Distribution of Kubu or Forest People, traditional communities

One of the traditional communities in Bukit Tigapuluh is the Kubu or Forest Dwelling People. The majority of Kubu people live in the less hilly regions of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, found within Jambi Province. The Bukit Tigapuluh group of Kubu people are part of larger one in Bukit Duabelas National Park – also in Jambi Province.

As forests became fragmented, they left Bukit Duabelas and moved in the direction of Bukit Tigapuluh in search of resources for survival. Also many migrating individuals moved to this new area also because they had transgressed a traditional code of conduct known as "Keno campok adat" and thus forcibly evicted. Most of the Kubu people in Bukit Tigapuluh settled in the southern part of the park, though some went to northern and western regions of the park which are found in Riau Province. To Kubu people, forests are regarded as being their homes where they do their daily activities such as hunting, cooking, collecting forest products and occasionally basic "shifting" cultivation. Hunting has a social signigicance in that the spoils of the hunt (animal meat) are shared widely among the members of the group.

Their intense interactions with the forest in their day-to-day activities has made them very dependent on their natural surroundings. Apart from being their homes, the forest is also regarded as a place where they are free from external influences. This is in line with their attempts to maintain their traditions which are so distinct from other ethnic groups. The feeling of security that the forest provides them with – they describe it as how a baby feels in its mother lap – reinforces their desires to live naturally within the forest.

Women are both the owners and distributors of resources in a Kubu family. This is evidenced by the very protective nature of men towards their women, often leading to the misconception that women are sidelined within the community. In fact they are regarded highly.

External interaction, particularly economic activites, is commonly carried out by the men. The men are responsible for collecting forest products and selling them in the market through middlemen. This is a form of external exchange where the Kubu people and middlemen are very dependent on each other. However, this has always been to the advantage of the middlemen. The middlemen act as the lenders of money to the Kubu people for expenses in the period of searching for forest products. In return for this advance money, the Kubu people must pay the money back in the form of forest products. However, since forests have become limited and forest resources are scarce, the Kubu people often suffer as a result of their debts to these middlemen.

The Kubu people differ from other indigenous people inhabiting the Bukit Tigapuluh range (e.g. Talang Mamak and Old Malay). They maintain a loose ownership over larger areas for their nomadic lifestyle and as areas in which they hunt and gather products. When they temporarily settle in one area, they tend to regard their settlements as a base camp for food supplies rather than an area for shifting or longer term cultivation.