Helong

The Helong are an Austronesian people of the south-western tip of Timor around Kupang and of nearby Semau Island, whose Helong language was once the speech of Kupang itself.

Their rajas, who claimed descent from migrants from Seram in Maluku, ruled the bay when the Dutch East India Company first arrived in 1613. A Helong raja allied with the Company, which built Fort Concordia on his coast in 1653 and turned Kupang into its base against the Portuguese Topasses; allied refugees from the Sonbai, Amabi and other Timorese principalities then settled on Helong land, leaving the raja as titular Lord of the Land under Dutch protection.

Helong society is ordered in ngalo kindreds and ingu clans under koka ana leaders, ranked into nobles, commoners and slaves, and lives by farming, fishing and hunting.