Village elders from the Bajo communities at Mantigola and Mola narrate stories of their ancestors’ arrival in the Tukang Besi Islands via the island of Buton during the nineteenth century. Two respected village elders, Si Bilaning and Si Mbaga, [7] both reported that the first settlement or congregation area for boat-dwelling Bajo in the Tukang Besi Islands was on Kaledupa at Lembonga. Lembonga is located near to the present day settlement of La Hoa on the northern side of the island, not far from Buranga, the old capital of Kaledupa Island. Later, many Bajo moved to the other side of the island, to what is now Mantigola, to fish during the east monsoon. They would then return to Lembonga at the onset of the west monsoon. The establishment of Mantigola came about when the Bajo asked the Sultan of Buton for a permit to build houses there because it was closer to the offshore reefs than Lembonga.
A Bajo man from Mantigola stated that the name ‘Mantigola’ comes from the phrase menanti gula, which means ‘to wait for sugar’ in Indonesian. The story behind its name is interesting in light of the Tukang Besi–Roti Island connections. Apparently, Binongko traders would sail to Roti to buy gula air (sugar from the lontar palm) which they then carried back to the Tukang Besi Islands and sold to Bajo and land-based people at the site of present day Mantigola. Binongko traders have a long established trading connection with Pepela and the local Rotinese population. Some of the first maritime settlers in Pepela were Binongko men.
The oral accounts provided by Si Bilaning and Si Mbaga concerning the Bajo arrival and settlement in Kaledupa may be compared with a record made by Pak Kasmin, a Bajo from Mola Utara, who graduated in 1993 from Haluoleo University with a teaching qualification. Pak Kasmin documented the story of the arrival of the Bajo in Kaledupa based on interviews with a number of elderly men in Mola and Mantigola, including Si Bilaning and Si Mbaga:
Before the Bajo came to the Tukang Besi Islands they lived in Pasar Wajo [south coast of Buton]. Sometime in the 1850s, several perahu bidu [large wooden boats] and perahu soppe [small wooden boats] left to survey the condition of the Tukang Besi Islands. They found the islands to be in a very strategic location and with rich seas possible for development. After that, they returned to Pasar Wajo to request a permit from the Sultan of Buton; they were given a permit to move to live in the Tukang Besi Islands. The Bajo people who moved to the Tukang Besi Islands were led by two punggawa [leaders], Puah Kandora and Puah Doba. They sailed in groups in several perahu [wooden boats] with several heads of family in each perahu. They first stopped at Lia on Wanci Island. Not long after they moved to Lembonga in the northeast part of Kaledupa, and there they lived on their perahu bidu or soppe and caught fish and gathered other kinds of sea products, and at that time they still lived moving from place to place. During the northeast season they moved to the southwest part of Kaledupa, known by the name Kampung Mantigola, and they returned to Lembonga during the west season. The arrival of the Bajo people in the Tukang Besi Islands was welcomed by the Government and the local society and they asked for a permit to build houses in Mantigola in the 1850s (Kasmin 1993: 32–3).
According to Sopher (1977: 151, 268), in the nineteenth century the headman of each Bajo group had the title of punggawa — the customary title of chiefs or leaders amongst the Bajo-Bugis, or Bajo owing allegiance to Bugis or Makassar princes. The Bugis used the term to mean a military chief or ship’s captain (Pelras 1996: 332). According to the Mola Bajo, Puah Doba, a Bugis leader mentioned in the above story, was also called Daeng Nyirrang. He married a Bajo woman and therefore there are close kinship links between the two groups. Bajo often say ‘orang Bugis saudara kita’ (‘Bugis are our brothers’).
During the nineteenth century the original capital of Wanci Island was at Lia Togo, situated atop a ridge with commanding views of the surrounding sea and islands, especially Kaledupa. The location was chosen for safety from Taosug slave raiders and pirates. Most of the Wanci population lived in the higher regions of the island, and settlement along the coast was relatively recent. The central market and commercial area previously operated from Lia Mawi on the coast. Following pacification of the area by Dutch colonial powers, a small Bajo community was established at Lia Mawi but the capital moved to the Wanse-Pongo area (Donohue 1994: 4). It is unclear whether the old Bajo settlement in present day Mola Utara was established at this time, but Si Juda from Mantigola stated that the original inhabitants of Mola came from the villages of Lagoro and Lasalimu on the eastern coast of Buton. Until the 1950s, Mantigola was the largest Bajo settlement in the Tukang Besi Islands. After this time, Bajo from Mantigola embarked on a major migration to Mola. Bajo were also driven out by rebellion and inter-community conflicts.
[7] Si Bilaning, one of the oldest Bajo men in Mantigola, died in late 1994, and Si Mbaga, one of the oldest Bajo men in Mola Selatan (and a contemporary of Si Bilaning) died in May 1996.