Cultural Performance of Oral Tradition Nandong Simeulue as

Human Resource for Ecotourism: A Linguistic Anthropology Study

Tasnim Lubis

, Robert Sibarani

, Syahron Lubis

, Ichwan Azhari

Doctoral Program of Linguistics, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Faculty of Social Sciences, Universitas Negeri Medan, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Cultural performance, Nandong, Ecotourism, Linguistic anthropology.

Abstract: Nandong simeulue is an oral tradition of Simeuluenese contain advices, stories and satires. As performances

separately are able to perform the characteristic of the community who belong to, cultural performance of

nandong is also able to perform the characteristic of Simeuluenese in their daily life. Besides, the

performance of nandong is also able to explore as one of attraction for ecotourism. The performance not

only entertain the visitors but also as lesson media for Simeuluenese. This study concerned to describe and

evaluate the cultural performance of oral tradition nandong in Simeuluenese toward ecotourism. The data

were audio-video recording of nandong, and texts of nandong in written form. Recording data were

collected by using handycam Panasonic FULL-HD, meanwhile texts were given by informans who

collected them. The meaning of nandong is advices and the function is the “alarm” for Simeuluenese related

to their way in running their life and for their safety.The value contain of respect and appreciate, sportifity,

responsibility and survive. The way they deliver the message through pantoons and poetry which is sung is

a local wisdom that can be explored in ecotourism.

1 INTRODUCTION

The uniqueness of an area could be based on their

creativity in delivering a message as fascinating

linguistic phenomenon. The way their perform

dance, a ritual, a folksong must be has strong

relationship with the creativity and absolutely

accepted in their community. Nandong is an oral

tradition consist of pantoons and poetry about

advices, stories, and satires. It is belong to

Simeuluenese who live in Simeulue island,

Indonesia. There are three local languages in

Simeulue islands namely Devayan, Sigulai and

Leukon and a lingua franca namely Aneuk jame.

Historically, nandong derived from Minangnese

who nomad to Simeulue island and eventually it

belong to Simeulunese. Nandong also develop in

Devayan and Sigulai language but they are exist in

poetry form only. The development of nandong such

tells about the acceptances from Minangnese as

nomads in Simeuluenese. This study is focused on

oral tradition nandong of Simeulunese. As Sibarani

(2018: 48) stated that the study of oral traditions

focuses on the integrity of the form, content, and

heritage of traditions in the living performance with

full of creativity and improvisation (Sibarani, 2018:

48).

The cultural performance of nandong especially

in formal occasions, performs their way to

communicate. The word of nandong refer to advices

to guide the community to behave and also be a

solution when they face a problem. The popular one

is nandong smong which inform the instruction to

keep them safe from tsunami disaster. The lyrics in

nandong smong instruct the Simeuluenese to run

away from the ocean to the highest place was an

evidence that listening the advice is very important

to do. Unfortunately, this oral tradition is rarely to

perform nowadays even though it is potential to

attract tourists to tell about the beauty of Simeulue

as Singer in Bauman (1997) stated that in his study

in India about to understand the complexity of

Indian, he concerned to Indian’s cultural form such

as drama, concert, ritual, ceremony, or festivals. The

way they perform their cultures separately are able

to show that their culture is anchored in their

performances hence it can be learned not only by

tourists but also themselves. Singer named as

428

Lubis, T., Sibarani, R., Lubis, S. and Azhari, I.

Cultural Performance of Oral Tradition Nandong Simeulue as Human Resource for Ecotourism: A Linguistic Anthropology Study.

DOI: 10.5220/0009904100002480

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Natural Resources and Sustainable Development (ICNRSD 2018), pages 428-432

ISBN: 978-989-758-543-2

“cultural performance” means refer to a context that

highly perform a set of characters of a community.

Ecotourism convey tourism activities in nature.

Tourists come to a place with particular reasons such

as surfing, refresh their mind and body, away from

crowded, and including enjoying local activities.

Simeulue is an island under Aceh Province in

Indonesia has many beautiful beaches because this

island surrounding by Hindian ocean. The

information about situation and the existence of flora

and fauna can be found from their local tradition.

Because oral tradition consist of expressions

especially words related to their surroundings. And

it can be found in nandong.

2 METHOD

Simeulue island is an island located at southwest of

Aceh province and surrounding by Hindia ocean. To

analyze cultural performance of nandong, qualitative

research is applied and ethnography method was

used. The data were audio-video recording of

nandong performance and text of nandong.

