Treasure in the Coffee Plantation

KOMPAS/PRIYOMBODO

Farmers harvest coffee beans in Gajah village, Simpang Empat district, Karo regency, North Sumatra on Friday (15/12/2017). Climate change has reduced agricultural output in almost all areas in North Sumatra.

News of a hoe hitting hard objects in a coffee plantation belonging to Bulyadi spread. Residents of Jujun village in Keliling Danau village, Kerinci regency, immediately started to dig the soil. They became increasingly excited when they uncovered the hard objects.

A stone, which, even though still faintly visible, appeared to be in the form of a  human body. Excavations continued. Together with a number of archaeologists, the excavations were increasingly showing results. The 2-meter-long stone was an engraving of a male body without feet on the north end and a female body at its southern end.

Not far away, there were dozens of ancient finds. They lifted them one by one. There were huge rocks. More unique was that nearly all the rocks were carved. They are sculptures of the human body. Then elsewhere, there were also carvings in the form of elephants, tigers, dogs and horses.

However, the most interesting were the spiral-shaped carvings scattered in a number of locations. The spiral motifs were interpreted as worship in the sun similar to other archaeological finds in various parts of the world, such as in Egypt, Greece, to the East Asia region.

Since then Bulyadi began to understand. Past civilizations used to stop in his coffee plantation. "Indeed, I often hoe, suddenly hit something hard. Now I believe it is the rest of a buried civilization," he said.

Now, his coffee plantation is over 50 years old. Until now, he still frequently  finds pieces of pottery.

Even, when Kompas visited his old plantation in January 2018, Bulyadi was still cleaning the plantation from the weeds under the coffee plants. Suddenly he found a number of new pottery fragments. He collected the new findings. Some were fractions of pots and their covers. There were also pottery that had been carved with spiral motifs, diagonal lines, and spiraling lines.

He collected the new findings in a container. "The new findings will be reported to the Jambi  Culture Preservation Agency," he said.

Broken story

At least three generations above Bulyadi were not informed with an ancient civilization in their village. There has never been a hereditary story about the ancient rocks.

As far as they knew was that their parents used to remind. For example, they were not allowed to move the rocks from their original locations, let alone sell them.

The only thing that could possibly be attributed is still the various local custom rituals, which still exist, such as the tradition of ngubat medicine, coffee forecast, and sko feast. The rituals are a proof that the local people   still have relations with their ancestral spirits.

The results of the study found a great civilization had evolved in the region 10,000 years before Christ. The civilization now spreads in old villages which  now become the center of coffee and cinnamon plantations. They are located in the valleys of the Bukit Barisan Mountains, ranging from Kerinci (Jambi), Pagaralam and Lahat (South Sumatra), up to the border of Bengkulu.

The findings and excavations of megalithic sites in the highlands of Jambi were first conducted in 2009 by a researcher of the South Sumatra  Archaeological Center, Tri Marhaeni. The findings showed the existence of civilization since the protohistory days through the discovery of Chinese ceramics from the Han Dynasty and bronze objects from Dongson culture in Vietnam. Later, the area has also been crossed by the maritime trade route as a supplier of forest products, plantations, and mines. One of them is coffee.

In Kerinci, many archaeological objects are found not only in Jujun but also the surrounding villages that encircle Lake Kerinci. In Muak Village, for example, there is a Broken Stone site. There is the site of the Tempang Talang Semerah Grave. Obsidian stones have also been discovered around the grave jars. The stones constitute a hallmark of Mesolithic and Megalithic cultural life.

A cultural official who is also preserver of  Kerinci archaeological objects, Iskandar Zakaria, said the various findings reflect the formation of civilization there since the middle stone era or Mesolitikum. "Until now I still frequently  find the relics of the past. There are still many others buried in the ground," he said.

History proves the greatness of Kerinci\'s name in the past. Not only because of its great civilization in prehistoric times. At the beginning of the 19th century, Kerinci was famous as one of the world\'s coffee suppliers. Even, in the book All About Coffee by William H Ukers, published in 1922, it was mentioned that Kerinci coffee at that time was called Corinchie, produced from natural cultivation, could produce large-sized coffee beans, looked good, and had brown color. It mentioned about its interesting taste, "Good body, plenty of bitter acid, delicious flavor".

Now, the old coffee trees in Bulyadi\'s plantation are still productive. They are promoted with the name Arabica coffee. "Previously this coffee was brought to Kerinci by those that had gone on the haj in Saudi Arabia," Iskandar  said.

Later new robusta plants were developed among the Arabica coffee trees. The young coffee plants produce larger harvests. However, the Arabica coffee is still being treated and their red fruits are used as seeds. The story of the past and the present finally merges as a treasure in the middle of the plantation.

(ITA/WSI/AIN)