Sustainable Life of Baduy Tribe Community
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SUSTAINABLE LIFE OF BADUY TRIBE COMMUNITY Baduy Tribe is one of tribes in Indonesia which, until now, still defends its cultural values possessed and believed, in the middle of its surrounding developed civilization. The local wisdom believed by the community, exactly becomes a lesson learnt for modern society. Nowadays, many urban communities that identical with modernization visit to Baduy Tribe to learn about their culture. Every week there is always visitor, especially from the city, individual or in group to see and learn directly about culture and the beauty of its natural environment. Though many people from outside visit their village, yet they can maintain their beliefs and they are not influenced by the culture values from outside. In the middle of modern life which completely comfortable with electricity, motor cycle, TV shows and other luxurious entertaining place, Baduy community are still faithful to simplicity and live using candle light of illumination. They go everywhere on foot and there is no telephone. There is not any modernization touch there. Everything is in a simple way and produced by themselves, like food, clothes and sandals. Despite of anti-modernization, they keep on respecting to their surrounding modern life. According to one of their leader, “A wrong modernization will only lead us to be lazy and make us to be ungrateful to God. We might forget to earth and its content when we feel great and modern.” The simplicity and tolerance to surrounding environment is the main precept in Baduy community. From both elements, automatically a mutual cooperation will arise in their life. There is not any force for them in following and preserving a peaceful life tradition. There is not any jealousy to each other as well since everything is committed together. Social importance is always being their priority so that individuality is rarely found. They keep on respecting the principle of democracy. There is no social or economical disparity among every individual there. The concept of sustainable development has been given descend by Baduy community without knowing any sustainable development term before which becomes international issue. The principle of any small changes and nature is a gift from God to the next generation, underlie their thought and influence their life activity. Simple life style without expecting aids from outside has formed a sustainable and autonomous mentality. 1. DESCRIPTION OF BADUY TRIBE Kanekes Village is located in Kendeng Mountain which some part of it is forest, both protected and production forest. Once, this area was included into West Java province. Yet, since there was an extension area, it became an autonomous Province of Banten which precisely located in Leuidamar District of Lebak Regency. It has a hilly area that causes each settlement in Baduy neighborhood separated far away. Thus, the communication inter-community can run well and they have their own mechanism in communicating to each other. 1.1 History of Baduy Tribe Indonesia is an archipelago with many tribes. Base on the Indonesian government data, there are around 150s tribes. Each tribe has different culture, system, even language. To unify them, Indonesian language is used which according to its history it is an adaptation to various language from many tribes. 1 Baduy Tribe is one of tribes in who live in Kanekes Village, Leuidamar District of Lebak Regency, and Banten Province (one of province in Java Island). It is 120 km away from Jakarta (the capital city of the Republic of Indonesia). They live in remote area in Kendeng Mountain. Therefore, it needs a relatively long time and hard way to reach such area. Besides, to explore Kanekes Village with 5.130,8 hectare area, we have to walk since there is not any transportation means available. Figure 1. Location of Baduy Tribe (Kanekes Village) According to its history, Baduy people are a part of Sundanese Tribe which is the original tribe of West Java and Banten Province community. The language they use is also Sundanese. It has been gauged that they moved to remote area in Kendeng Mountain in 16th century, along with the collapse of Pajajaran Kingdom. Once before Islam entered Indonesia and Java, Hindu and Buddha influence was so strong, including Pajajaran Kingdom. In 1579, Islam entered to destroy Pajajaran, and then its community turned into Islam. There were some community groups who refused to turn into Islam, therefore they moved and interned themselves. Since then, those groups were called Baduy Tribe. There are many versions about the word of Baduy. One of them said that the name was derived from a tribe in Arabic country named Badwi that lived nomadic in the desert. Dutch people, who lived in Indonesia that time, gave such name to this group. Another opinion connected that the Badwi group of Arabic in Mohammed Prophet