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南太平洋海域調査研究報告 No.54（2014年12月）
OCCASIONAL PAPERS No.54（December 2014）

Territorial Organization by Bupolo People in Buru Island
PATTINAMA Marcus Jozef
Faculty of Agriculture, Pattimura University

Abstract
To understand Bupolo people in Buru Island, I should start from how I understand the way they divide
their life space in association with the environment, namely by understanding the territorial organization of
the Bupolo. This understanding will then give a good direction to the understanding of their socialorganization. Complex division of space in Bupolo people’s lives is something interesting to study.
Ethnobotany approach is one of the most suitable methods to be used to describe to complexity. This paper
attempts to describe how the Bupolo people in Buru Island, Maluku Province, organize their territory andlife spaces.
Keywords: Bupolo, Buru Island, territorial organization, ethnobotany

Introduction
Buru Island is known for being the place of internment of communist prisoners after theestablishment of the President Suharto political regime, the “New Order”, following the fallof President Soekarno. Buru is the island that is known to produce the essence oil of kayu
putih from the “white tree” (Melaleuca leucadendron, Myrtaceae).
This island is in the southwest of the Moluccas, where its coastal regions are considered
unwelcoming and dry. People living in the mountains of Buru Island make the essence oil ofkayu putih and go to sell it on the coast. They avoid contact with the outside world and werealways on the move and rarely stay in their homes.
Between 1969 (the year of the arrival of political prisoners) and 1979 (the year of theirliberation), the entrance to the island was tightly controlled by the military and no research
was allowed. People from the outside only knew that the prisoners were housed in a plain,north-east part of the island, where they had to work in irrigated rice fields and gardens which
they had to do to make a living. In addition, in the northern part of the region the militarydeveloped a system of forced labor to exploit the forest, where many prisoners died. In the
1980s, military elements established a plywood factory and opened private forest concessions
in the southern part of the region.

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After the liberation of prisoners and the opening of the island to the outsiders, the civil
administration began to have interest in the island and its inhabitants. Thus, at the end of
1980s, a settlement project in order to facilitate their participation in the overall developmentof Indonesia was launched. The objective of this project was to bring these people to residepermanently in the villages for easy access by the officials. Thus, dozens of settlement areas
consisting of wooden houses with thin iron roofs were built on the coast.
In this paper, I discuss the description of Geba Bupolo community, especially on theirterritorial relationships. After describing about the general lifestyle of Geba Bupolo and some
information about their language as an introduction, I begin this description with the ideas
about the origin of the island and its people by constructing the story of some fragments ofmyths that I have collected. Then, I will explain the conception of how Geba Bupolo is being
in their island and how it represents it as the body of a human being that is necessary toprotect its center that contains the vital parts. I will next embark on how to organize theisland’s territories by assigning each social group a role in protecting the central part of theisland where Mount Date and Lake Rana Waekolo are located. I will elucidate how thiscentral part is designed as ‘a dwelling’ place. I address the structuring of different lineage
groups, noro, and sub-groups, bialahin, which development is analogous to the developmentof a sago (Metroxylon sagu) cluster, where the suckers get nourishment from the main trunk
and then are released. The bialahin term is indeed the term appellation of sago. I will explain
how each noro has its place in the territory; it consists of the catchment area of a river and themountain that is its origin and corresponds to the origin of its first ancestors.

Buru Island in the Moluccas, Indonesia
Indonesia is located in the tropics and is very rich in natural resources. Despite thecultures and languages of the people composing this country, the feeling of unity is generally
strong despite some regional exceptions. There are about 530 languages and dialects inIndonesia. To overcome this linguistic multiplicity the government decided since
independence to impose a single language: Indonesian. The language chosen by theanti-colonial opposition since 1928 is derived from the Malay lingua long used in thearchipelago. Although Indonesia was a Dutch colony for centuries, the Dutch as a language isnot, and has never been used in the daily lives of Indonesians. However, English is now ofgreat importance in technical and scientific language.
The Maluku archipelago or the Mollucas is located in eastern Indonesia. According to
the administrative division, it is divided into two provinces since 1999, i.e. North Maluku
with Ternate as the capital city and Maluku with Ambon the capital city. The Maluku
archipelago has the distinction of being made up of about a thousand islands whose layout is81
Territorial Organization by Bupolo People in Buru Island

