Tomohon culture · Culture in Tomohon
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Culture in Tomohon
Culture in Tomohon
Tomohon is one of Minahasa Tribe region. Therefore, the Tomohoners are Minahasans. However, Minahasa Tribe is divided into several sub tribes, Tomohon belongs to a sub tribe called Tombulu. Pakasaan Tombulu spreads from Tombuluan in the east of Pineleng and Tombariri in the west and from Tomohon in the sourth to Manado in the north. Pakasaan Tombulu speaks Tombulu Language, Manado Malay, and Bahasa Indonesia. It is believed that Tomohon is the center of Pakasaan Tombulu. Pakasaan Tombulu in Tomohon, especially those who lives in the region of Kakaskasen has special customs that is still maintained up until today.
Bakerah Tradition
This is a tradition of steam bath to a woman in several weeks after giving birth to a child. This is a traditional body cleansing process. The process of bakerah will be started by a special woman who has ability to arrange the process. She will boil a pail of water and while in the process, she will also put several special herbs such as leaves of agati tree (sesbania grandiflora) or leaves of hummingbird tree, lemon grass (cymbopogon nardus), kajuputih oil, and several other herbs into the boiling water. After the water boils, she will prepare a bucket or pail and pour the water and the herbs in side the container. The new mother will be asked to seat on special chair where under it where the bucket is placed. She will be sitting and having steam bath for around one hour. She will repeat it the process for 7 days in a row.
Mapalus
This is a tradition of working together in the farm. Long time ago when modern technology of cultivating was still a dream and rare to be found, people in the highlands of Minahasa especially in Tomohon created a system of working the land togehter called mapalus. Mapalus is a group of male and female farmers who were associated in a system, bounded with their own or the village regulation to cultivate their farm lands. The farmers usually were divided into a timer and the workers. The timer had function to watch the time while working, carrying the drum and hitting the drum or another instrument called tetengkoren. The process starts at the dawn around 04.30 AM by the sound of the drum. As the timer hit drums with special pattern of hitting, the other member of the group would come to the appointed time that could be at a house of one member, at the intersection, at street corner or anywhere possible for the meeting. And then by the guiding of the drum carrier, they would go to one member's farm. They would work as the sun ray started showing up. While working, the worker usually sang songs either with group or repeating one person to the other.
Kumawus
This is a first or second sunday of mourn after funeral. Kumawus derives from kawus means finish. I kawus ola, means just finish it, which means the mourn shall be finished. Kumawus means an activity to finish the mourning and all things or issues regarding to the late person. The other point also is that the left family will not have any more customs debt of those who have gone. Also with kumawus, the family was relieved, comforted and strengthened through meetings, fellowship with even more devotions.
The name of this activity at first was 'muntep remdem' or 'Maso Itang' the meaning 'enter in black'. The point is the family by wearing black clothing entered the worship in the church at 09.00. Another custom in Kumawus is the people will eat on the table covered with banana leaves by hands.
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Tomohon Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.