Servião

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
18th century map shows Belu (Bellos) and Servião (Naikenos)

Servião ( Dutch : Zerviaen, Uab Meto : Sorbian) is a former province of Timor , in which the western part of the island was combined by the Portuguese in the 17th and 18th centuries. The eastern province was called Belu , after the largest ethnic group of Belus, now called Tetum . In contrast, the Baiquenos (Vaiquenos, Naikenos), now called Atoin Meto , dominated Servião .

In ritual status, the Maromak Oan (the child of God) stood above the Liurai (Timorese ruler) in the hierarchy. While the Liurai embodied the masculine and active side, the Maromak Oan (only symbolically) represented the feminine and inactive. According to legend, the Maromak Oan had three sons: "Liurai" (roughly "outstanding from the earth"), Sonba'i (Senobay, Sonnebay) and the ancestors of the ruler of Likusaen ( Liquiçá ). Sonba'i ruled west Timor, which the Portuguese called Servião, the Dutch Zerviaen. Liurai founded Wehale in the center of the island and the east was ruled by Likusaen. Other stories call Luca the third empire instead of Likusaen.

Servião is first mentioned as Cerviaguo in a Portuguese medical encyclopedia from 1563, as one of two main ports on the north coast from which sandalwood was exported from Timor. In 1613 a Portuguese map finally lists the "Servião Reino" (Servião Empire), a little west of the Portuguese settlement of Lifau . Until the 1640s, the name “Servião” and its eastern counterpart “Belu” or its center Wehale did not appear in European reports.

At that time, Timor was split up into a multitude of small empires that were loosely allied with one another. In the 18th century, the Dutch succeeded in conquering most of West Timor , or in persuading the Liurais there to form an alliance with the Dutch East India Company .

A Portuguese source from 1769 lists the kingdoms of Serviãos: Allied with Portugal or under its sovereignty were Cuss ( Oe-Cusse ), Liphao ( Lifau ), Nammutte ( Noimuti ), Tulugritte, Batugade , Fialara and Tuli [c] ão. The last two were abandoned after the Dutch captured them. Allied with the Dutch were Amamebao ( Amanuban ), Amanassa ( Amarasi ), Eusente and Eucase. In 1811 there are reports of 16 empires who are subject to the "Emperor" of Sonba'i, from which the name Servião is derived. According to 17th century Dutch sources, Sonba'i overlapped with the Empire of Amfo'an , which existed in north West Timor until 1962.

Servião and the western part of Belus today form the Indonesian West Timor, with the exception of the Oe-Cusse Ambeno exclave, which belongs to the independent East Timor .

supporting documents