Tobelo

The Tobelo, who call themselves O'Hoberera Manyawa, the people living outside the forest, are the foremost people of northern and eastern Halmahera. They speak Tobelo, a non-Austronesian North Halmahera language of several dialects, and also use Ternate as a regional lingua franca.

Their country was the heartland of Jailolo, one of the four kingdoms of Maluku, whose ruler bore the title Jika ma-kolano, Ruler of the Bay; tradition remembers Jailolo as the strongest Halmaheran realm around 1250 and as first in precedence at the Moti Island meeting of the 1320s.

Its last Muslim king, Katarabumi, devised a script for the local language and with Spanish and Tidorese support resisted the Portuguese and Ternate until his fortress fell in 1551, after which the Tobelo lands passed under Ternate's suzerainty, governed through regional lords titled sangaji.