Indonesia’s Blue-Eyed Kaimbulawa Tribe
Among the countless, diverse indigenous tribes that Indonesia has been gifted with, the Kaimbulawa tribe would be an incredibly unique and underappreciated tribe to be discussed in this month’s World Indigenous Day. The Kaimbulawa tribe comes from Indonesia’s 19th largest island, the Buton island, located in the Southeast Sulawesi region of Indonesia. Although the Kaimbulawa tribe is home to only 1,010 individuals from the 450,000 people on Buton island, their distinct genetic characteristics make them garner an amount of international attention as well as become a unique part of Indonesia’s face and diversity. The Kaimbulawa tribe are mostly born with bright blue eyes, differing from the common Indonesians who are often born with dark-colored eyes. Such traits are mostly found in Caucasians.
Two factors contribute to such a phenomenon. Firstly, a genetic syndrome called the Waardenburg syndrome occurs in 1 out of 42,000 people in the world. Hearing loss and special pigmentation of the eye also occur in people with the syndrome. Such biological uniqueness was studied to have been passed down from generation to generation, which would logically and factually lead to the second factor which is ancestry from old Kaimbulawa to Portuguese seafarers. Their history could be traced back to the 16th century when Portuguese traders and explorers arrived on the island of Sulawesi, creating a pitstop in Buton island, driven by their interest in Indonesia’s archipelago and their search for spices such as nutmeg and cloves. There, those Portuguese seafarers established trade relations, and some of them got married to Kaimbulawa locals. The reigning king of the area at the time, King Siompu II, even married his daughter, Wa Ode, to a Portuguese sailor called Pitter. This resulted in the fusion of the original Kaimbulawa traits with European traits.
