We’ve already been at Keyhole for ten days, and seeing as it’s a grey old day today, we decide to go and watch the stone jumpers. This is Nias’ big tourist attraction. The island is renowned for its traditional houses, ancient sculptures and its stone “steles” (immense slabs). The latter have been placed to form a wall in the centre of the ancestral villages. Leaping onto this wall was seen as a ritual preparation for combat or war. For these Indonesian tribes prestige was not inherited. A tribesman had to prove himself with this spectacular initiation-rite jump. Chase, Davos and Pete get the motorbikes out for this confrontation with the island’s challenging roads, to go and check out for themselves the truth about these stone-jumping warriors. We head for Fahombo. Parking the bikes in front of a little general store, we go in and sit down for a coffee, and very soon the owner is giving us a taste of his coconut alcoholic beverage, a kind of rough spirit that burns the inside of your mouth.
Davos is well taken with this and sinks a few glasses as if it was milkshake. Suitably lubricated, we make our way to the centre of the village to visit the chief’s palace. It’s a big, dark building on stilts; a traditional construction, which we explore in silence before meeting the man. He’s wearing a ceremonial costume, relatively young-looking, short but stocky. He’s got the thighs of a rugby player, and his dad is there to collect the monetary patronage required for the jump.
