Merpas' Animism

The native tribes of Bengkulu include the Merpas tribe. The grouping of migrant communities/tribes in this tribal area can be seen from the names of the sub-districts/villages/hamlets/villages where the migrant tribes live, for example Semarang, Purworejo, Purwokerto, Purwodadi, Pringsewu, Klaten, Wates whose residents come from Central Java. Jogja, Bantul, Sritejo Kencono, Krajan, Trimurjo, Wonosari, Sidomulyo are areas whose residents are from Yogyakarta & Solo.

Sinar Semendo, Ogan, Pelembang, is an area with residents from Palembang. Bugis Village is an area with residents from Bugis. Kampung Ambon is an area with residents from Maluku.

Its history is recorded from the 16th century, the Kingdom of Dipati Tiang 45 with its King located in the mountains of the Bukit Barisan Plateau with its center in the Lebong area. This kingdom is located at the mouth of the Itam River and its people consist of the Lembak ethnic group. Duke Raja Makdun and his entourage moved away towards the north.

After quite some time the group spread towards the upstream of Way Semuong as well. Each tribe still has many sub-tribes & reflects the lineage of ancestors with diverse customs and languages. The Megow Pak Tulang Bawang subtribe consists of descendants of Puyang Umpu, Bulan, Aji, and Tegamoan.

The Pubian Telu Tribe sub-tribe consists of descendants of the Minak Patih Tuha / Masyarakat tribe, Demang Lanca / Tambapupus tribe, and Handak Hulu / Bukujadi tribe. Cikoneng Pak Pekon, this indigenous community lives in the Cikoneng area, Banten province & surrounding areas. At this time, the people of Kekhatuan Semaka, who were refugees from the Skala Brak Buay Anak Tumi Kingdom, still adhered to animist and then Hindu & Buddhist beliefs, this was proven by the discovery of worship and offering stones, in the form of oval stones, striped patterns & in the shape of Gods at that time.

And to this day, Indonesia's cultural diversity has inherited many of the noble values ​​of its ancestors which can be used as a reference to shape the character of a progressive nation, even in the current era of modernization & globalization. In the museum there are many cultural heritage objects stored from the Semaka Khatuan Empire, ranging from coins, silver, sakura toping, tombang galah patoh, tenong, pengasanan, thighkh, talam gassa, segokh dandang, eating utensils, weapons of war in the form of clothes & swords, animist cultural worship stones relics from the Brak Buay Anak Tumi Skala, ceramic shards from the 11th century Tang Dynasty, ceramics from the Kingdom of Thailand and Tumasek & there are also relics from the resistance against Dutch colonialism in the form of a black cannon placed in front of the museum. Law No. 1 of 1974 concerning marriage in Article 1 paragraph states that marriage is a physical and spiritual bond between a man and a woman as husband and wife to form a family, a happy & eternal household based on the one and only God.

The marriage system in Gunung 3 village to a large extent still uses systems and procedures that have been inherited as an example & the sequence above is the sequence/procedures in Abung tribe weddings, specifically the Nuban Gunung 3 culture, so there are still many weddings in each culture/place that have The procedures are different, but most of the Lampung tribe still use the above procedures as their ancestral culture and there are many others, of course, each village has its own rules which are called & regulated by cepalo ngejukngakuk and these can also change depending on the particular traditional leader in question. Reproduction is the process of repeating and reproducing everything that was received as a cultural inheritance from previous ancestors. The term pepadun is interpreted as a throne that can only be used/sat on during the coronation of the traditional King of Paksi Pak Skala Brak who is the ancestor of the Lampung tribe.

Siger Lampung Pepadun and Saibatin have the same shape as the gadang house in West Sumatra, this is in line with the origin of the Lampung people from Sekalabrak which was previously inhabited by the Tumi tribe who adhered to animist beliefs. The word method comes from the Greek, namely methodos, which means way, so a method is a way that is related to the way of working to achieve the required targets. The religion before Islam, the Lampung religion were animists, dynamism & before the 21st century, all Lampung people converted to Islam, so the culture that developed came from Islam and it could be said that the religion of the Lampung people would not exist other than Islam because Islam entered through pre-culture & developed with culture.

The spread of Islam in the hands of figures under the banner of the Caliphate until the time of the Islamic Kingdom, continued to expand to nations in countries around the Arabian peninsula. More than that, through his preachers, it even spread to various continents, Africa, Europe & Asia. The rapid spread of Islamic teachings and their increasingly strong roots in the lives of the Pasai people has also become the basis for a system of expanding da'wah to various surrounding areas and the entire archipelago.