reminiscent of Indonesia on a reduced scale. This is why this archipelago is also called “thethousand islands”.
Hundreds of islands of this archipelago remain anonymous. The population of 1,533,506
inhabitants is essentially distributed in the principal islands and archipelagos: Ambon, Ambon
Lease, Seram, Banda, Wetar, Tanimbar, Kei, Aru, and Buru.
In floristic point of view, Maluku is one of the region where limited research has been
done, so that accurate data is still lacking. This area has a high geographical diversity that
affects the variation of the vegetation (PATTINAMA 1998).
We have little information about the colonial period of Buru Island. Clove and nutmeg
were absent in this island, that the Dutch had little interests in this island. On the other hand,
there is the kayu putih in the island, so inhabitants have extracted its aromatic essential oil(PATTINAMA 1998).
The surface area of the island of Buru is about 10,000 km², and has 135,500 inhabitants.
In the south and west, it is bordered with the Banda Sea; and the north by the Seram Sea.
Administratively the island of Buru has, since 1999, two districts (kabupaten in Indonesian),i.e. the District of Buru with Namlea as the capital city and is divided into five regencies or
kecamatan, and the District of South Buru Namrole as the capital city and is divided into fiveregencies.

Methods and Approaches
This study is based on field research for two years. The initial phase of this researchstarted to learn the local language, the language of Buru, to understand all the expressions andsymbols in their lives.
My efforts to learn the local language helped me to get accepted as a researcher by local
people. In fact, due to the lack of schools, many mountaineers only speak the local language.
In addition, the knowledge of the language was essential to me to fully grasp theirconceptions about how the world is. However, for sometimes they remained reluctant toprovide me with information about everything, they seemed to keep secrets and not disclose
them to a stranger, especially anything related to their relationship to the ancestors. I must add
that even among themselves mountaineers often use metaphorical language to talk about what
is most sacred.
My first concern was to understand the organization of space according to the
topography, hydrography, and distribution of ecosystem. Then, I analyzed the relationshipbetween the visually perceptible organization with the use and exploitation of land resources
and their distribution among different social groups. For that I had to study the organization of
the territory as a function of social organization. My intention was interested in it to the extent

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of its relationship with the rights to use, the different forms of management and land
exploitation, and vis-à-vis sacred places.

General Information on the Human Environment
Among the inhabitants of the island of Buru, I must distinguish the native (autochtone)
population lives mainly in the mountains, and a non-native (allochtone) population who are
now most numerous, and live on the coast and coastal plains.
The allochtone population has several origins. Some people of foreign origin has been
there for a long time. They are descendants of Arab and Chinese traders who mostly stayed in
Buru for centuries and married there. The other non-native people are from more recent
immigrations.
The coasts of Buru island, like those of other islands in the Indonesian archipelago, are
not regularly monitored by national marine guards, because Indonesia is composed of many
thousand islands spread over 5,000 km. Buru has been the subject of a spontaneoustransmigration more or less regularly of mostly poor people coming from elsewhere of thecountry in the hope of improving their life.
Since the 1980s an official transmigration was organized by the government. Also, as
was mentioned in the introduction, after 1965 and the fall of President Soekarno, the island
was chosen as a place of banishment for communist prisoners, many of whom chose to staythere after liberation. It is especially in the northeastern part of the island that Javanesetransmigrants were settled under the national transmigration program. In this region, newroads, as well as public transport have been developed.
In general, the development in this island is very slow because all decisions are taken
without consultation by the central government. These decisions do not take sufficientaccount of the island’s capacity to contribute to national income from its natural resources.
While the autochtone population, as I have just described, will call themselves Geba
Bupolo, they have been named with various terms by the colonial and Indonesian
administrations or administration of the Maluku Province (PATTINAMA 2005), described asfollows:x Alifuru, that is to say, the people living in the dense forest. The word Alifuru comes fromthe language of the northern Halmahera: halefoeroe, that is to say “place in the dense
forest”. The North Halmahera people, including Tobelo people, often speak of « ohalefoeroeka ma nyawa » that is to say, people from the forest. The word Alifuru was also
used for indigenous people living in the island of Seram.

