Building Identity Throuht Folkfore :

Revealing Local Wisdom of Sentani Community in Ehabla

Wigati Yektiningtyas Modouw

University of Cenderawasih, Jayapura – Papua

Sentani is one of hundreds communities in Papua that is very rich with folklore. One of them is ehabla. Ehabla is an oral poetry that  is sung spontaneously without any notes.The singing of ehabla as social product of Sentani people, manifesting one of the cultural assets, is supposedly maintained since it reveals the social and moral values that can be used as a learning medium as well as a reflection of the socio-cultural dynamics of the Sentani people. Some of local wisdom as the core of  those social and moral values reflected in ehabla are hard work, peace, cooperation, self-respect and respect to each other, obedience to tradition, self-pride towards one’s own origin, and nature conservation.  Those values can be used as media to build or to maintain identity of Sentani community or Papua in general.

The current decreases as well as the loosening of the social and traditional values that take place in villages close to cities are very likely to spread to other societies living in remote islands. Accordingly, this paper discusses the importance of maintaining the singing of ehabla and strengthening moral values as represented in the songs through exploring the local wisdom represented in the songs.