Lamakera, Solor. Ethnohistory of a Muslim Whaling Village of Eastern Indonesia

Lamakera, Solor, is a Muslim village of traders and fishermen in the Lamaholot speaking region of eastern Indonesia, which in certain respects exemplifies what Pigeaud and Geertz have called pasisir cultures, Islamic coastal communities with far flung ties to similar communities elsewhere in the island world. However, they are also culturally and linguistically typical of the local Lamaholot-speaking region. For a period in the 17th century Lamakera was Catholic, but after an armed revolt against the Portuguese, it either became Muslim or reverted to that faith. Thereafter it was allied with the Dutch and opposed the Portuguese.