LOCAL WISDOMS IN CACI, A TRADITIONAL ART PERFORMANCE BY MANGGARAIANS IN EAST NUSA TENGGARA

This article explains the meaning behind the traditional performing arts in East Nusa Tenggara, Caci dance. It is collaboration of some art component such as artistic dancing; music instrument, sounds of gong and kettledrum ‘gendang’; singing, and theater, art performance focused on dialogues between actors and audience in the form of Paci ‘traditional idiomatic expression’ to express identity and self actualization in words and sentences. And the last but not least is traditional costume representing the philosophy meaning of Manggaraians. This writing examines the local wisdom contains in Caci by applied descriptive method and by using esthetic theory in collaboration with ethnomusicology and ecolinguistics, the meanings and values of Caci as the sources of local wisdoms of Manggaraian were elaborate. The result of analysis shows that Caci as an art performance has deep meaning of Manggaraians philosophy of life which represents catharsis space that is transit stop space between routine space and purification space in human life-cycle. The meaning and values such as religious meaning, as selfpurifying; moral values, as self-control represented in obeying some rules given; ethics values, such as some concepts deal with being humble, brave to appreciate the others, and patriotism; the last but not least is social value which means the success is not one man show but it belongs to communal as community existence.

Keywords: Local Wisdom, Caci, Meaning, Values, Ethnomusicology, Ecolinguistics