Irianese tribespeople employ pigs in the field
Irianese tribespeople employ pigs in the field
By Neles Tebay
MOANEMANI, Irian Jaya (JP): Farmers in Indonesia plow their
land with the help of water buffaloes. However, Irianese of the
Mee tribe in the central highlands of the Irian Jaya province
never use water buffalo or even tractors to plow their land. The
Mee people have their own way of plowing: they use pigs.
Pigs plow the land in Bogobaida, Aradide, East Paniai, West
Paniai, Damabagata, and Tigi districts of the Paniai regency;
also in Ikrar, Kamu, Mapia, and Sukikai districts of the Nabire
regency, where the people of the Mee tribe live.
Abraham Pigome, 37, is a farmer living in Itouda village, Kamu
district, in the Nabire regency. Every morning, he takes a pig to
the land he intends to develop. Arriving there, he takes a five
meter rope, ties one end to one of the pig's feet and the other
to a stake in the center of the designated area. He then leaves
the pig to plow.
In the evening, he unties the rope and takes the pig back to
its stable.
Abraham does not know who began this way of plowing or when it
started.
"I do not know who introduced this way to the Mee tribe,"
Abraham said as The Jakarta Post visited him in his village,
seven kilometers south of Moanemani, the capital town of Kamu
district or 207 kilometers northeast from Nabire, the capital of
the Nabire regency. "However, the use of a pig to plow the land
has been a tradition here."
He said he learnt how to plow with pigs from his father. "When
I was a child, my father used to ask me to take some pigs to the
field early in the morning and to take them back to their stable
in evening," Abraham, a father of four children said.
A pig plows the land without the supervision of the owner. "I
do not need to stay there for the whole day. The pig plows
without supervision," Abraham said.
"Therefore during day time I work on other things. Like
yesterday, when after having taken the pig to the field, I went
to the forest to collect firewood."
He also does not need to feed the pig during the day. "And in
the evening, I only give the pig a little food because they eat a
lot of worms (in the field) during the day", Abraham said, adding
that the Mee tribe believes that worms are the best food for pigs
in order for them to grow quickly.
In order to find the worms, the pigs have to dig the land. By
doing so, the soil is plowed.
According to Abraham, a pig can finish plowing a piece of land
measuring 20 by 50 meters in two or three months. The process is
faster if there are more pigs.
The Mee people have never used water buffalo to plow the land
as they have never seen one and would not know what they look
like. They do not even know the word buffalo. They are also
unfamiliar with any modern tools or machinery which are used to
plow the land.
Abraham said that by plowing the land, the pigs crush the hard
land, making it soft so that the farmers can prepare the seed bed
and make the furrows easily. "If the land is not plowed by a pig,
the soil remains hard, so a lot energy would be wasted," Abraham
said, adding that the farmers rely on pigs and hoes in developing
their land.
No wonder then, that to the Mee Tribe the pig is a valuable
animal. It can cost up to Rp 2 million.
"The more pigs you have, the more money you can earn.
Therefore, a man of Mee tribe should raise at least one pig,"
Abraham said.