A study on ceremonial uttarances and non-verbal symbols used in Ngruwat traditional ceremony

ABSTRACT

A nation always has culture. In Indonesia especially Java Island there are kinds of culture. Language is one of cultural elements. Besides that, ceremony is also one of the culture in Java island. Ngruwat is a kind of ceremony in Javanese culture. Ceremony is a reflection of Javanese’s belief and their life. Usually ceremony is realized through language. In this matter, a language is served in the form of symbols, either verbal symbol or non-verbal symbol.

Based the phenomenon above, this research has two research problems: what kinds of ceremonial utterances and non-verbal symbols are used in Javanese traditional Ngruwat? This research aims to know and to describe the ceremonial utterances and non-verbal symbols used in Ngruwat traditional ceremony.

This research analysis the kinds of ceremonial utterances and non-verbal symbols used in Ngruwat traditional ceremony. This uses a descriptive qualitative method because it tries to describe and explain the condition of data naturally and descriptively. While in obtaining the data it used many kinds of reserach instruments namely (interview, documentation). The researher also used the principle of discourse analysis in analysing the data. Those are ،the local interpretation’ and ،the principle of analogy’.

Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that the kinds of ceremonial utterances and non-verbal symbols which are used in Ngruwat Traditional Ceremony can be categorized as three kinds; namely assertive illocutionary act (confirming, asserting, claiming, informing); directive illocutionary act (asking, ordering, imploring, requesting, referring, advising); comissive illocutionary act (undertaking, threatening, accepting, promising, regretting). While the non-verbal symbols are divided into two kinds. The first one is the non-verbal symbols in the form of symbolic actions. It deals with dalang (person who play puppet shadow or wayang) as the leader of Ngruwat and people who became objects of Ngruwat. Some symbolic actions are such as burning incenses, reading text (nyoteng), cutting hair, disentangling of ketupat, whipping Bathara Kala. The second one is the symbolic object. It refers to all of offerings which are used in the same ceremony. These offerings can be in the form of cooked offerings or uncooked ones. Examples: oil lamp (clupak), animals (turtledove, pigeon, kind of fresh water), plants (banana, sugar cane, squash), water, flowers (kembang setaman, cok bakal), cooked offerings (tumpengan, jenang).

From the result of analysis, it can be known that Ngruwat is one of the Javanese traditional custom that aims to lose of Javanese people who have difficulty (wangkel; sukerta; dendha trimala) by using many kinds of ceremonial utterances through shadow puppet. So people who became objects of Ngruwat hadn’t any difficulty. In addition, it is also as a reflection of Javanese characteristic, and their culture. All of those are covered in ceremonial utterances and in non-verbal symbols.

Finally, it can be concluded that in Ngruwat traditional ceremony is a custom of Javanese describing the closed relation between language and ceremony, which are as cultural elements. In addition, the researcher found many utterances which refers to polytheism, but she does not view it as an important thing. Because this is a language research which can not lose of sight of the element language. Basically it will form a meaning of one symbol. Consequently research can be studied not only through discorse analysis, but also can be studied trhough semantics, literature, morphology, etc.