History of Ancient Agriculture in Baliem

KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO

The Dani tribe performs a stone-burning ceremony during the 2012 Baliem Valley Festival in Wosiala Village, Wosilimo Village, Usilimo District, Jayawijaya Regency, Papua.

When the inhabitants of the archipelago were still living by hunting, people in the Baliem Valley of the Central Highlands of Papua had started cultivating and farming. History shows the agricultural life of this region was contemporary to China.

As the sun was beginning to crop up, Sekise Betapo (39) brought a shovel to a field about 50 meters from her home in Jagara Village, Walesi district, Jayawijaya regency, Papua. The mother of three walked between the rows of neatly planted sweet potato plants (or hipere as the local people call it). Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) has been a source of food for the local people for generations.

At a plot of land, she stopped. She moved her right foot a step forward. Her left hand swung the shovel, uprooting the weeds that grew wildly between the sweet potato plants. Her younger sister, Awaneke, without being told, did the same. They cleared all the weeds between the thick leaves of the sweet potato plants.

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Suddenly, Sekise stuck the shovel into the ground. The shovel she was holding was unusually pointed, like a wooden crowbar. She directed it to rake the soil where the sprouts of sweet potatoes spread. She checked the tubers poking out from the ground.

"They are still small. Maybe in the next month [they] can be harvested,” she said.

Sweet potato is part of Papua’s long preserved traditional food crop, widely acknowledged as means of survival passed on for generations. The crop’s domestication dates back to the past when the people here were agriculturally on a par with their contemporaries in China, Egypt, and elsewhere.

Taking care of the fields, clearing the soil and harvesting sweet potatoes are the tasks of women like Sekiso, her sister, and fellow women in the neighborhood. This is found not only in Jayawijaya, but also in Baliem Valley and other mountainous regions of Papua.

"Dad [her husband] cleared this land. I usually help in planting,” she said.

Her husband, Marcus Lani (69), had just cleared another plot of land to be planted with the tubers. It was a plot measuring 2 by 10 meters with furrows of 20 centimeters high. Around it was a path that also served as a waterway.

Marcus plowed and harrowed the soils and grabbed sprouts from the grown plants. He twisted the base end of the sprouts and planted it in a furrow.

"That's how it is planted. There is also this [way of planting] the two ends being folded, so that they give plenty of yields. Our way is by just twisting it," he said.

This system of growing in furrows is locally called kuming. The furrows above the trenched plot where the tuber grows is believed to make the sweet potato more sizable and sweeter.

KOMPAS/IRMA TAMBUNAN

The life of the Dani people in the Silo Sukarno Doga District, Baliem Valley, Jayawijaya Regency, Papua. A child enjoys a kind of roasted sweet potato after a stone roast.

Marcus appeared to be disinclined to try other farming techniques, saying that his way had been inherited from parents, themselves having been taught by grandparents, chain of learning dated back to ancestors. He said if he had changed his planting technique, nature would have shown its wrath angry and the harvest would have been no longer the same.

He said plants had to be well cared for, including regular removal of weeds. Even in harvesting the sweet potatoes, Marcus retained the way their ancestors had passed on.

“Take only what is necessary, for our food, for the pigs. You can't take everything, like uprooting it. Nature would be angry. If we take care of it [nature], it takes care of us," he said.

The planting and harvesting habits have been kept intact across Papua in general, from Jayawijaya, the Baliem Valley, to the Central Mountains. Various new methods were introduced, but have been slightly absorbed with the community still believing in the old cropping pattern.

Not on school module

Sri Martina Lestari, who was interviewed in mid-November 2021 in her capacity as head of the Papuan Agency for the Application of Technology and Assessment (BPTP) in Jayapura, said that the kuming planting and harvesting system, in which harvesters refrained from take-it-all crop, could only be found in this area. This technique, she said, was a tradition with many benefits.

Not only as a daily staple food, sweet potato is also a source of animal feed to complement traditional ceremonies.

People living on highlands consume sweet potato as their main food source, which has been going on for centuries. Not only as a daily staple food, sweet potato is also a source of animal feed to complement traditional ceremonies.

“We once asked why when planting sweet potatoes, the [stems] had to be folded in half. They said it would give plenty of yields. When one died, there was still the other one. That makes sense too," she said. "What is certain is that such a model has never been taught in any educational bench."