They were collected through in-depth interview

and participant observation. Video-audio recording

were documented by using Panasonic FULL-

HD.The data were analyzed through linguistic

anthropology approach to describe performance of

nandong, the indexicality and also participation in

order to explore it as attraction in ecotourism.

3 DISCUSSION

Ecotourism is a form of travel into the natural areas

aimed in conserving the environmental resources

and preserve biodiversity and improve the local

communities live hood. This is defined by The

International Ecotourism Society (IES) in 1990.

Ecotourism is a form of tourist that is responsible in

preserving the nature areas, to create economic

benefits and maintain the cultural integrity of local

communities which is also a form of special tourism

interest (Fandeli. 2003). Based on these definition,

ecotourism has potential stage to maintain and/or

revitalize oral tradition and also benefit for the local

communities economically. Therefore, the first stage

is to analyze the oral tradition to find out the

meaning and value and then to include it in tourism

as one way to maintain and preserve it.

Nandong is performed by performer(s) through

specific pitch and way. It must be sung by a

man/men who able to produce high pitch and have

ability in perform as the previous performer. The

genre of nandong are pantoon and poetry. Pantoon

consist of four lines where two first lines are

sampiran (consist of metaphor), and two last are

contain literal meaning. In poetry form, all of lines

are contain lliteral meaning entirely. In a formal

situation, nandong is accompanied by instrument

namely kedang (drum) and/or violin, but in non-

formal performer(s) only emphasize to the voice of

performer(s). There were 13 nandong classified with

its theme. They are nandong dendang, nandong

batunangan, nandong samba, nandong samba in

Sigulai language, nandong untung, nandong janji,

nandong jawab, nandong carai, nandong kasih,

nandong burung, nandong buang, nandong baree

kunyik and nandong smong. For example nandong

samba tells about how to respect and gratitude,

nandong untung tells about human’s fate, and

nandong batunangan tells about engagement.

One of the unique of nandong is, it is sung by

using high pitch. historically, it has relationship with

the distance. Formerly, nandong was sung by men

when they were on the clove tree, or on their robin

(canoe) while fishing, or in their break time in rice

field or even at night to the dawn. The high pitch is

caused by the distance between clove farming, the

distance between rice field to the other rice field, the

distance between their houses and to defeat wave

sound in the sea. Orality is relative to individual

mannerisms, reactions, attitudes, ways of being,

walking, talking, thinking, eating, sleeping, dressing

or living. It also relates to working or doing nothing,

fishing, cultivating, preparing food or sharpening

tools. It is expressed when dying of hunger,

sickness, or melancholy as well as through living in

hope and faith just as much as living in boredom

and ignorance. Orality also encompasses gestures

and actions punctuated by pehe, that are rhythmic

poems and droned chants about the tender intimacies

of life, the emotions of the soul and spirit, or of a

heart in pain, in joy or in mourning. Orality gives us

words from time immemorial as well as

contemporary times (Devantin, 2009: 9-10). Their

ability to sing like counter tenor become their skill

and unique to deliver their message.

To describe their cultural performance in

nandong means to introduce who they are and what

they do with their nature, so it can be adding value

to attract the visitors to come to this island besides

its beautiful beaches. Through their human resource,

there are a lot of things to do related to develop

ecotourism. Such cultural values become local

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429

wisdom that can be utilized as a source of character

building (Sibarani, 2018: 5).

Folk discourses are cultural expressions as the

collective memory of the local community such as

proverbs, parables, traditional verses, traditional

puzzles, fairy tales, legends, myths, and other

verbally cultural expressions. As the part of oral

traditions, folk discourses are transferred orally from

one generation to other generations (Sibarani,

2018:48). Cultural performances belong to the

native. Therefore, the meaning of multi expression

in nandong performance only known exist in theirs.

The messages to keep environment, to inform about

how what they have in this island and how they use

it wisely. For example the lyrics of nandong about

ocean resources below:

(1) Tangguk manangguk di tapian

(catches at the seashore)

Kanailah udang tali-tali (got tali-tali

shrimp)

Sabuik manyabuik paruntungan

(question and answer each other

about fate)

Disangko patang pagi lai (thouht it is

noon, but it still morning)

(2) Kanailah udang tali-tali (it has got

tali-tali shrimp)

Kironya udang tabingkaro (but in

fact, it is tebingkaro shrimp/lobster)

Sabuik manyabuik paruntungan

(question and answer each other

about fate)

Tabik taurai ai mato (tears are drop)

From the first stanza especially at the first and

second line, performer inform about one of their way

to catch fish or shrimp. The activity of fishing can be

taught to the tourists as one of local activities which

friendly for the environment. The way to catch not

only pleasure but also teach the value of patience.

Local wisdom can be understood as ideas and local

knowledge which are full of wisdoms, values, and

virtues owned by members of the community. Local

wisdom is gained from cultural traditions or oral

traditions because it is the content of the oral

traditions or cultural traditions inherited for the next

generation and used to organize social life in all

areas of their lives. Local wisdom is a local cultural

value that can be used to set the order of a society in

a wise or prudent ways (Sibarani, 2018: 4).

The second stanza informs about Simeulue

natural resources which rich of its seafood. The two

first lines are sampiran (phrases/clauses/sentences

which is used before the last two lines). Sampiran

was not only to parallelize pantoon, so it sound

aesthetic, but also related to their cognitive about

describing the same phenomenon from what they’ve

seen in nature to the problem their facing or only

inform the situation. Nandong, also used to inform

about their natural resources convey flora, fauna,

and procedural about how to socialize including save

their life from huge disaster like tsunami. One of

nandong theme is smong means tsunami. In this text,

simeuluenese were given a procedural way about

how to face tsunami which is begun with huge linon

(earthquake).

All of their performance relate to their language

use. It means, all of the action to produce the

performance is a mode of communication.

Seyfeddinipur and Gullberg (2014) stated that

language used is fundamentally multimodal.

Multimodal involved body movement, facial

expression, face and gaze, and also gesture. All of

them have meanings. They are occur together with

the text or without text. The performance while

perform nandong consist of meanings that express

their idea, thought and feeling toward their oral

tradition, such as they position when do nandong

such as sit with cross leg, put their palm into they

ear, and produce high pitch. Puting their palm (fore

finger) into their ear has purpose to produce louder

voice. Produce high pitch complete the vocal in

order to deliver the message well and sit with cross

leg show a polite position. They cultural

performance shows their characteristic; obedience,

polite, low profile, and also brave.

To find out the meaning of nandong cultural

performance can be found from their performance

too. Each action to produce language must be rely

on their culture. Language one of cultural action as

Duranti (1997: 2) explained that language as cultural

resources and speaking is cultural practices. The

concept of performance in this study refers to every

action of speaking. The actions include show,

appearance, and speech obviously occur in their

daily conversation. Beginning with folklore studies,

and develop to performance studies, and now is

linguistic anthropology studies. The experts such as

Bauman and Honko emphasize performance as

crucial element to study of human behaviour.

Bauman (1990: 60) stated that studies of

performance can make a unique contribution in

language studies. As many authors have stressed,

performances are not simply artful uses of language

that stand apart both from day-to-day life and from

larger questions of meaning, as a Kantian aesthetics

would suggest. Performance rather provides a frame

that invites critical reflection on communicative

processes. A given performance is tied to a number

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of speech events that precede and succeed it (past

performances, readings of texts, negotiations,

rehearsals, gossip, reports, critiques, challenges,

subsequent performances, and the like.

Then, Honko (2000: vii) explained that Oral

performance cannot be captured in letters and words.

Too many essential features are simply left aside in

the written codification of a speech event which

normally employs a wide array of paralinguistic

means of expression from gesture to music. The

other definition came from Hymes in Duranti (1997:

15) defined performance is something creative,

realized and achieved.

The using of language related to their

environment inform about their natural resources,

how to treat them and advices about their social life

also part of their local wisdom. Sibarani (2018: 42 )

states that local wisdom is indigenous knowledge of

local genius of a society derived from to make peace

and improve the community welfare. Local wisdom

can be local knowledge, local skills, local

intelligence, local resources, local social process,

local norms and local customs. Substantially, local

wisdom is values and cultural norms to organize the

social life. The values and norms that are believed to

be true become the reference for the daily behaviour

of the local people.

Aesthetically, nandong has poetic function that

accepted by Simeuluenese. Every time nandong is

sung, it such as an alarm for them about how they

have to behave to both nature and society. Lyrics in

nandong intend to warn Simeuluenese through their

poetic poetry. This way able to touch they heart and

build their responsibility keep them dong what the

ancestor told. The parallelism help them easier to

remember and keep the lyrics and theme in their

memory. Müller-Zettelmann in Lethbridge and

Mildorf (2003: 143-144) stated that poetic texts have

a tendency to:

 relative brevity (with some notable

exceptions)

 dense expression

 express subjectivity more than other texts

 display a musical or songlike quality

 be structurally and phonologically over

structured

 be syntactically and morphologically over

structured

 deviate from everyday language

 aesthetic self-referential (which means that

they draw attention to themselves as art form

both through the form in which they are

written and through explicit references to the

writing of poetry)

Parallelism not only occure in phonology level,

but also in grammatical level especially for pantoon

in Aneuk jame language. The sampiran at the first

line is similar as the first content in a stanza, and

sampiran at the second line is same as content at the

second content. Nandong in Devayan language

showed parallelism in phonological level only and

nandong in Sigulai language only focus to the

message without paying attention to parallelism. In

generally, nandong consist of advice hence it can be

said that nandong is advice, listen to the word of

nandong will indicate to advice.

The unity of beauty words, high pitch and the

way to deliver nandong is a creativeness of

Simeuluenese which reflected in their daily life.

Some of gesture or body movement show strong

relationship with Islamic. It can be noted from the

way they perform to produce louder voice, and sit

position. It is similar like a person who do adzan

(the action to inform pray time) and recite holy

Qur’an. Expression of imperative sentence which is

wrapped by persuasive or procedural sentences tend

to inform good values and norms that accepted in

their community. To revitalize and to explore

nandong as one of their heritage, there are several

things to do relate to its existence such as activate

nandong studio hence performer(s) able to focus to

do nandong.

Developing ecotourism will be able to increase

Simeulunese income. From nandong, it can create a

lot of handmade based on simeulue natural resource

to be souvenirs. Besides, performance of nandong

also able to attract visitors’ attention in art. The

souvenir can be key chain, clothes, bag and etc.

Meanwhile nandong performance can perform at the

beach, at the stage, and so forth. The performance of

nandong not only to advise simeuluenese, but also

the visitors. The local wisdom of mutual cooperation

is actually a cultural heritage of Indonesia. It is

found in various regions and ethnics in Indonesia

with various terms, concepts, and implementation.

Even though it has various terms and

implementation, all kinds of mutual cooperation is

concerned with the effort to combine the potential,

energy, resources, and funding to complete a job in

the form of mutual help, mutual support, and mutual

work (Sibarani, 2018: 41).

Relating to ecotourism, the existence of nandong

is still needed because the value and belief are lied

and reflected in the expression as local

community’s cognitive through language. Cultural

performance of them refer to their characteristic

which accepted and applied in their life.

Furthermore Drumm (2002) states that in any

Cultural Performance of Oral Tradition Nandong Simeulue as Human Resource for Ecotourism: A Linguistic Anthropology Study

431

ecotourism activities should have a minimum

impacts on natural resources that serve as tourist

attractions. It should involve any stakeholders

(individuals, communities, eco - tourists, tour

operators and relevant government and non

government) in the planning stages, development,

implementation and supervision. While ecotourism’s

intentions are certainly laudable, the challenge to

ecotourism is to deliver on its definitional promise:

‘responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the

environment and improves the well-being of local

people’ (TIES, 2006). Blamey, 1997; Ceballos-

Lascurain, 1987; Honey, 1999 in Butar-butar and

Soemarno (2013) explain that most scholars take this

challenge to have three parts: ecotourism must

simultaneously (a) minimise environmental impact

and thus have a small ecological ‘footprint’, (b)

contribute to conservation either through direct

efforts (e.g. on-site reforestation, habitat restoration,

etc.) or through financial benefits, and (c) promote

local livelihoods through political empowerment and

a combination of culturally appropriate social and

economic benefits to local people.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Nandong is performed both lingual and non-lingual

expression in a context. From the expression, the

cultural performance is appear as resemble that

describe Simeulunese character. The character can

be seen from their performance that rely on

meanings and values of indigenous knowledge.

From nandong, it also can be seen that there are a lot

of ideas, equipment, and material related to their

welfare. The material used such as kedang, violin,

cap, symbol, color are able to represented as

accesories or key chain for example. When people

made, create, see, sell, and buy the product, they will

indicate nandong because the iconic and symbolic of

its cultural performance.

The cultural performance of nandong is one of

a good access to develop Simeuluenese welfare that

rely on human resource toward ecotourism. It is

concluded that performing oral tradition for

ecotourism is able to maintain the existence of oral

tradition itself and in the meantime, the benefit also

can be reached to increase the human resource and

also their economy. Individual, government, and

stakeholder should be involved in order to have

sustainability.

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