Tomini

The Tomini, together with their Totoli kin, are the coastal people of the Gulf of Tomini in Central Sulawesi, living on both shores of the gulf around Parigi, Moutong, Dondo and Toli-Toli. They form a cluster of sub-groups, each traditionally led by a hereditary chief bearing the title olongian; coastal groups build stilt houses while inland groups farm rice and corn.

In the mid-sixteenth century Gowa's King Tunipalangga conquered the western coast from Donggala to Tolitoli, and Islam took root among the gulf's rulers, beginning with the neighbouring sultanate of Buol in 1540. The Tomini shore then owed allegiance to the Kingdom of Parigi, where the Dutch East India Company built a fortress in the early seventeenth century.

From the early nineteenth century Bugis and Mandar migrants, displaced by the Bone War that began in 1820, settled in the gulf and founded the Kingdom of Moutong under Magalatung.