Kids in Alor, go to school by boat from Kepa island to Alor Kecil.

Ritual Penti dalam Budaya Manggarai-Flores-Nusa Tenggara Timur.

TARIAN CACI-MANGGARAI-FLORES BARAT-INDONESIA

Tarian Caci merupakan suatu permainan adu ketangkasan antara dua orang laki-laki dalam mencambuk dan menangkis cambukan lawan secara bergantian. Tarian Caci terlihat begitu heroik dan indah karena merupakan kombinasi antara Lomes (keindahan gerak tubuh dan busana yang dipakai), Bokak (keindahan seni vokal saat bernyanyi) , dan Lime (ketangkasan dalam mencambuk atau menangkis cambukan lawan). Pemain Caci juga dibekali kemampuan olah vokal untuk bernyani , dimana setelah menangkis cambukan lawan seorang pemain Caci secara spontan bernyanyi dan menyampaikan Paci .

Paci merupakan ungkapan berisi nama samaran atau alias dari pemain Caci tersebut yang berisi ungkapan tentang keberadaan dirinya, siapa dia atau sosok yang dia dambahkan. Tujuan dari Paci yaitu untuk mempengaruhi lawan menantang lawan dan juga untuk memotivasi atau meggelorakan semangat dari dalam diri. Kostum yang dikenakan pemain Caci sangat atraktif dan melambangkan keunikan dan karakter budaya yang dimiliki oleh orang Manggarai seperti: “Panggal” (penutup kepala) berbentuk tanduk kerbau dan salah satu lambang yang ditempatkan pada bagian kerucut atap rumah adat Manggarai. Melambangkan “rang” (kharisma dan kekuatan) orang Manggarai. “Ndeki” (berbentuk kuncir kuda) terbuat dari rotan yang dipilin dengan bulu ekor kuda, di tempatkan pada bagian ping gang, melambang kan kejantanan dan keperkasaan.

Pesona dan daya pikat lelaki Manggarai, sebagaimana seekor kuda jantan yang mengangkat ekor untuk memikat daya tarik sang betina. Sarung songke yang diikat sepanjang lutut, melambangkan kesantunan dan sikap patuh orang Manggarai. Celana panjang putih melambangkan kepolosan, kemurahan dan ketulusan hati. Tubi Rapa dikenakan sebagai manik-manik yang di ikat pada bagian bawa dagu melambangkan kebesaran dan keagungan lelaki Manggarai. Nggorong (gemerincing) diikat pada bagian belakang pinggang.

Selendang leros dililit di pinggang dan dijuntai pada bagian depan sarung. Perlengkapan permainan Caci seperti Larik (Cambuk) terbuat dari kulit kerbau dan dipilin dengan anyaman rotan pada ujungnya, Nggiling (perisai) terbuat dari kulit kerbau untuk menangkis cambukan lawan, Agang (berbentuk busur) terbuat dari rotan atau dahan bambu dipakai untuk menangkis atau menahan gempuran lawan.

Permainan Caci dilakukan antara dua kelompok dari dua kampong yang berbeda. Kelompok tamu di sebut “Meka Landang” sedangkan tuan rumah disebut “Mori Beo”. Pada saat pemain Caci beradu di dalam arena, tuan rumah, pria dan wanita yang berada di luar arena melakukan Danding (bernyanyi lagu Mang ga ra i da l am bentuk lingkaran dengan gerakan berputar) disertai gerakan Sae oleh sepasang pria dan wanita di tengah lingkaran.

Sementara itu beberapa wanita duduk berkelompok sambil memukul gong dan gendang yang bertalutalu untuk menyorakkan suasana. Sasaran cambukan dari pemain Caci adalah bagian badan sebelah atas dari perut hingga kepala. Pemukulan di bagian bawah perut dianggap pelanggaran. Apabila mengenai wajah dinamai Beke . Pemain Caci yang mengalami Beke dinyatakan kalah, harus keluar dari arena permainan pulang ke rumah atau ke kampung halamannya. Permainan Caci dipertunjukkan pada upacara 'Penti' (syukuran setelah panen), Pesso Beo (selamatan kampung), menyambut pengantin baru, tamu penting, dan dalam upacara gembira lain seperti Perayaan Hari Ulang Tahun Kemerdekaan.

