Pasunga, Gallu Bakul and Ana Bura villages

If really big megaliths are your thing, Anakalang district is the go-to spot in West Sumba. Twenty kilometres east of Waitabubak, and 55 west of Lewa, Pasunga, Gallu Bakul and Ana Bura are among several villages with fantastic, over-scale megalithic tombs.

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Megalithic central, Pasunga is easily the most accessible, sitting right by the main east-west road. Other villages can be found along the road leading south from the junction near Pasunga. A low stone wall separates Pasunga village from the busy road. Two muddy lanes lead north from the entrance, with two long rows of more than 20 “modern traditional” houses. Rusty corrugated iron roofs, albeit in the age-old pointy style, give a shanty town impression rather than that of the royal village that it really is.

Modern traditional at Pasunga. Photo taken in or around Pasunga, Gallu Bakul and Ana Bura villages, Waikabubak, Indonesia by Sally Arnold.

Modern traditional at Pasunga. Photo: Sally Arnold

Due to its easily accessible position, the people of Pusanga are somewhat blasé towards tourists. The guest book will come out, and they’ll be pleasant enough, but you’ll be pretty much left to your own devices to wander around and look at the tombs.

A number of tombs line the long corridor between the houses, but the real business is roadside in the western corner as you enter. The most impressive of these has a large rectangular stone about three metres high and more than one metre wide, carved with two figures at the front, and other smaller figures and symbols, fronting a heavy slab tomb. There are other large tombs here, but none so monumental. Take a walk through the smaller tombs between the houses and you’ll find very nice carvings (on a much smaller scale) there too.

Workman at Pasunga. Photo taken in or around Pasunga, Gallu Bakul and Ana Bura villages, Waikabubak, Indonesia by Sally Arnold.

Workman at Pasunga. Photo: Sally Arnold

Four kilometres along the road south from Pasunga, the tiny village of Gallu Bakul has one large tomb to see and boy is it tremendous.

The massive construction has what looks like a stone pointy roof house sitting on top, and a large carved headstone featuring symbolic designs with male and female heads at the apex. The slab part of the tomb is about five metres long by four metres wide and 50 centimetres thick — it’s really ... please log in to read the rest of this story.