Messages of Twigs: Punan Batu’s Communication Method

KOMPAS/AHMAD ARIF

The Punan Batu community still lives on the move in karst caves and forests in the interior of Bulungan Regency, North Kalimantan, as seen, Monday (10/15/2018). They are the early inhabitants of the island of Borneo which are now increasingly pressured by massive forest clearing, especially for mining and conversion of oil palm plantations.

The Punan Batu people in Bulungan regency, North Kalimantan, do not read or write. However, over the thousands of years they have lived as hunters and gatherers in the Kalimantan wilderness, they have developed a method of communication that uses the ancient method of using twigs.

They use signs made of twigs and leaves to communicate with fellow members of their community, ranging from requests for assistance, information on the availability of food, news about disease and the threat of danger, to the direction they are moving and arrangements to meet.

"If there are people who are sick with an infectious disease, we usually put a sign on the road as a warning to others," Makruf, one of the heads of the Punan Batu tribe who lives in the forests of Sajau Benau in Bulungan regency, North Kalimantan, said on Wednesday (18/1/2023).

That morning, in the forests around the camp where they lived, Makruf showed a number of messages made of twigs. "If on the road there is a twig planted in the ground and the upper end is split and holding a small plant, it means that there are people who are ill. That's a warning for others to avoid [the area]. If they still come, they bear the risk," he said.

If on the road there is a twig planted in the ground and the upper end is split and holding a small plant, it means that there are people who are ill.

If members of the Punan Batu community are hungry and need the help of others, they make a sign made of rolled leaves that are clamped in the top of a split twig. The identity of the person who needs help will also be indicated by tying their “sign” to the twig.

Every Punan Batu adult has a unique sign of their own, which can be made of certain leaves, fruits, stones, tree bark, or other distinguishing items. "My sign is a torn piece of cloth. If there is a twig with a piece of torn cloth, it means it's a message from me," said Makruf.

These twig signs are also used to arrange meetings. A strap of bark made in a certain way and tied to a twig indicates a meeting on the next day. If it is a large circle, it means the meeting is next week. If it is even bigger, it means the next month, and so on.

If a member of the Punan Batu community wants to tell others his hunt has been successful, they will tie the bone or hide of the animal they have caught to a twig. The Punan Batu people always divide the meat of animals they have hunted with their extended families.

KOMPAS/AHMAD ARIF

A group of the Punan Batu tribe walks through the forest around the headwaters of the Sajau River, Bulungan Regency, North Kalimantan, Thursday (19/10/2018). These hunter-gatherer tribes are threatened by the destruction of forests and oil palm plantations which displace their living space.

Ancient communication techniques

John Lansing, an anthropologist at the Santa Fe Institute who has studied the Punan Batu people since 2018, said there was a lot of ethnohistorical evidence that the use of these “message sticks” was widespread among nomadic hunters and gatherers in Kalimantan.

In the report of Lansing and his team, published in Evolutionary Human Science (2022), global positioning system (GPS) data on several Punan Batu groups showed that they moved camp every eight to nine days. This was usually done after a decrease in local resources.

In a paper written with the former Eijkman Molecular Biological Institute, researchers Pradiptajati Kusuma, Herawati Supolo Sudoyo and others mentioned that the Punan Batu people had a genetic identity and anthropological roots that were different from Kalimantan’s Dayak agricultural tribe. Punan Batu's ancestors were thought to have arrived in Kalimantan around 8,000 years ago, and had never mixed genetically with the Austronesians who brought the farming culture to the Dayak.

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Message sticks provide a way to share important information to support the Punan Batu community’s hunter-gatherer culture, including requests for assistance and directions to food, as well as warnings of danger like disease, with all those who can read the signs.

Cooperation is the key to the hunters and gatherers’ survival in the forest. That is why sharing food is very important in their culture.

The message sticks used by the Punan Batu are an active mode of establishing cooperation.

They do not know the methods of storing the meat from the animals they hunt. Almost everything is eaten fresh. Therefore, they divide the meat from each hunt with other tribal members who live in the area. By always sharing the meat from the hunt, every family indirectly receives a more regular supply of protein.

If they are on their own, hunters will find it difficult to survive because hunting in the forest is unpredictable. The message sticks used by the Punan Batu are an active mode of establishing cooperation.

Messages about disease, for example, can avoid spreading infectious diseases. Messages about the direction a group is moving allow them to share limited resources, as well as protect each other from outsiders who are deemed a threat. Therefore, the message sticks can be seen as local knowledge that facilitate social and sociological interactions among the Punan Batu hunters and gatherers.

This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo.