MA’BUNGA’ LALANG: THE AGRICULTURAL TRADITION OF LUWU SOCIETY

Abstract

Every tradition has its own characteristics and wisdom values that make it worth to be studied and documented . This research aims to describe the tradition of ma’bunga’ lalang in the agricultural activities of Luwu society . The l o c us of this research was Luwu Regency, South Sulawesi Province . The d ata were obtained through observa t i on on the pra c ti ces /ritual s in ma’bunga’ lalang tradition and interview the informan ts . The data were then transcribed, triangulated, presented descriptively, and connected to the relevant references. There are nine kinds of practices/ritual in ma’bunga’ lalang tradition following the stages of rice farming activities of Luwu society. Each practice/ritual has particular details of verbal and non-verbal acts which either performed by a bunga’ lalang (the leader of the tradition) himself representing the farmers in the village or performed together with all the farmers-villagers. Nowadays, ma’bunga’ lalang tradition is rarely performed due to several factors. Thus, it needs to be raised in the socio-cultural or local-governmental forum to raise the society awareness of the tradition and to discuss the preservation of the parts of the tradition that not contradict to religion and modern practice/science.