La Achmady and Schneider (1993) said that there were four ways of cultivating sweet potatoes based on the type of agro-ecosystem, namely wen hipere, yabu waganak, yabu enaifpipme, and yabu lome.

Kompas/Yuniadhi Agung 14-11-2017

Residents of the Mulia District, Puncak Jaya Regency, Papua, learn about the post-harvest process of coffee.

Wen hipere is a sweet potato cultivation system by making permanent ditches in watery areas. Yabu is a system of planting sweet potatoes on dry land. The yabu system is divided into several ways of planting, depending on the land heights. The two cultivation systems have been practiced by the Jayawijaya community for generations.

With this pattern, said Martina, harvest productivity was much lower than usual but the tubers were larger with fresh taste.

The tubers planted come from various kinds, such as local helaleke, yeleli, musaneken, suwemul, kepale, arulek, abukul, utorok, and others. Those are among the surviving varieties still planted by residents. Many other varieties were reported to have been lost.

“Actually, this cannot be called a variety because it has not been subject to complete study yet. It could be just different clones where it grows. What is certain many other local varieties have been lost," she said.

According to research conducted by various institutions and universities, in the Papua region, especially the central mountains, there have been more than 200 types of sweet potato, having been developed by society for hundreds of years. Some of them are still found various villages, districts and other locations.

However, the cultivation was said not to be as vigorous as before with many local people opting for migration.

Long history

Sweet potato domestication has rooted long in Papua. This plant was developed in region earlier than other areas in Indonesia. In general, the dissemination of sweet potato to Indonesia lent to Spanish and Portuguese arrivals. Portuguese researchers brought it to the Mediterranean area in Europe, Africa, India, and Indonesia.

Not surprisingly, Papua is one of the sweet potato distribution areas in the world with a fairly high genetic diversity, in addition to other countries such as Peru, Colombia, and Ecuadorz which are currently the center of origin of the sweet potato plant.

Sweet potato was said to be grown in Papua in the 16th century, when Spanish traders brought the plant from Mexico to the Philippines before the crop reached Indonesia’s region. Not surprisingly, Papua is one of the sweet potato distribution areas in the world with a fairly high genetic diversity, in addition to other countries such as Peru, Colombia, and Ecuadorz which are currently the center of origin of the sweet potato plant. However, sweet potato cultivation in Papua is still limited and its existence is threatened with extinction. (Joko Restuono, Febria C Indriani, and Wiwit Rahajeng in the 2020 Plasma Nutfah Bulletin).

Hari Suroto, an archaeologist at the Papua Archeology Center, said that the development of sweet potato among the people of the Central Mountains of Papua was a derivative of the long-established agricultural system in the region. Since being known about 400 years ago, sweet potato has grown rapidly because of its savory and sweet taste, which is also suitable for livestock feeds. The development of sweet potato is said to have help triggered social and cultural changes.

Initially, said Hari, who routinely researches sweet potato farming, Papuans first recognized taro and bananas as staple foods. Taro is planted with a trench system, not much different from the current sweet potato model. However, because of the easier care system, people have largely switched from taro to sweet potato.

Based on carbon analysis, it is estimated that people began to clear land for simple farming about 6,000 years ago, in parallel with the early agricultural cultures of South America, Egypt, China, and the Euphrates and Tigris River valleys. The results of the research also revealed the presence of samples of red fruit pollen, and carbon footprints of burning since 7,000 years ago in Papua.

“It is very interesting because in prehistoric times, humans in Java still lived in caves and lived on hunting. Meanwhile, in the Central Mountains of Papua, humans had already settled down, formed a settlement, and carried out systematic agriculture,” he said.

KOMPAS/ AGUS SUSANTO

Residents prepare to take part in the second day of the 2012 Baliem Valley Festival in Wosiala Village, Wosilimo Village, Usilimo District, Jayawijaya Regency, Papua, Thursday (9/8/2012).

This long agricultural history should be a great asset for the community to continue to develop for the sake of local food sustainability.

Unfortunately, added Hari, agriculture in Papua, especially for local food, continued to be unheeded. In addition to the lack of research, attention to developing local food agriculture has also been minimal. As a result, agriculture in this region is lagging behind other regions.

“Even though this is part of civilization, the pride of Papuans is only about the past when the people’s agricultural life was equal to that in China, Egypt, and so on. But why is it now marginalized and even forgotten? That's very ironic," Hari said.

(This article was translated by Musthofid)