Description
South Sulawesi is home to a number of Austronesian (Malay) tribes known as the Bugis, who are believed to have migrated from the Malay Peninsula around a thousand years ago. They have proven themselves to be skilled shipbuilders, whose reputation has spread throughout Indonesia and as far as Australia. Here in the village of Tanah Baru on the Gulf of Bone, the bulbous Prahu sailing boats are still built according to old Dutch shipbuilding plans, completely without metal or nails. The planks of the hulls are joined together with wooden pegs. The Bugis in South Sulawesi were converted to Islam by the Sultanate of Makassar, to which they remained loyal during and after the Dutch colonisation of their island. – 1990
