Art Culture, General


Didong The Traditional Art of Gayo

Didong The Traditional Art of Gayo
Didong The Traditional Art of Gayo

Communities in Aceh Tengah Gayo live in the mountains or plateaus. They still preserve the artistic culture of one nation is Didong. Didong is a traditional art that is very popular and desired by Gayo society. The artist was called with the title-ceh ceh Didong. There are several names Didong famous players, including Lakiki CEH, CEH To’et, Daman CEH, CEH Ibrahim Kadir, Lakiki Ujang CEH, CEH Ucak, Seven CEH, CEH Session Temas Idris, and CEH Abd Rauf.

Didong a performance art done by the men in groups (usually numbering 15 people), with free expression, as he sat cross-legged or standing, stamping his feet. They recite verses Gayo language with melodious voice, while manabuh drum, pillow or saucepan and clapped as varied, so that the sound and motion create a beautiful and interesting.
B. Privileges
Traditional performing arts that became the pride of Gayo society is able to survive today in the midst of technological developments and the influence of westernization. People do not get enough of watching ceh-ceh Didong berdidong in almost every night the week. Was done to show the whole night (from evening until dawn).

Poems are recited by the power of fusion art configuration of motion, literature and sound like “voodoo” the audience to “drift” and continue to listen to the social and religious reflection Continue reading “Didong”



august 29 2009

ETHNONYMS: Gayo, Gajo, urang Gayó, Gayonese


Identification. The Gayo live predominantly in the central highlands of Aceh Province in Sumatra, Indonesia, and are Sunni Muslims. Gayo refer to themselves as “Urang Gayo,” meaning “Gayo people,” primarily on grounds of command of basa Gayo, the Gayo language.

Gayonese Groom with neck and head jewelry./6470
Gayonese Bridegroom and bride with neck and head jewelry./6470

Location. The Gayo homeland lies across the Bukit Barisan Range in Aceh Province, between 40 and 5° N and 96° and 980 E. The range divides the homeland into four plateaus, each with a river system along which Gayo have settled. The largest concentration of settlement is the town of Takengen (Takengon) by Lake Lat tawar. The area gradually declines in elevation from about 1,500 meters in the north to  about 500 meters in the south. Northeast trade winds bring heavy rains in a four-month period between October and  March; the southeast trades can bring a lighter rainfall between April and September.

Demography. The 1980 population of the district of Central Aceh was 163,339, of which about 140,000 were Gayo speakers. In the 1980s about 45,000 Gayo resided in other districts in the Aceh highlands and about 25,000 lived elsewhere in Indonesia, giving a total population of about 210,000 Gayo.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Gayo language belongs to the Western Indonesian Branch of the Austronesian Family and lexically is most closely related to the Batak Subfamily. The presence of Mon-Khmer loanwords suggests early coastal contacts with some Mon-Khmer-language-speaking societies.  The earliest known writing in Gayo used the Jawi script (Arabic letters) but since the 1950s most Gayo have used standard Indonesian orthography. By the 1980s most Gayo had at least minimal competence in the Indonesian language.

History and Cultural Relations

Substantial written references to the Gayo only begin in the late nineteenth century. It is likely, however, that the Gayo homeland belonged to the Islamic kingdom of Aceh in the seventeenth century and that Islamization of the area had begun by that time. At the outbreak of the Aceh-Dutch war
in 1873, Gayo possessed a strong sense of ethnic distinctiveness but recognized a nominal Acehnese suzerainty. Some Gayo continued to resist the Dutch after the invasion of the highlands in 1904. During Dutch occupation (1904-1942) Gayo developed a thriving cash-crop economy in vegetables and coffee, attained a relatively high level of basic education,
and participated in the movements of Islamic modernism and Indonesian nationalism. Gayo fought to maintain Continue reading “GAYO”

Art Culture, Social

GaYo Language

GaYo Language

Gayo language (bahasa Gayo) It was the language that said by the Gayo ethnic group in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, that was focussed in the Regency aceh Tengah (Central Aceh), Bener Meriah, Gayo Lues and the subdistrict serbejadi in the aceh Timur (East aceh) regency.
The three areas were the core territory of the Gayo ethnic group.This language including the Sunda-Sulawesi language group from the Austronesia language.
The Gayo language was one of the available languages in the Indonesian Archipelago.The existence of this language equally old him with the existence of the Gayo people “urang gayo” That himself in Indonesia.We could not separate the Gayo language from his speaker vice versa.
While the person Gayo was the original ethnic group that lived in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.They had the language, the customs and traditions personally that distinguished their identity from other ethnic groups available in Indonesia.The area of their residence was personally mentioned with tanoh Gayo (Gayo land), to be precise was in the middle of the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Sumatra, Indonesia.

Available languages in the Indonesian Archipelago entered the Austronesia group (Merrit Ruhlen in the Attraction of the Language Indonesian Archipelago approach 21 century: 27).Whereas the Gayo Language including in the group of the language of Melayo-Polynesia like that was named by Domenyk Eades in his book of A Grammar of Gayo: A Language of Aceh, Sumatra:

“Gayo belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family of languages. Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken in Taiwan, the Philippines, mainland South-East Asia, western Indonesia…”(Eades 2005:4)

This language (the Gayo language) was part of the language of Melayo-Polynesia, and dikelompokan in the Austronesia part like that it was mentioned Merrit Ruhlen above.
Specially, was still not known when and periodesasi the development of this language (Gayo).
That was certain, this language had been since this ethnic group occupied this area.
The person Gayo has personally occupied Aceh (Perlak and Pase, the east coast and some north Acehinese coasts) since before masehi (Ibrahim, 2002:1). Continue reading “GaYo Language”