrated in places called pecinan (Chinese bars) in the urban areas of Java, with a significant number in Jakarta, Surabaya, Tangerang, northern Sumatra, Riau, the Riau Islands, the Bangka-Belitung Islands and Western Borneo. They have now peacefully coexisted with local ethnic groups such as betawi or Batavi, Malay, Javanesee and are They are distributed by Indonesian archipelagos and significant amounts can be found in Palembang, Jakarta, Surabaya and other coastal cities.
• Indians: the Indians have also settled in the Indonesian archipelago; They are mainly concentrated in the urban centers, with a significant number around Pass Baru in Jakarta, and the best known in Kampung Madras in Medan. Nearly 95% of all Indian Indonesians live in the province of Sumatra del Norte.
• Indos: indos or Euro-Asian are people of mixed Indonesian and Dutch/European descent. They emerged in the colonial era of the Dutch East Indies. Today, less than a million Indonesians with varying degrees of mixed descent can trace their ancestors to Europeans. Today, Indians live mainly in Jakarta, many of them with dual citizenship, Dutch and Indonesian. Since 2011, approximately 124 000 indos live outside the Netherlands (including Indonesia).
• Mardicas: His name means "free man" and derives from the Dutch pronunciation of the Malay word "merdeka", which means "free". The ancestors of the Mardicates were enslaved by the Portuguese in India, Africa and the Malaya Peninsula. They were taken to Indonesia by the Dutch East India Company and were released just after establishing themselves here. For long periods of time, they have gradually returned to their respective countries of origin. However, they still exist in small quantities in the capital city today and retain their own distinctive culture characteristic of the Mardic people.
• Japanese: the Japanese initially emigrated to Indonesia after the defeat of the Japanese empire in World War II. In the following years, the percentage of Japanese decreased as they had emigrated back to Japan, and only a small number of former Japanese soldiers remained in Indonesia and became Indonesian citizens. The recent increase in Japanese residents in Indonesia has been driven by the increase in Japanese businesses and investments in the country since the 1990s, and most of these residents are expatriates who retain their Japanese citizenship. They live mainly in Jakarta and Bali.
• Arabs: the Arabs settled in the Indonesian archipelago; They concentrate mainly around Pass Kliwon in Surakarta, also in Jakarta, Surabaya, Malang, Probolinggo

Languages

Hundreds of different languages are spoken in Indonesia, most of which are Austronesian languages. The exceptions are in western New Guinea and in the Moluccas, where Papuan languages are used. There are three main languages in Java, Javanese, Sundanese and Madurese, while dozens are spoken in Sumatra, many of which are divided into dialects. In eastern Indonesia, each island has its own language, not understood by its neighbors. In the interior of Kalimantan (western Borneo), the languages differ from one town to another. The Torayas, who live south of the Celebes Islands, speak several languages.

The national language is Indonesian.