Belief in supernatural beings on Belitong Island is an integral part of the local knowledge system, not merely a static legacy of superstition. Both the Urang Darat, the inland community considered indigenous, and the Urang Laut (the boat people) share cosmological perspectives regarding the existence of unseen forces. In J.W.H. Adam’s notes in Gedenkboek Billiton 1852–1927 Tweede Deel (1927), the Urang Laut even routinely prepared offerings and flags on isolated stones as a form of communication and negotiation with non-human entities. This practice was not merely a spiritual ritual but a form of ecological relationship reflecting how they understood and cared for the surrounding natural landscape. Within the framework of folklore theory, such practices indicate that belief in supernatural beings functions as a cosmological worldview, a way for the community to explain and organize their relationship with the world beyond sensory perception.
One of the most prominent supernatural figures in Belitong cosmology is the Pulong (or Polong in Dutch spelling), as documented by Cornelis de Groot in Herinneringen aan Blitong (1887). De Groot noted that “every person from Belitung fears this Polong spirit.” The Pulong is depicted as a dwarf or earth spirit. Anthropologically, it is an earth spirit believed to often sneak into houses at night. Beyond merely frightening people, its presence is thought to cause serious illnesses, particularly those related to the human head. The Pulong is also associated with shooting stars, which are considered malevolent Pulong abducting and carrying away human heads. According to symbolic anthropology perspective by Clifford Geertz, the Pulong cannot be understood merely as a ghost in the narrow sense. It is a dense symbol encapsulating ecological experiences, collective fears, and the social structure of Belitong communities. The Pulong represents the tension between humans and their wild, mysterious, and uncontrollable environment. Belief in the Pulong also reflects the community’s ecological awareness, a cultural mechanism to maintain caution and distance in interactions with nature at night, especially in areas considered sacred or dangerous.
The functionalist perspective developed by Bronisław Malinowski, belief in the Pulong functions as a social regulator within Belitong society. Collective fear of the Pulong discourages people from venturing out at night, disturbing forests, or entering spaces considered inhabited. Ecologically, this belief helps protect forest areas and natural resources from excessive human activity. The Pulong can thus be understood as part of a cultural mechanism for environmental governance, a traditional social mechanism that maintains balance between humans and nature. Beyond its ecological function, the Pulong also plays a significant role in the social structure of the community. Adam’s notes (1927) mention that Pulong was particularly feared by pregnant women. In a psychoanalytic framework, this fear can be interpreted as a symbolic articulation of anxiety regarding reproductive vulnerability and the safety of future generations. Emerging from the earth, the Pulong symbolizes uncertainty and threats from unpredictable natural forces. Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny helps explain how the Pulong becomes a symbol of existential threat to community continuity.
The Pulong, as an earth dwarf, can also be analyzed through the lens of comparative mythology. In many agrarian societies worldwide, small earth-dwelling creatures often symbolize spirits guarding terrestrial resources. In European mythology, for instance, gnomes or kobolds are regarded as small guardians of land and mines. In the context of Belitong, historically a tin-mining island, the Pulong reflects a local cosmological adaptation to the geological landscape. It is not merely myth but a product of the intersection between local ecological experience and deeply rooted symbolic structures. An ethnoecological perspective, belief in the Pulong represents local wisdom in interpreting natural signs. Shooting stars, which astronomically may be considered ordinary phenomena, are cosmologically interpreted as the movements of malevolent beings. This interpretation functions as a social warning system, prompting caution at night, especially among vulnerable groups such as pregnant women or young children. In this context, the Pulong acts as a semiotic operator, a symbolic marker regulating ecological and social behavior.
Furthermore, belief in the Pulong serves as a form of collective narrative reinforcing social cohesion. Shared fear of the same being creates narrative bonds and uniform behavioral norms. By observing taboos and avoiding places considered dangerous, the community reproduces its social structure. From Claude Levi-Strauss’s structural anthropology perspective, the Pulong can be understood as a mytheme, the fundamental unit of myth helping Belitong society categorize the human and non-human worlds. The anthropsychological perspective, the Pulong operates as a representation of the tension between collective consciousness and ecological unconscious. Fear of the Pulong is not only orally transmitted but internalized as emotional memory in everyday life. Generations learn to recognize certain places not through maps or laws but through stories and collective fear of beings like the Pulong. The Pulong also provides strong evidence that folklore and ecology are inseparable in traditional societies. Belitong Island, with its forests and mines, becomes a cultural landscape where narratives about the Pulong emerge and function.
In the colonial historical context, records by De Groot (1887) and Adam (1927) demonstrate that this belief was not merely a relic of the past but a living knowledge system actively shaping human-environment relations. Based on history of knowledge perspective, it is important to note that colonial records regarding the Pulong reflect two epistemic layers: first, how local communities constructed the being, and second, how colonizers interpreted and documented it. Documentation of the Pulong in colonial archives is not merely ethnographic reporting but a filtering of indigenous knowledge systems. Here, critical anthropological analysis can uncover hidden layers of meaning behind these colonial texts.
Thus, the Pulong is a folkloric figure functioning as an ecological device, a social symbol, and a collective psychic representation. It regulates community behavior toward space, enforces social norms, and represents existential anxiety regarding the wild environment. On Belitong Island, the Pulong is not an empty myth but a social-environmental narrative, a way for people to understand, manage, and coexist with their ecological landscape. Through the lens of folklore and anthropological theories, symbolic, functional, structural, and psychoanalytic, the Pulong can be understood as a complex cultural structure. It embodies intertwined ecological, social, psychological, and historical meanings.
The figure of the Pulong also demonstrates how pre-modern societies cared for their environment through myth, rather than written law. In other words, the Pulong myth represents a form of cultural governance over their living space. This narratives about the Pulong, recorded in 1870 and 1927, are not merely colonial ethnographic accounts but traces of how Belitong communities constructed their symbolic world. The Pulong serves as a bridge between the human and non-human worlds, between local knowledge and ecological experience. In today’s global landscape, where human-nature relationships are increasingly estranged, understanding folkloric figures like the Pulong provides an important lesson: myths are not just stories, but sophisticated forms of ecological and social knowledge.
Corresponding Author: Arry Aditsya Yoga | Researcher in International Law, Ecopolitology, and Anthropology.