Atauro Island

Atauro's people are linked as much to the islands to the north as to Timor: the languages spoken here belong to the same group as those of Wetar and Alor across the strait, and fishing and trade ran that way for centuries. The island had no single ruler, but several small chiefdoms on the coast and the plateau, and its dryness kept the population small.

Portuguese authority arrived late and lightly. From early in the Portuguese period the island was used as a place of banishment, taking political prisoners and others out of Dili, and the practice continued into the twentieth century; in the 1980s the Indonesian military held captured Timorese guerrillas here in the same way. That shared experience is part of how Atauro is remembered in Timor-Leste. Protestant missionaries working here in the later colonial decades also gave the island a religious character unlike the rest of the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Atauro voted with the rest of Timor-Leste in 1999. It was governed as part of the Dili district after independence, and in 2022 it was made a municipality in its own right, giving the island its own administration for the first time. Marine surveys in the mid-2010s found extraordinary numbers of reef fish species in its waters, and the small, community-run tourism that followed — along with proposals to designate the island and its waters as a marine protected area — has become its main new source of income.

The island's own speech, Atauran, spoken in varieties around Beloi, Makadade, Biqueli and Makili, is closely related to Wetarese of the islands to the north and is not intelligible to Tetum speakers from the mainland; Tetum is the shared language and Indonesian and some English are heard where visitors come. People often describe themselves as Atauro islanders first.

Religion is the clearest difference from the rest of the country. Protestant congregations, established here in the decades before independence, are strong enough that church bells and hymn singing, rather than a Catholic mass, mark Sunday in many villages, though Catholic parishes exist too and older beliefs about ancestors, sacred places and the sea persist alongside both.

Carving is one of the island's crafts: wooden figures of standing men and women, cut from local timber, are sold in Dili's markets, and weaving and basketry are made in the same villages. Life is organised around fishing crews, extended families and the church, and decisions about reefs and fishing grounds are taken collectively rather than by the state. Visitors are welcomed calmly rather than eagerly; a greeting and a little patience go a long way, and hurrying anyone is poor manners.

About 10,000 people live on Atauro, spread between the coastal villages and the plateau settlements. Fishing is the mainstay — hand lines and small outriggers, with tuna and reef fish sold fresh, dried or salted and some carried to Dili by boat — alongside goats, maize, cassava and vegetables grown on stony terraces, and salt made along the shore. Guesthouses, dive operations and boat work now support a growing number of families, and money sent home from relatives working in Dili or abroad matters here as everywhere in the country.

Water is the daily constraint. The island is dry, springs are few, and carrying or piping water to houses takes up part of every morning; electricity reaches the larger villages but is not constant. There is a clinic rather than a hospital, a secondary school on the east coast, and a mobile signal that fades on the far side of the ridge.

Days start early and finish early. Boats go out before dawn, the market at Beloi is busiest when a boat from Dili is due, and by mid-afternoon the heat empties the tracks. Younger people leave for the capital to study or work and return for festivals and family ceremonies, and the new municipal status has brought building work, more officials and hopes of better roads and water supply.

Food on Atauro is fish, and what will grow on a dry hillside. The catch — tuna, mackerel, parrotfish and other reef fish — is grilled whole over coconut husks or stewed with tomato, garlic and chilli, and what is not eaten fresh is split and dried in the sun. Rice is mostly imported from the mainland, so meals lean on boiled cassava and its leaves cooked as a green, maize, sweet potato, pumpkin, green papaya and mung beans. Batar daan, the maize, mung bean and pumpkin dish eaten across Timor-Leste, is standard home cooking here.

Meat is for occasions: goat above all, roasted or stewed for a feast or a church celebration, and chicken for a guest. Coconut appears in everything, grated into vegetables or squeezed for milk, and sea salt produced on the island seasons it. Fruit depends on the season and the rain — mango, banana, papaya, and the sour tamarind used to sharpen a fish stew.

Drinking is simple: strong Timorese coffee from the mainland highlands, black and sweet; coconut water; palm wine tapped from the island's palms, fresh or distilled into a spirit for ceremonies; and imported beer where lodges stock it. Guesthouse kitchens cook whatever the boats and gardens produced that day, so meals are decided for the visitor rather than chosen.