Local Wisdom in the Tabot Ceremony in Bengkulu

Abstract

Language and culture are two inseparable things that influence to one another. They are integrated with a society which then create local wisdom. It must be maintained for the sake of the continuation of language and culture in the future. Tabot ceremony is one of the traditional cultures of Bengkulu community which has a lot of local wisdom values. Therefore, the researcher tries to analyze the values of local wisdom in the Tabot ceremony and to find the language varieties used in the Tabot ceremony. This research uses an ecolinguistic approach followed by a qualitative descriptive method. The results indicate that the values of local wisdom contained in the Tabot ceremony are the values of humanity and the obligation of caring from one Muslim to other Muslims. The language varieties found in this series of Tabot ceremony are Mengambiak Tanah, Duduk, Penja, Menjara, Meradai, Jola, Arak, Serban, Coki, Gam, Dol, Tessa, Gedang and Tebuang. These Language varieties are the result of the ecological and language processes that occur in the community in the form of traditional ceremony. Lastly, the researcher hopes that the results of this research can contribute to a cultural literacy which is a 21st-century skill. The cultural literacy is the ability to understand and behave towards Indonesian culture as a national identity. So, the results of this research are also expected to introduce Bengkulu culture at the national and international level.