Kinship as a determining factor of settlement in Cibal Clan, Flores

Abstract
Architecture in the beginning is a human reflection of making place for shelter, later considering the development of the society, the needs and demands of the people for the house is increase, not only a place for shelter but also a reflection of complex idea and behaviour as a manifestation of cultural system which guided them.
The diversity of Indonesian traditional architecture is a cultural richness which attracted to research, traditional architecture of Manggarai is one of them, laid in Flores Island, one of the East Nusa Tenggara isles.
Cibal Manggaraians culture which stand their belief on the spirit of the ancestors, empo and the strong familiarity wa’u as social patrilineal community base on kinship, having an uniqueness cause the wa’u live in the same settlement called golo.
The research found that Cibal people having strong family relationship, which stand on “patrilineal system”, and the religion system belief on the spirit of the ancestors, these religion and Patrilineal clan being a matter thing that form their settlement.
This paper is a preliminary research which study the relations of cultural system in architecture, describe the elements of Manggarai settlement in relation with patrilineal clan, kinship and religion. For the future, researcher hope that it can continued with deeply research in the frame of preservation and conservation of traditional settlement of Cibal, Manggarai to completed the vocabulary of Nusantara traditional architecture.

Key word: Kinship, elements of settlement, Cibal architecture

(Presented at Seminar on Sustainable Environmental Architecture 8th, August 23rd, 24th 2007, Petra Christian University, Surabaya, Indonesia)