Gayo

The Gayo are an Austronesian highland people of Aceh in northern Sumatra, living in Barisan mountain districts, farming wet rice, coffee and vegetables in cool mountain valleys.

Tradition remembers the Linge Kingdom, founded in the highlands around the eleventh century, as their first polity; its ruling dynasty is said to have sent sons to the coast who helped found the Lamuri and Samudera Pasai sultanates, and the last Raja Lingga entered the Aceh Sultanate's service, so that the Gayo lands were drawn into Aceh's orbit. Their language has no traditional script, and genealogies and folk tales were preserved orally.

In 1337 the Gayo still kept older animist beliefs in spirits and ancestors, and Islam only reached the mountains in the early seventeenth century through Acehnese missionaries and Muslim traders; the highlanders became Sunni Muslims whose practice retained pre-Islamic customs.