The customary law of the Nias people is generally referred to as fondrakö, which regulates all aspects of life from birth to death.

According to the myth, it is said that the arrival of the first human on Nias island began in the days of King Sirao, whose nine sons had been banished from Tetehöli Ana'a for fighting over the throne.

Archaeological findings of the stone tools found showed that humans lived in the cave over 12,000 years ago.

Studies have also found that the Nias people do not share any genes with ethnicities living in the Andaman-Nicobar islands in the Indian Ocean, which are geographically considered neighbours.

Whilst the first missionaries visited Nias in 1865, Christianity grew rapidly in the early 1900s when the Dutch established control of the island, however, was adopted and spread by local ministers.

Nias villages often possess impressive stone monuments and large houses that stand on earthquake-resistant timber pylons.

The sole purpose of the Nias figures was to fulfill ritual needs, whether it was to ensure wealth or to perform specific beneficial rites.

Adu hörö ancestor statues are large, elongated, armless, and wear high, forked headdresses.

These wooden figures were created to heal specific illnesses, protect villages, or invoke supernatural beings to aid through rituals.

Nias village features impressive stoneworks e.g. large staircases and broad paved streets.

Dedicating stone monuments publicly is considered one of the several requirements that must be done by a person to prove that he has fulfilled the right to claim a higher rank and to receive honorary titles.

The osa-osa is depicted as wearing traditional Nias attire e.g. the kalabubu necklace and pendant earrings (fondulu or saro dalinga).

[22] Nias people produce household objects carved with zoomorphic, floral, or geometric motifs.

The Nias people used a variety of materials for the creation of their weaponry: leather, cord or woven fibres, precious metal, iron, and brass.

The Nias spear (toto'a doho in the south, toho in the north) was mainly used for hunting; the shaft is made of dark hardwood of nibung palm wrapped with rattan.

[26] The most well-known of the Nias weapons is the balato or tolögu, a steel sword with a protective amulet believed to possess magical power.

The sheath of the balato contains a spherical bundle of rattan (ragö balatu) which performed as a protective amulet.

This protective amulet is usually attached to a variety of objects e.g. animal fangs which are formed so that it looks like the jaw of the mythical lasara.

[27] The balato is only reserved for the highest nobles as a kind of proof of the authority and the social rank of its owner.

Evangelization in Nias such as those performed by the German Protestant Rhenish Missionary Society had been responsible to the destruction of Niassan wooden statues as well the suppression of the unique culture of Nias society e.g. ancestor worship, magical practices, the Owasa festivals (noblemen rank-elevation festivals) headhunting and slave trading.