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Territorial Organization by Bupolo People in Buru Islandx Orang Kafir (orang = people, kafir = infidel) that is to refer to people who do not belong to
one of the great religions.
x Suku Terasing (suku = people, terasing = isolated) that is to refer to the “isolated people”,
term used by the Departemen Sosial (Social Department) to refer to all isolated groups who
continue to practice their local customs.
x Orang Pemalas (pemalas = lazy) that is to say “lazy people”.
x Orang Belakang (belakang = back) that is to say, “backward”.
All these expressions indicate the determination of Bupolo Geba to stay in theirmountains and their refusal to participate in government programs, as long the government
has not talked to them about the programs.
When I asked them the reason for their reluctance, they said that they live in this islandwith their ancestors and that if they did not faithful, one day the ancestors will be angry andsend the disease and death. “Always be faithful to them”. “We do not want to leave ourvillages because we have our gardens and protected places where our ancestors have lived”.
But the government wanted them to move to the coasts and forced them to choose one of the
major religions. Indeed in Indonesia during the General Suharto (Orde Baru, ‘the new order’),people were forced to convert to one of five religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism,
Hinduism, and Buddhism.

The Territorial Organization in Relation to the Social Organization
The conception of Geba Bupolo to their island
Most of the Geba Bupolo’s conception of how the world is in their representation of
Buru island, is like a bisexual human being, lying, with the central bodies - sexual organ ofmale, stomach and uterus of female – consisting of Mount Date as the male essence and Lake
Rana Waekolo as the female essence.
All this reflects the image of the island as a living being (see Fig. 1), with the head (olon)
representing the highest mountain in the west (kakupalatmada), spine (kakunrohin)
representing the peaks covered by the sacred Garan forest, left foot (kadanwana) on the sideof the coastal plain in the northeast (waeyapo) and the right foot (kadanbali) on the side ofmount Batakbual in the southeast. The arms on each side, with the left hand (fahanwana) on
the north coast (Waenibe river) and right hand (fahanbali) on the south coast (Waemala river).
In the middle, the abdoment (fukan) with Mount Date represented by a male organ and Lake
Rana Waekolo in its center represented by the belly containing both the bowels and uterus(female organ). This is the central part that the Geba Bupolo are responsible to preserve andprotect from external attacks. This central area is irrigated by rivers flowing into the lake

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Fig. 1. The conception of the island of Buru according to Geba Bupolo.

Rana Waekolo and the water flows into Waenibe river which further flows to the north coast,
as represented by the side of the left arm (PATTINAMA 2005).
In this expression are synthetically gathered several concepts and essential elements inthe lives of Geba Bupolo. Some of which are presented here: the daily staple food that is
made from sago starch and also cassava, ritual staple food, rice and millet, the elements of the
reproduction of human beings, attention to wear in the sense of fluid flow.
The division of Buru island between two fena
According to the Geba Bupolo and as indicated by their myth, their dispersion started
from fenafafan, the main village on Lake Rana Waekolo. Fena refers to both the group of
inhabitants and the territory they occupy. It corresponds to different levels of territorialorganization. Fafan means “superior”, “first” or “flank”. A first partition is made between two
fenas who do not have the same importance geographically and each corresponds to a part ofthe body, according to the representation that the Geba Bupolo perceives about their island.
The two fenas are fena Lisaboli Lisela and fena Masa Meserete.
The fena Lisaboli Lisela in the north is dominated by Mount Kakupalatmada (head), andin the center are Mount Date (males) and Lake Rana Waekolo (females). The Waenibe River(left arm), the sacred Garan forest (spine) and Waeyapo plain (left foot). The Geba Bupolo of85
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fena Lisaboli Lisela whose role is very important to protect the center from the external
influence is considered as cadets.
The fena Masa Meserete, in the south, includes Mount Batakbual (right foot) and
Waemala river (right arm). The Geba Bupolo of this fena is considered to be an elder brother.
Each fena possesses two Matguguls initially installed in the center. The term Matgugul isa contraction of matlea “head” and gugul “sit”. This term, as we have seen, was used at thetime of the Sultanate of Ternate. Indonesian calls the Matgugul of the Geba Bupolo as the“king of the land”.
Two Matguguls of fena Masa Meserete left the center to go to the south coast andembrace the Protestant religion. The Dutch designated them as Raja Masarete.
The word Lisaboli consists of two words: lisa which is the name of Terminalia sp. tree,
and boli “surround”. Therefore, ‘Lisaboli’ literally means “surrounded by Terminalia sp.
trees”. The word Lisela, in my opinion, is an abbreviation of two words lisa and ela. Lisa
“Terminalia sp.” and ela means “try”. It is difficult to know exactly why the fena facing thenorth use that name. It can be seen that Terminalia sp. trees are numerous on the hills aroundthe lake. In addition, the different stages of the cycle of traditional agricultural practices are
fixed according to the observation of the phenological stages of this tree, i.e. the fall andregrowth of the leaves, and the appearance and color of the latter stage.
The Geba Bupolo considers fena as a shared house with three parts: the room(humalalen), the entrance hall (humanelan), and the door (sufen).
For fena Masa Meserete in the south, the terms that designates this fena consists of masa
“mature”, the abbreviation of mese “Artocarpus indicus” tree and farete “superior”. For the
Geba Bupolo, Artocarpus indicus is a tree linked to the mythical story of the spillway of Lake
Rana Waekolo to the Waenibe river which flows to the north. The water could get in that
direction because a woman ancestor, who lived in Fenafafan, cut a trunk of Artocarpus
indicus in the spillway area. The Geba Bupolo says when looking at the topography, the northshore of the lake is surrounded by high mountains, especially Mount Date, but not on thesouth shore, and therefore the water should flow to the south. The lake water in fact flew tothe north and south is that the members of the Geba Bupolo went to fena Masa Meserete.
From their perspective, the relationship with the living world corresponds the horizontal
links, meanwhile the relationship with the ancestors corresponds the vertical link (BARRAUD
and FRIEDBERG 1996). For Geba Bupolo, in the center for horizontal links are marriages, inwhich negotiations and ceremonies are conducted during agricultural activities that may
involve lineage subgroups (bialahin) spouses.
Each nuclear family has its own home. The houses are grouped into three to five, in
hamlets, humalolin, which are formed by the members of a lineage subgroup (bialahin). It isnoted that this notion of bialahin is used to designate that the lineage subgroups correspond to
the way the suckers of sago occur in nature, where a main (the biggest) tree forms several

