At the beginning of March when I was in Makassar, I joined a deep language training organized by LPDP for three months, March-June. It had been exactly two weeks when I had face-to-face learning and the news about Covid-19 arose and got worse.
From our chat on how to hunt for flying fish eggs, to sacred places in the sea that often take victims. Motangga becomes a tradition here, usually in the fifth to eighth months of the east wind.
His name is Mr. Quraisy, a pande lopi (‘boatman’) as well as sando lopi (‘boat shaman’). What distinguishes the boat here in Mandar from the others is the treatment. A boat is not just an inanimate object, it also has a soul.
Shamans / Sando, or smart people, to date have an important role for the community here [in Mandar], including to look for missing people before/in addition to informing the SAR team.
Trash and the beach are side by side with “good” and “beautiful”, nothing seems to happen.
Sando or ‘shaman’ here is more like a smart person, someone who has knowledge/expert in his/her field, also an expert on spells, applies to rituals as well.
A very unique place; established since 2015. This self-sustained library has a distinctly oceanic feel, where books, sandeq (the term for Mandar’s traditional sailboat), and beautiful ocean-scented decorations are arranged in each corner and side of the room.
After getting up from the tiring journey, the morning before noon, my friends and I just met with the initiator-founder of “Nusa Pustaka”, Muhammad Ridwan Alimuddin.
CEMETI 