Mori

The Mori are the indigenous people of the forested highlands and deep valleys of eastern Central Sulawesi, around Lake Matano, the Malili region and the upper La River. They comprise several sub-groups, including the Molio'a, Molongkuni and Ulu'uvoi along the La, and the Molili around Lake Matano.

Their Mori language, also called Aikoa, is a Western Austronesian tongue related to Bungku and to the languages of Buton and Muna, and their society was influenced by neighbouring Bugis. When the Dutch governor Robertus Padtbrugge counted more than fifty villages in the Kingdom of Bungku in 1679, the Mori highlands already formed its inland tributary territory, whose mountain villages supplied farm produce to the coastal court.