If you want to experience Ngada culture beyond popular Bena and Wogo, and if you are ready to invest a little time and physical effort, you should dare to hike to the extraordinary village of Belaraghi and spend the night in this beautiful place. The sixteen beautiful traditional houses are located in a secluded forest clearing, providing natural harmony. The sixteen traditional houses, standing tidily in two parallel rows, are renovated on a regular basis and are thus in very good condition. Five of those sixteen houses are so-called sao pu’u, first or original houses, which are indicated by a miniature house on the roof; the other five distinct buildings are sao lobo, ‘last houses’, which feature a miniature human figure on the roof.
Five is also the number of clans living in Belaraghi at present. Besides the buildings mentioned, the Belaraghi clans are also affiliated with another house type: the sao kaka (with kaka meaning ‘to share’). These houses are considered ‘children’, the descendents of a clan’s sao pu’u and sao lobo. Some of the sao kaka are even located in other villages. The kaka inhabitants support their families in the sao pu’u and the sao lobo financially, materially and with labor.