Text: sailkomodo2013.nttprov.go.id/index.php/2012-12-05-06-20-09/tarian-daerah/112-tarian-caci

Photo : Leonardus Nyoman / 08123662110

Watublapi: Weaving life from cultural heritage

Watublapi: Weaving life from cultural heritage
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 10/08/2006 10:06 AM


Filomena Reiss, Contributor, Watublapi, Flores

""Oh, helelarak! Oh, helelarak!"" Welcome, welcome! As visitors walk toward the village of Watublapi on Flores island, they are greeted by the colorful spectacle of traditionally dressed women singing and dancing, welcoming guests to their village.

Their words of greeting mean friendship, loyalty and respect for customs. Visitors are blessed by the village elder with a sprinkle of holy water, and a selendang (shawl) is placed around a lucky guest. The show is just beginning.

Watublapi is derived from watu (stone) and blapi (sitting), and thus means ""sitting together"". The village is situated in the hills about a 45-minute drive northeast from the capital Maumere.

The drive is spectacular. Due to the active volcanoes scattered in different parts of the island, the land is extremely fertile and the land is thickly covered with all types of plants and trees: coconut, clove, cashew nuts, cacao and coffee. As visitors approach Watublapi, their eyes are immediately drawn to the colorful woven sarongs drying on clothes lines.

All the men and women in the welcome party are members of the Sanggar Bliran Sina cooperative, founded 21 years ago by Romano Rewo, a native of Watublapi.

Romano had traveled to many different hotels trying to sell hand-woven textiles made by his family, but he thought there must a better way to sell them; so he decided to form this organization. Another aim of Sanggar Bliran Sina is to revive and preserve ancient dyeing techniques, using natural dyes.

Following Romano's death in 1990, his enthusiastic son Daniel David took over Sanggar, which now consists of 55 active members of not only weavers, but also dancers and musicians.

The villagers' performance includes a selection of culturally significant dances and songs. The heartfelt singing and exuberant dancing is quite infectious, and visitors will soon be tapping their toes to the music.

The opening dance, Roa Mu'u, demonstrates the bonding of two families in a traditional marriage ceremony. The bride's family prepares the sacred adat (customary) sarong while the groom's family must bring an elephant tusk.

The sarong must bear an ancient motif called werak or wiriwanan, which symbolize fertility. These elephant tusk motifs existed before the arrival of Christianity to Flores, as trade goods to eastern Indonesia at the peak of the spice trade, and are a symbol of male fertility.

Roa Mu'u is the cutting of a banana tree, which represents overcoming the hardships that the new couple may encounter during their married life. Banana trees are known to grow back, even when it is cut down repeatedly.

The Togo dance and song depicts the communal threshing of harvested rice, using their feet to separate the rice seeds from the straw. Traditional prayers and poems are sung to the rice goddess. According to local beliefs, rice originally derived from the blood of a girl named Ina Nalu Pare. Singing songs dedicated to the rice goddess ensures that her spirit will stay close to the paddies, guaranteeing both good crops and protection from negative forces.

Included in the cultural program is a demonstration of producing handmade textiles -- from cleaning the cotton, spinning, tying (ikat), coloring with plant dyes and weaving the final textile, called tenunan.

There are two types of yarn used in weaving textiles. Homespun yarn is very time-consuming to make and uses cotton that is grown in weavers' gardens. Commercial yarn is bought at the market, ready to be dyed. This yarn is produced in Java and is sold at markets all over Flores.

""Tying"", or mengikat, refers to tying the motifs and designs on to the prepared yarn, which prevents the dyes from spreading into the tied part creating the motifs. The yarn is tied with strips made of leaves from the lontar palm or young coconut leaves, called gebang.

The dyeing process is the most tedious, especially in preparing natural dyes from plants. Dyeing the yarn takes at least three to four days, over which the yarns are dipped and soaked in the prepared dyes several times until the desired color is achieved by the weaver.

Indigo plants are harvested in the lowlands of Flores, and are valued for the deep blue shade they produce.

For the earthy brown shade, the entire root system of the mengkudu (morinda) tree are dug up, but only the bark of the root is used. This is pounded and mixed with the powdered bark of the loba tree. If the resulting reddish color is not satisfactory, three more types of tree bark are boiled and the yarns are soaked again in this dye.

