EAST NUSA TENGGARA FOLKTALE

LOKE NGGERANG

ORIENTATION       Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl named Nggerang. Nggerang lived in a little village called Ndoso Village, Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara. Nggerang had a beautiful smile. Her skin was smooth and reddish as a princess from heaven. She had beautiful eyes and nose. Her hair was long, black, and straight. People in that village said that she was strange because of her father. Her father was ancestral spirit, while her mother was a human. In Manggarai ghost called “darat” or “kakartana”.

COMPLICATION   Many people wanted to marry her, but she did not know what love was, even she dared to refuse the king proposal. Many king of Manggarai wanted to marry her, among them are the great  Todo King, till Reok king and Cibal King. But none of them achieved by Nggerang. Even Bima king (was a king of NTB province) wanted to marry her. But again and again, she refused the Bima King’s proposal.

After knew his proposal was rejected, the Bima King was angry and vengeful because he felt embarrassed. Finally, he sent of magic to Ndoso Village with the aim to mollify and eliminated the magic power of Nggerang body. Immediately, a black sky (in Manggarai language”awang”) covered the whole of Ndoso Village, brought the entire of netizen so that they could not went outside to made regularly activity.

However, it can not chance Nggerang mind. At last, the Bima King was angry. So, she asked Nggerang’s father to killed her daughter, and made her skin to become drum. As a signed that her skin had been made into a drum, he should beated the drum so that its sound could be heard up to the Bima Village.

As a father, Nggerang father certainly could not obey the Bima King wishes. So many ways he had been tried to made a drum imitation. Nevertheless, noun of the drums he had created can not produced sounds like Bima King’s word.

RESOLUTION         Finally, one day Nggerang father invited his daughter to seek lice, and Nggerang  agree with her father said without unsuspecting of her father. Her father deprived and hided a few strands of her hair to create a drum. But, his attempted not successful. So, her father tried for another ways. He poked the golden skin of his daughter back. Supposedly, the golden skin can shine every night and can be seen by Bima King. That is why Bima King ready to bleed came into the Ndoso Village to marry the girl.

RE-ORIENTATION                        After her father picked out some of her golden skin, promptly his daughter dead. Then, the golden skin made into two drums, one for the Bima King, and another gift to Todo Village. The drum strucked, so that the sounds can produced like Bima King’s word.

Finally, one of the drums had sent to Bima, and another was saving on the Todo costum home (mbaru     gendang).