Of all the great traditional houses in Indonesia, special mention must be accorded to the great dwellings (omo sebua) from South and Central Nias and the Batu islands. In the 1970s, a number of imposing and ingeniously built 19th-century edifices still stood, extolling the status and former glory of the local aristocratic class and their ancestors. Constructed of thick teak or other hardwoods, with their great pylons and massive buttresses set at forty-five-degree angles to provide protection from earthquakes, and with their peaked roofs, some soaring nearly sixty feet tall — these structures housed extended clans and served as defensive bulwarks against enemies.

The interiors of regal omo sebua were festooned with rows of carved wooden ancestor figures, altars, finials in the form of protective animals, and finely designed utilitarian objects that were associated with a particular owner or a given house. Deeply carved and well-ornamented panels were also set into the house's main room as wall decoration. These marvels alluded to ceremonial events and a house's golden treasures or regalia, including crowns, earrings, pectorals, and other gold ornaments that were associated with the nobility.