Atoni

The Atoni, also called Atoin Meto or Dawan, are dominant Austronesian people of West Timor, also settled in the Oecussi enclave. They speak Uab Meto and build circular stone-fenced villages, their Ume Atoni houses carrying gendered symbolism. Anthropologists count them among Timor's oldest peoples; their highlands drew foreign merchants for centuries through the sandalwood trade.

Sonbai, their most prestigious principality, had lords claiming descent from a brother of the Liurai of Wehali, central Timor's ritual centre. Sonbai appears in 1649 records as a Portuguese ally, but switched to the Dutch East India Company in 1655; defeats by the Portuguese Topasses in 1657 and 1658 split it into Lesser Sonbai, withdrawing to Dutch Kupang as one of five allies, and inland Greater Sonbai governed in practice by the Kono family.

Greater Sonbai defected to the Dutch in 1749, broke away in 1782 and held an autonomous highland realm over Fatuleu and Mollo.