The History of Maratua Island

Maratua is one of the beautiful  islands which located in Berau, east Kalimantan. it is called by the people there “Mellatua”. The island has an interesting story and The island consist of 5 villages .They are Bohe Silian, Bohe Bukut, Teluk Alulu, payung-payung and Tanjung Bahaba. Bohe silian is the oldest village. It has many history and inheritance especially about the dawn  history of maratua.

In the past , Maratua is an Uninhabited island. A few years later, peoplefrom other island come to maratua and occupied it until now. According to the local history, those people come from  palau (Philippines ) and most of them come from sulewesi (toil-toli, selebes, etc).  when some people came there for the first time, there was a guard. He was very tall, fat and very terrifying. He was not human nor evil. People there called him “kokok”. He always hide people he did not like. Because of that scary habit, they wanted to make “kokok” dead.

one night, they invited “kokok” to the village party. “kokok” came  there. After that, they served food and drink for him. One of the drink  was “tua”. This drinking was the name of fruit in maratua derived from bajau language.

When “kokok”  drank “tua”, he suddenly died and since then maratua was free from “kokok” who always scared people there. The corpse of “kokok” casted away in the little island in front of maratua. People call it “Nusa kokok”.

That is why the name of maratua is derived from the word mellatua”. Mella means cooking and “tua” is the name of fruit. They are  bajau language but, most  people call it “maratua”.

Written by

Ermi Wahyuni