Sacrificing Life for the Lives of Others: An Analysis of Critical Discourse of the Mythological Story of Nyale Tradition

Abstract

Making sacrifices is one of the things that draws on local wisdom. This discourse describes how society interprets its social relations by prioritizing the ideology of making sacrifices. The Kodi ethnical community in Sumba Indonesia, demonstrated this through the myth of Inya Biri (abbreviated to IB); and the Sasak ethnical community in Lombok shows this through the myth of Putri Mandalika (abbreviated to PM). Both IB and PM myths have been transformed into nyale (a type of sea worm), which then became Nyale Pasola (abbreviated to NP) and Bau Nyale Festival (BNF) which are packaged as tourist attractions in Indonesia. Such transformations show a mythological relationship and the realities of NP and BNF; a textual reproduction and an economic exchange as well as the meaning of making sacrifices in the dialogical relation between faith and culture. This needs to be critiqued to understand the ideologies that the stories of IB and PM contain, using the approach of the Critical Discourse Analysis (abbreviated to CDA) and Deconstruction, and to observe inconsistency, contradiction, and logical imprecision (abbreviated to LI) found in the text. The results show that ICL opposes the first pole (making sacrifices, faithfulness, love, unity, and welfare) and the second pole (disobedience, betrayal, violence, hostility, and misery). The binary opposition, as a metaphysical and hierarchal form, shows that the first pole is better than the second one. Contribution: ICL and the binary opposition are the keys to the construction of new meanings and show that a tradition has the power to stay alive as long as it is supported by a dialogue between faith and culture.