Turmeric is pounded with the bark of the mango tree to obtain a yellow dye.

A recently introduced color is green, which is produced using the leaves of the mango tree. Because these leaves are very strong and difficult to crush, this color is the most difficult to produce.

Papaya and cassava leaves are also used to make green dyes, and are preferred by some weavers. The weavers are very resourceful and always looking for different varieties of plants, experimenting with the color intensity the plants produce as dyes.

It takes three to four weeks to make a small selendang from a commercial yarn using natural dyes, and three months if the yarn is handspun.

Men also play an important role in the process of making textiles, particularly in harvesting plant material for dyes. Digging the roots of the mengkudu tree is very strenuous, while sacks and sacks of indigo plants are harvested from the lowlands to make blue dyes. Other plant materials are found in the forest, and the men are usually given this task.

They also help pound most of the plant materials, and cooking the materials into a dye is also now part of the men's work -- especially when the women, often the men's wives, are busy weaving.

The cultural program concludes with a viewing of these labor-intensive, finished textiles. This is when the weavers are hoping -- perhaps anxiously -- that one of their textiles would be purchased, or at least appreciated, by visitors.

Since the founding of Sanggar Bliran Singa, the local economy has improved tremendously. One weaver commented that since joining Sanggar, she could send her children to school and she always had a stock of rice in the kitchen.

The cooperative has encouraged the hardworking people of Watublapi to retain their heritage through weaving while establishing an economic gateway in selling their woven products.

A trip to the village is a wonderful experience of seeing a cultural heritage not only being maintained, but also enhanced further toward the betterment of villagers' lives.

Flores: Hidden flower of the East

Flores: Hidden flower of the East
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 09/04/2005

Christina Schott, Contributor, Jakarta

Flores. For years we wanted to go Cabo da Flores (Cape of Flowers), as the Portuguese called the island in today's East Nusa Tenggara when they first arrived in 1512. Whether they chose this name because of the beautiful vegetation or because of the colorful underwater gardens is not clear. Both are overwhelming in the right season; just after the rain is over, when the mud has dried but the dust has not yet risen.

That was the moment, as we sat on a flight to Maumere, we had the idea to roll east to west along the Trans-Flores highway. From the air, we got the first impression of the breathtaking landscape waiting for us: Flores, 375 kilometers long but extremely slim, presents dramatic mountain scenery up to 2,400 meters above sea level and 14 active volcanoes. And even from high up we could see the clear turquoise water around the northern coast, with its coral reefs that promised to fulfill every diver's dream.

As an important junction, Maumere is a good place to start in, although the town was mostly destroyed by a devastating tsunami in 1992. Since there was not even a fraction of the international attention last year's tsunami drew, the thousands of victims had to rebuild their homes with few donors in a rather unattractive way. However, some quiet bungalow resorts on the way to Larantuka -- once the headquarters of the Portuguese Dominicans -- provide pristine, white sandy beaches and access to snorkeling and diving spots.

Very soon, however, we learned that transport on Flores not only needs time but it also has its price: Either you pay in U.S. dollars for a private car or you bump your body around chicken cages and other loads piled up in the middle of a public bus. We chose the second option, hoping to get some travel originality. We got it. With three goats and a pig screaming on top of our heads and the finest selection of East Nusa Tenggara hits of the Eighties. All at full volume, of course.

We also understood quickly, why every passenger on the bus was greeted with the distribution of plastic bags. The ""Trans-Flores-Highway"" is, indeed, the biggest road on the island but that doesn't mean much, since it is often the only asphalted one. It is an ever-winding mountain pass road that hardly provides enough space for two buses passing each other, let alone the potholes. ""Nothing compared to 40 years ago,"" reassured a retired missionary who had first arrived on Flores in the 1960s. ""At that time, the trip to Ende took us a whole day on dusty earth.""

Nevertheless, the stomach- and buttock-torturing journey was worth every kilometer for its gorgeous panoramic views. We needed four hours to our first stop at Moni, the gateway for a visit to Mount Kelimutu, whose three-colored crater lakes are one of Flores most famous tourist attractions. Early in the morning, two hired motorbikes took us to the freezing dark on top of the volcano. Every story the villagers told us the night before about ghosts and other mysteries suddenly seemed very real.

