Traditional Stone Jumping

Traditional stone jumping is iconic not just for Nias, but for all of Indonesia (it appears on one of the national banknotes).

Stone jumpers start training from a very young age – the pyramid they leap over is 2.1 metres in height. The practice goes back centuries.

Nias is an island off the coast of North Sumatra. Its cultures and languages are quite distinct from the Sumatra mainland; population is majority Christian, though with a large admixture of Muslims along the coast. Southern Nias has for long been a surfing Mecca.