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suckers around it. The hamlet, humalolin, consists of three to five equivalent bialahin houses,
which is, to the eyes of Geba Bupolo, analogous to how a sago cluster develops (PATTINAMA
2005). This tree species grows as a group or cluster or boliboli, in Buru language. That is why
the Geba Bupolo often use an expression bialahinmsiandefobabo- liboliotohumalolinmsian
that is to say “a lineage subgroup (bialahin) establishes a group in a hamlet (humalolin)”.
The interesting point is that the characteristics of the sago tree represent Geba Bupolo’s
life. An informant told me that a traditional chief among the Geba Bupolo takes power after
his predecessor disappears but not before. It is like the growth of a sago sucker around themain tree. Fig. 2 illustrates the role of lineage subgroup (bialahin) in the Geba Bupolo in ahamlet (humalolin) or in a village (fenalalen), where Gebakuasan or the main tree is labeled“1” and the members, bialahin, or the other trees around it are labeled “2”, “3”, “4”, and “5”.
The Gebakuasan considers himself as the main tree “1” and around him there are members ofequivalent bialahin, as trees “2”, “3”, “4”, and “5” that do not exceed the main tree “1”. The
tree “2” will be considered as a successor, but it must wait for permission from the tree “1”.
Based on LOUHENAPESSY (1992), sago like other species of the same family Arecaceae willdie, started from the youngest leaves, the petioles become dry and gradually the trunk and theroots will die. In the process of replacing the principal body, it is considered that there isenergy transfer from one to the other, like what happen inside the bialahin formed by thepeople.

Fig. 2. The bouquet of sago, bialahin (Metroxylon sagu, Arecaceae)

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Territorial Organization by Bupolo People in Buru Island

Conclusion
This research on an Indonesian society describes the Geba Bupolo who live in the islandof Buru in the Moluccas. Although the data are limited, however, it can provide an idea of ourapproach to that society, its place in the world, the relationship between the living and thedead and with the environment in general.
To think about their relationship to the territory, the Geba Bupolo appeals simultaneously
to several models. Buru Island is considered to be represented by the body of a human being,with the center of the island, for the Geba Bupolo, represented by both the locations of theorgans in the abdomen and the sexual organs. The center of the island is also thought as adwelling place, in which the most private part where the hosts dwell and produce theirchildren, is the most hidden and therefore the most sacred. In the mind of the Geba Bupolo,
being sacred and being secret are associated.

References
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Sagu Nasional 12-13 Oktober, 1992 [National Sago Symposium, 12-13 October, 1992],
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