From the parking still half-an-hour-climb through the fog, we reached the platform on the top just in time to imagine the sunrise behind the impenetrable clouds. Thanks to our sarongs and thermos bottle with hot tea we could stand the cold a little longer than the disappointed Dutch travel group that arrived with us so that we were on our own to witness the sun breaking through and turning the three dark water holes around us into the bubbling crater lakes we were hoping for. Because of unexplored chemical reactions the color of the lakes have changed several times in the last decades, leaving them now in a shimmering black, sparkling turquoise and rusty dark brown. The souls of the dead are said to live here and we could imagine them dancing in the steam rising up the steep slopes.

After a two-hour bus ride and a 15 degree Celsius difference in temperature we reached Ende. The capital of Flores doesn't offer much as a tourist attraction except a dirty harbor and one of the island's three public Internet cafes; the others are in Maumere and Ruteng. It is also a good place to buy famous ikat (traditional weaving) made all over the island and to prepare oneself for the freezing nights at the next stop in the mountains: Bajawa.

The main town of the Ngada region is -- beside Labuanbajo -- probably the best-prepared for travelers. Everything is organized by local guides and the bemo (three-wheeled motor taxi) mafia, and even their tour prizes are fixed. But you need them: We probably would never have found our way to the traditional villages of the Ngada people alone. A few kilometers can become a long winding way through an unknown forest. Another problem is the language: not all of the indigenous people speak Indonesian. As different as the climate on Flores is, as different are the peoples, their features and their languages.

The Ngada normally live in matriarchal communities with strict sacred rules. Although they were converted to Catholicism -- the graves in front of their towering wooden houses show crosses -- they still follow many animist traditions. Among the crosses, there are megalithic altars and a lot of other symbols like the ngadhu and bhaga, reminding us of the female and male ancestors of every clan living in the village. On top of these open graveyards play the children along with cats and pigs, as the mothers weave the traditional black-and-white ikat. But behind their brown stained smiles -- what the sirih (betel) addiction left of their teeth -- lurk symbols of modernity; Coca-Cola boxes in the back of their houses.

After a soothing bath in the nearby hot springs of Soa, we are ready for our last bone-shaking bus trip next morning. It starts with an impressing tour around Mount Inerie, and offers direct views to the sea from the top of the peaks before reaching the Manggarai capital Ruteng. From there it is still another four-hour-drive to Labuanbajo. This bustling harbor town is mainly inhabited by Muslim immigrants from Sulawesi and is the starting point for all kinds of boat trips to the innumerable islands between Flores and Sumbawa -- before all go to Komodo National Park.

We need a break after all the bumpy streets and the shouting bus drivers. So we head straight away to Seraya, one of small islands around Labuanbajo; islands which are rented from the government by hotels. Seraya Kecil looks like it was arranged for a travel advertisement: surrounded by white sandy beaches, transparent water and beautiful coral reefs. The island accommodates a small fishing village and -- at the other end -- a dozen simple but clean bamboo bungalows. The only permanent inhabitants there are a couple of deer, a family of dogs and a herd of goats. The rest is all yours.

How to get there:

Flights from Denpasar starting from Rp 500,000 by Merpati or Pelita (to Ende, Maumere, Labuanbajo) and GT Air (to Labuanbajo). PELNI ships go on different routes from Surabaya to Ende, Maumere and Labuanbajo. The trip by public bus and ferry takes around three days from Bali.

Where to stay:

Maumere: Sea World Club, Waiara (13 km from Maumere), Phone: +62-382-21570, www.sea-world-club.com

Ende: Hotel Ikhlas, Jl. Ahmad Yani, Phone: +62-381-21695. Upscale traveler hotel, clean and organized.

Labuanbajo: Those who don't want to stay in the busy immigrant town, should take the Gardena boat to Seraya island and find Robinson's paradise; Seraya Island Bungalows, c/o Gardena Hotel, Labuanbajo. Phone: +62-385-41258, www.serayaisland.com

Transport:

Those who don't want to rely on the uncomfortable public transport or see places off the beaten track, should arrange a car and a guide. Warmly recommended: Leonardus Nyoman, experienced guide, speaks English and German, phone: +62-812-366 2110, Email: leonardus_nym@yahoo.com