Page 310 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

color to the people’s ‘cultural dynamics’. The understanding of oral traditionscan be traced
back to the dynamics of people’s life in their society. The Melanesian context, which serves
as the basis of the analysis of the function of ‘oral tradition’ in this paper, first, is the area
of Nusa Tenggara Timur (Fox, 2014) (Timor, Flores, Sumba, Alor and Rote-Sabu); second,
the domain of Timor Leste (McWilliam, 2002); third, one to two tribes in Papua (Van Baal,
1987); and fourth, the Pacific region (Sullivan, 2002, 2004). Before going deeper to look into
the social reality that is mediated by oral tradition, it is important to clarify the strategies
of the study, commonly called ‘ethics’ and ‘emics’ in the way we look at it. Second, the way
we study the knowledge and science is the basis or classic strategy to dissect the findings
of science in various reflection strategies. At the level of history, and not just the history
of Melanesia, for example, patterns of ethic are mostly applied since historians are always
tied to the various documents and theories to reveal ongoing history. The essence of the
emic patterns lies in the effort to work seriously in order to go deeper into the mindset of
a traditional society (Bellwood et al., 1995).
The essence of the commitment of a trip to the heart of the people’s mindset is an
attempt to collect the data first, so that it can easily be elaborated, and can also be
assembled and packed until it finally reaches the scientific findings on the core of a quest.
The disclosure of the first data and the second data can be seen in the encounter of the
researchers with the capacity of any informant relating to the core of information that will
be recorded. It often happens that the materials recorded are peripheral things that do not
relate to main materials of a reliable study.
The search of the researchers to collect points of local wisdom sometimes fails
because of the limited ability to get to the heart of the meaning of expressions that have
been recorded. The researchers’ foresight is crucial to sort out the pieces of the oral
tradition that can be categorized as ‘local wisdom’, and which are just peripheral things
and not included in the core of understanding. The foresight that should be possessed
besides intellectual ability is also the feeling of knowledge to go deeper into the nature
of the oral tradition. Although in each study social sciences and in this case the study of
anthropology, all the data is often considered to be important and useful for the analysis
to reach the conclusions.
In Melanesia, there are many oral traditions. Whether they deal with the narrative
pattern of daily life or special things like celebrations of the religious-spiritual, it turns
out that everything is packed from various human encounters in society. A researcher
(especially of anthropology), must spend a rather long time at a particular location to

310 Chapter 8

MELANESIA BOOK FA LAYOUT 051216.indd 310 2/10/17 2:11 PM