Folklore
A man dived into the cold river. He was looking for someone who had drowned and finally found a cave-like hole. His curiosity drove him to check the inside of the hole, where he saw a statue of a tiger.
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The Acehnese storyteller PM Toh tells stories about human history in an event Celebrating Tolerance and Diversity at Ir H Djuanda Forest Park, Bandung, West Java, Saturday (20/5/2017).
A man dived into the cold river. He was looking for someone who had drowned and finally found a cave-like hole. His curiosity drove him to check the inside of the hole, where he saw a statue of a tiger.
Directly above the statue, a pair of huge snake statues was carved out from the ceiling. Fearing the unexpected and dangerous, he immediately swam away.
In the Maribaya waterfall area of West Bandung regency, Mang Eyek shared his story. He had come from the Sapan Ranca Tunjung village, which was more than three hours by car from the tourist spot.
Lost cities or lands are not a new phenomenon, and there are various causes for this, such as movement of tectonic plates, powerful earthquakes, tsunami waves, weapons of war and volcanic eruptions. Because this discovery has not been followed up with archaeological excavations and the origins of the statues have yet to be explained, the story will be considered a folk tale if it is told by word of mouth and is called oral literature.
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The Kanekes or Baduy people believe that their ancestors had come from the sky, based on the oral story of Pantun Lutung Kasarung. The god Batara Guruminda Patanjala disguised himself as a large black langur and stuck a five-eyed kujang (dagger) into a rock in Pamuntuan Hill, Lebak regency, Banten.
The Baduy calendar dates back to 1,000 years BC on the Gregorian calendar, so the Baduy tribe is the oldest tribe on the island of Java with a sustainable way of life and civilization since 3,024 years ago.
For the Baduy people, the dagger is a religious heirloom, an ancestral heritage, as well as a symbol of the inheritance of science and culture of farming. More than 30 years, it was lost, stolen. The Baduy calendar dates back to 1,000 years BC on the Gregorian calendar, so the Baduy tribe is the oldest tribe on the island of Java with a sustainable way of life and civilization since 3,024 years ago.
The ancestors of the Lom tribe also descended from the sky. A boy and girl pair appeared on Semidang Hill, Bangka Island, when the flood receded. In his book, Order and Difference: An Ethnographic Study of Orang Lom of Bangka, West Indonesia, Norwegian anthropologist Olaf H Smedal recorded a statement by a Lom who denied that Semidang Hill was the story of the first Lom people, saying the story of Nuk Dak was older.
It is not clear who Nuk Dak is. The word may have been misspelled. Smedal also wrote "Sumedang Hill" in his book, not "Semidang Hill", while in fact Sumedang was in West Java, not on Bangka Island.
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Today\'s religious teachings also proclaim the ancestry of mankind: God\'s creation. British historian Karen Armstrong wrote about the history of the three major monotheistic religions, which, according to the title of her book, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, goes back 4,000 years.
The Sumerians of Mesopotamia knew their creator much earlier, namely Enlil, a god who was worshiped some 7,000 years ago. In the mythology, Annunaki, a group of gods from outside the earth, created the human races.
British megalithic site specialist writer Graham Hancock (second from right) and US natural scientist Robert Schoch (center) chatting with members of the Gunung Padang Independent Integrated Research Team at the Gunung Padang Megalithic Site, Cianjur, West Java, Thursday (5/12/2013).
The world\'s first poet is Enheduanna (2,285-2,250 BC), the daughter of King Sargon of Mesopotamia. We can get to know some of the technology, science and culture of the Sumerian civilization through people like Miguel Civil, who died earlier this year. He mastered the Sumerian language, which was no longer spoken 4,000 years ago.
Civil, a professor of Sumerology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, reconstructed Sumerian farming guidelines from an inscription from 1,800 BC found in the old city of Nippur -- in present-day Iraq -- and published it in his 1994 book The Farmer\'s Instructions: A Sumerian Agricultural Manual. This detailed guide to cultivating barley consists of 109 lines, including ritual procedures. Tools, such as axes, plows, saws and drills are well known.
The age of human civilization in the archipelago is apparently older. The Gunung Padang site, which is in Cianjur regency, West Java, proves this. Research on this site has been carried out, including by scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences led by Danny Hilman Natawidjaja.
This site has a pyramid structure. The youngest top layer is approximately 3,500 years old. This layer consisted of the rooms, paths and stone columns that supported them. The middle layer dates back 8,000 years. The lowest layers delve 28,000 years into history.
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This legacy gives relevance to genetic tests conducted by Herawati Sudoyo, a forensic anthropologist from the Eijkman Biomolecular Institute, regarding the ancestry of the Indonesian nation: Indonesia\'s territory has been inhabited for 60,000 years.
The important mission of historical discoveries is not limited to proving the superiority of a civilization but is also about acquiring knowledge of art, religion, culture and technology from the period of its development, to study and understand its importance for the progress of mankind at present and in the future.
A man and woman, Mangmot and Padamot, came to earth in a spaceship made of stone after testing the depth of the sea water with nine stones (fetok, kokaserang, olwei, malangwei, taluangwei, farawei, lakawei, tibuwei and takamatwei).
However, the Alor people have the most amazing folk tales about their ancestors. A man and woman, Mangmot and Padamot, came to earth in a spaceship made of stone after testing the depth of the sea water with nine stones (fetok, kokaserang, olwei, malangwei, taluangwei, farawei, lakawei, tibuwei and takamatwei).
Did the ancestors of the Alor people really come from outer space?
Six extraterrestrials descended on Pantar Island, Alor archipelago, in July 1959. Their skin was red, their uniforms blue. The villagers were scared and the police were kept busy. Not long after that, a flying saucer shot through the sky. This is not fiction.
Roesmin Nurjadin, chief of staff of the Indonesian Air Force, also gave testimony in 1967 that was published in David E Twichell\'s 2003 book Global Implications of the UFO Reality. He stated that the appearance of UFOs in Indonesia was the same as in other countries that had caused concern related to national air defense, so the air force had to open fire.
Linda Christanty
LINDA CHRISTANTY, Author and Cultural Activist
