Structure and Functions of Oral Tradition of Sansana Bandar Dayak Ngaju, Central Kalimantan

Abstract

Sansana Bandar is a type of oral tradition of the Dayak Ngaju Central Kalimantan that can still be found today. As the name implies, sansana Bandar is a story about the life of a character named Bandar. In the life of the Dayak Ngaju people, Sansana Bandar does not only have an entertainment function but also has a ritual function, namely as a medium for conveying ideals. Sansana Bandar is usually performed at night, spoken in the Dayak Ngaju language by a speaker called panyansana, without musical instrument accompaniment, and equipped with offering equipment. The greatness of the Bandar character as narrated in the sansana Bandar is very different when compared to the greatness of the character in other legendary stories in Indonesia. A very important difference between Bandar and other stories is that there is no physical conflict found to build Bandar's character as a great character. On the other hand, Bandar's greatness was built through the characterization of Bandar as a modern human. Bandar is also said to have good intellectual abilities. Based on the structural analysis that has been carried out on the Bandar story text, it can be found that in a narrative structure, Bandar's story text is different from other stories. Functionally, the sansana Bandar in the life of the Dayak Ngaju community today has two additional functions, namely the function of language maintenance and the function of identity.