time was a tribe that refused to turn into Islam. Therefore, the existence of those groups in Indonesia that refused to turn into Islam, made the word of Baduy emerged. Another version explained that the name of Baduy is derived from the name of a hill and Cibaduy spring, located in the South side of Kanekes Village, their resident. The Baduy community themselves called themselves with Kanekes people which means Sundanese. Therefore, until now the village they lived is called Kanekes Village. They named the religion they believed with Sunda Wiwitan which closer to Hindu. In 1931, during Dutch colonization, Baduy Tribe was spared from condemnation. Their cultivate activity of cutting down and burning the trees caused the forest surrounding their living area destroyed. The community lived under Kendeng Mountain were worried about the lack of water supply for irrigating or drinking due to the forest destruction. They asked to the government at that time to relocate them from Kanekes Village. Mulhenfeld, who took hold of as director of Wes Indies Department and also as decision maker at that time, just exactly refused their desire. After visiting Baduy community, he felt that Baduy was a cultural inheritance that supposed to be 2 preserved. Their relocation was frightened would destroy the culture and tradition they believed. Besides, Baduy community, in fact, really thought about environmental conservation and this was in compliance with the faith they believed. Even, until now, the values of environmental sustainability form the basic values they have in daily life. After Indonesia proclaimed its independence, Indonesian government attempted to modernize Baduy community. The goal of conducting this was to perform a comprehensive development. However, they always refused modernization and still hold on firmly the values they believed. Many facilities were offered by the government to develop Kanekes Village, such as developing mosque, school, and asphalting a road, but none of those facilities were accepted by the community. Nowadays, the government just precisely adapts their existing and culture to be protected from outside influence. Their customary law is obtaining an admission from the government as long as it is in accordance with the country law and can be applied in their area. Their customary law is being processed of becoming a part of Indonesian government laws, and prevails in Baduy. 1.2 Condition of Baduy Community Baduy community lives in groups in a kampong and spread in the Kanekes area. There are two big groups of Baduy community settlement, namely Inner Baduy group and Outer Baduy group. The group of Outer Baduy is called Panamping community which means associate since they live in the outer part of Baduy area and live beside Inner Baduy community. The group is spread into 50 kampongs. Meanwhile, the group of Inner Baduy is called Kajeroan community which means inside or Girang which means upper course. They live in the inner part or upper course of Ciujung River. There are three kampongs that they lived in; they are Cikeusik, Cikartawana, and Cibeo. The Inner Baduy group has never added the number of those existing kampong, its area only has those three kampongs. In the mean time, the Outer Baduy group has an increasingly number of kampong every year along with the increasing Figure 2. Condition of Baduy’s Settlement number of inhabitant there. If the population of Inner Baduy community increase and it is not appropriate with its kampong capacity, then some part of them will move and live in Outer Baduy area and become the group of Outer Baduy. There is some versions mention that there is a third Baduy group called Baduy Dangka. They do not live in Kanekes Village but surrounding it. This group has a function as buffer group due to influence from outside. At the present, there is two kampongs left which classified into Baduy Dangka, namely Padawaras and Sirah Dayeuh. The population growth of this group is not big. It can be seen from the number of kampong that always same every year. The leadership structure of Inner Baduy group, which is called Tangtu community, is the highest group in Baduy. The highest level leaders of it are called Puun who live and come from those three kampongs in Inner Baduy. They have typical style of dressing which is wearing natural white and dark blue colored clothes and white headband. Whereas, Outer Baduy that also called Panamping community, have clothes and headband in black as their dressing typical style. 3 2. LIFE SYSTEM OF BADUY COMMUNITY The relation inter-aspect of life in Kanekes has a synergic integration in creating sustainable life. The vision implied in their life ideology can be understood and run by the whole community of Baduy. Baduy community’s view is relatively same with the relationship among life of socio-culture, economic, and environmental protection. They can make instruments that guarantee their life sustainability.