Location
The Seko homeland is an upland valley ranging from 900 to 1500 meters in elevation, located in the northern reaches of South Sulawesi Province near its border with West and Central Sulawesi provinces. The Betuwe and Uro rivers which drain the Seko area flow westward, eventually joining the Karama. The Seko area is accessible from the east (Gulf of Bone) by following the Rongkong River upstream, then crossing uninhabited forest and a mountain divide into the watershed of the Uro. The portion of the valley inhabited by the Seko Padang is broad and expansive, while the area inhabited by the Seko Tengah is steep and narrow (Laskowske and Laskowske 1987:43 ff.).
Dialects
In the homeland area, Seko Padang comprises two dialects. Lodang is a small dialect spoken in the southern part of Seko Padang, while the principal dialect, Hono', is spoken elsewhere. For language and dialect locations, see especially the map in Laskowske and Laskowske (1987:53).
Population
In the mid-1980s it was estimated that there were more than 5,000 Seko Padang. However, only a minority (about 2,100) were living in the homeland area, the remainder having emigrated to Central Sulawesi in the 1950s during the period of the Darul Islam / Tentara Islam Indonesia (DI/TII) revolt, known locally as the Gerombolan (Laskowske and Laskowske 1987:57).
References
Laskowske, Thomas V.; and Kathryn B. Laskowske. 1987. Seko area (Kabupaten Luwu). UNHAS-SIL South Sulawesi sociolinguistic surveys, 1983–1987 (Workpapers in Indonesian Languages and Cultures, 5), edited by Timothy Friberg, 41–57. Ujung Pandang: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
