The Figure Behind Osing Styled Mocoan

In 2019, the art of ethnic Osing styled sung recitation or mocoan of Lontar Yusup was declared an intangible national heritage. One of the figures behind the preservation of this art in Banyuwangi is Wiwin Indiarti, 41.

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Wiwin Indiarti

Amid her busy schedule as a lecturer in the School of Language and Art at PGRI University, Banyuwangi, East Java, she devotes herself to the preservation of the culture of Osing, Banyuwangi’s indigenous ethic community.

After leaving her hometown for 13 years to study at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Yogyakarta, Wiwin returned to Banyuwangi. The subject of American folklore she delved into for her master’s degree again aroused her awareness of the existence of Osing culture today and its major issue.

“The most concrete and overlooked cultural issue is inheritance. Therefore, I’ve been striving with all my might to prevent the existing culture from dying out,” she told Kompas when visited by the end of 2019.

In my village, Cungking, we have only three left.

As a child, Wiwin and her family lived in Cungking, one of the villages steeped in Osing culture. Among the traditions growing there is mocoan, the sung recitation of old poetry manuscripts. In Banyuwangi, mocoan is identical to reciting Lontar Yusup, a Javanese poem written in Arabic script, while in fact Banyuwangi has a lot of such manuscripts.

One day Wiwin met with Adi Purwadi, commonly called Kang Pur, one of the Osing community figures in Kemiren village. Kang Pur is a leader of the local mocoan reboan (Wednesday recitation) association.

“I’ve come to be aware that only nine members of the mocoan reboan association are left there, all being over 55 years of age. In my village, Cungking, we have only three left,” said the mother of two.

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Wiwin Indiarti

The reality prompted Wiwin as an academician to make devotion to society as one of the three principles or tridarma of college education related to the inheritance of Lontar Yusup mocoan tradition. At the same time, Lontar Yusup recitation was also prepared as a subject for the custom school initiated by the Alliance of Nusantara Customary Societies of the Osing Region.

Originally Wiwin only intended to present a transliteration of Lontar Yusup for the purpose of sung recitation. However, she wished to see the inheritance of not merely mocoan tradition but also the meaning and values contained in this manuscript.

The transliteration process was not easy. The first step she had to take was to find Lontar Yusup to be used as a reference.

“Based on the considerations and directives provided by custom elders, I finally used Kang Pur’s Lontar Yusup collection. The manuscript was written by Carik (village secretary) Jannah in 1829 (Javanese year),” said the graduate of the UGM Master’s Program for American Studies.

Later, with the help of Anasrullah, her husband, Wiwin began scanning the sheets of the text now being ravaged by age. Scanning results were cleaned and cut into lines for transliteration from Arabic script into the Latin alphabet.

As the next step, Wiwin translated the manuscript into Indonesian. She hoped that Lontar Yusup would not only be sung but also its meaning be understood, especially by youths of the millennial generation.

It took four months for Wiwin to transliterate and translate the entire Lontar Yusup text with a total of 12 stanzas, 593 verses and 4,366 lines.

More than just preserving Lontar Yusup as an old manuscript, Wiwin also sought to pass down its associated tradition so as to be continuously practiced by local people. She realized that the mocoan ritual performers were advanced in age, thus requiring regeneration.

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Salah satu sosok di balik upaya preservasi seni mocoan di Banyuwangi adalah Wiwin Indiarti (41).

So Wiwin initiated the birth of Millennial Lontar Yusup Mocoan Association, a community routinely engaged in manuscript recitation training. Apart from reading its meaning in the Latin alphabet or Indonesian translation, its members should also recite the poetry directly from the Arabic text.

After striving for the preservation of the manuscript and inheritance of the mocoan tradition, Wiwin now hopes that Lontar Yusup’s values can provide guidance for the lives of many readers because Prophet Yusup is not only narrated as a good looking figure but also a man of noble character.

Wiwin’s efforts to transliterate and translate Lontar Yusup as part of the old literary treasure made her entrusted to serve as an academic expert assistant to Dreamsea old manuscript digitalization program held in mid-

March 2019 in Banyuwangi. Her Lontar Yusup transliteration and translation also received the 2019 College Book Incentive award from the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry.

The devotion of Wiwin to Osing culture not only involves Lontar Yusup recitation and old manuscripts of Banyuwangi. Recently Wiwin published her book, Olah Rasa Ujung Timur Jawa (Java’s Easternmost Cuisine) and opened a training course on Osing ritual food cooking. The food included covers Osing specialties for ritual ceremonies.

According to Wiwin, ritual food is not just any cooking. It is prepared by following a certain procedure and belief. She hopes that her book and training will preserve the region’s ritual cuisine.

Wiwin Indiarti

Born: Banyuwangi, 5 August 1978.

Education:

First degree: English literature, UGM

Master’s degree: American studies, UGM

Husband: SM Anasrullah

Children: Lantan Seraya Sidi and Darras Sitala Nadim