| Summary: | The Usaba Sambah Ritual is an important phase in the life of the
people in Tenganan Pegringsingan. As a cultural activity, Usaba Sambah
carries a narration about the life of a deity who enters the adult life. A series
of events are presented in a month each year. The declaration of adulthood
is visualized by strings of mythological symbols. These symbols will then
produce meanings for the people of Tenganan Pegringsingan, also for
visitors who watch the ceremonies.
Performance studies is used as the approach in studying the activities
of the people in Tenganan Pegringsingan that is exposed in this study. To
interpret a performance, it needs a deep knowledge about the background of
the society, concerning the history, culture, and the performance setting
that is defined by the spacial, cultural, and social context.
Here, the exposed series of Usaba Sambah events is described deeply,
with ethnography method. The sequence of acts are strung together nicely in
Usaba Sambah. The ritual life in Tenganan Pegringsingan can be seen as an
allusion of the drama in everyone�s life. Every ritual has its own story, just
like an act in a play. The acts are presented respectively in every sasih.
Every sasih, from Sasih Kasa to Sadda pictures the life of a deity. It starts
from the birth to death, from infant age to old age. The peak of life is
described in Sambah using many symbols of human life that interacts with
many people. The story that is presented through the symbols are played by
the people and Krama Desa.
This research found three essential human action in Usaba Sambah
there are: eating, fighting, and sex. The declaration of a deity�s adulthood is
symbolized in the activity of eating together in a feast in each ritual, fighting
in a war as the peak of the ceremony as the means of interaction of the
society of Tenganan, and sex in the relationship between Truna and Daha
that is constructed in the rites enables the cultural practice in Tenganan
Pegringsingan to remain until now.
|
|---|