Arsitektur Ui Ekskursi Alor Living Celebration Documentary

Alor, geographically located in the East Nusa Tenggara, eastern side of Flores island, and in the western side of Timor Leste Sea Alor itself is an archipelago province, and does not have so vast land area. That is why shoreline can be seen from everywhere. The weather tend to be hot and dry. Although Kalabahi, as Alor's main city, has been touched by technology, there are some people who still preserved their culture in the village nearby. One of them is Abui tribe, who lived in Takpala Village, maintaining their heritage. Takpala village is located in the hills. Takpala people once lived in top of a hill, and the village known as Wakalelang village. The word Wakalelang comes from Abui language which means "coconut village". At that time, only 50 until 60 people lived in Wakalelang village. But then Wakalelang was abandoned, and the people moved to a new village called Takalelang. Not long after, people moved again to lower village named Takpala. Takpala village divided by two areas, the upper village and lower village The morning sun rises, and all the villagers come to upper village From the elderly, adults to children. They start to do their daily activities in the upper village of Takpala. One of the activities that Alor's women mostly do is peeling the acid fruit, and sell them in Kalabahi town market. Others also make bracelet and woven handicraft, and bag to keep betel nuts, ritual and daily life's goods. Some others also make necklace, assissted by their childrens. These bracelet made by grains, taken from trees surrounding the village such as white resin trees. As for the men they like to roll cigarettes, of their own tobacco crops. In Takpala, the unity of it's people still can be feel and see. Even when constructing only one private house, everybody is participating. After the house is finished they had meal together. They eat together in the brand new house that they built together for days. In the building process, everybody help each other to fulfill other's need The most important moment for all of villagers, in order to maintain it's unity is Lego Lego dance. Lego Lego dance is one of the important part of annual ritual that lasted for one day and one night. where the people of Takpala will gather around to talk about conflict among the villagers, gratitude for good harvest, and prayer to start another planting season. all the problems that occurred in the past year will be discussed and find the solution in this dance. Adam, was one of the elder in Takpala village. He has been living in the village from a long time ago. Mr. Adam is one of the pure Abui tribe person. He is the intermediary person in the village, as he is mediator between Abui Aweni and Abui Kapitang These three tribes symbolized with three stones above the "Mesbah" altar. Only the mediator is allowed to speak single poem in Lego Lego dance. Sense of the importance of the altar and the two existing homes have been inherited from ancestors. These Mesbah and those two sacred house is one package, they can not be separated. We believe that this mesbah and two house has been here from before religion, that we called Lahattala, exist. It was long time ago that our ancestors decided to leave everything and started to build two houses then slaughter animals to spill the blood inside the house, and after that pray to Lahattala for prosperity. So before the religion exist, our ancestor has believed the existence of The Creator. So this annual ceremony become tradition from our ancestor's time until now. So important this Mesbah and two sacred house for Takpala people as they represent their ancestor's legacy in building the houses. The reasons why traditional "Gudang" house that we lived here has three levels is The attic part is the space where we stay with a small fireplace, and two level above that we called Akui Foka and Akui Kiding there we store our harvest such as corn and tuber, and the smoke from the fireplace will make the food long lasting. There is one space in the middle part of the house where we used to sit and rest is called Liktaha. Liktaha is like guest room where we welcome our guest. We always invite the guest by calling "Hey come here and sit with us". The upper storey is the place where we sleep and also small fireplace for cooking. And after eating we just sleep in the same room. Sometimes we also store some foodstuffs in the same room for convenience The people of Takpala called their traditional house as "Rumah Gudang" Rumah Gudang is a house on stilts divided by four storeys. The first storey only used in the daytime, while the second storey used at night and the third and fourth storeys are for storage such as Moko, musical instruments, harvest, and the other stuffs. Then the sun goes down, the villagers go to their home in lower village. Before the ceremony begins, the dancer wear traditional clothes and headband. The feathers in the headband have meanings. One feather symbolizing warlords, and three feathers symbolizing mediator Meanwhile the woman wears "Keng", as traditional sarong for the ceremony. They also wear "Lasing", some kind of bracelet for ankle. In the welcoming dance, the Takpala people welcome the guest at the vilage's "front door". The guest of the ceremony used to be their distant relatives, who in the same Abui tribe, but living in the different villages. They come and dance together, for one day and one night long. So in every Lego Lego performance, we have particular poems in the poetry we want to tell something to everyone about some news or our hopes such as ask for goverment's attention ask to the people to keep united and living peacefully, to maintain the living harmony for each person and tribes. That what we say in the dance. Also asking to God, so there will be no conflict in Indonesia Hopes for living harmoniously is always be spoken in the poetry. we also say "Don't you dare to discriminate by tribes, race, religion, and others in your life". There are twenty until thirty poetries that sang in Lego Lego dance. Every motion in the dance, footsteps, arm flows, follows the rythms of the poets. If you observed carefully, there are order in between man and women's embrace. Embracing each other, but never in odd order the woman in between the man must be in two, four, six or eight person order. that pattern continues until the end of the line. the patterns of Lego Lego dance is always must be even woman pattern, and odd man pattern. Total dancer is in even number of people, and the dancing pattern follows the shape of Mesbah. towards the end the beat getting faster, so the body motion follows. this marked the most important moment, where the Lego Lego dance is about to end. Lego Lego dance ceremony is closed by war dance called Cakalele, performed by two warlord man. Cakalele has two meanings or two function to be exact The first function of Cakalele is for boost the morale of soldiers, in event of starting war between different tribes so with the high morale, we can get victory above the other tribes. But that was long time ago, in the ages of our ancestors. But now we are only presenting the dance to entertain the visitor as to maintain our culture. After the dance is over, the "Anak Sulung" step up to the stage The Anak Sulung then splashed the betel nut water, this provision indicates that the people of Takpala has been blessed. after that the womans will give the betel nut, as a sign of peace.