Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN (Paper)2224-5766 ISSN (Online)2225-0484 (Online) Vol.4, No.18, 2014 125 Betuturu Story and Social Practices of Marriage in Serawai Ethnic Groups of Bengkulu Sarwit Sarwono Department of Languages and Arts, Faculty of Teacher Education University of Bengkulu, Jalan Raya W.R. Supratman, Bengkulu, Indonesia, 38225 *E-mail of the corresponding author: sarwitsudiro@gmail.com Abstract This paper is intended to discuss the plot and content of the Betururu oral story in relation to marriage custom, and to discuss the narrative of the story in relation to the maintenance of social function of the ketua adat in the marriage practices in Serawai ethnic groups in Bengkulu. In this discussion the Betuturu story seen as a symbolic sign that used intentionally to convey knowledge in social communication. This story living in a very limited environment, spoken at a certain time with a certain audience anyway. From the data available, it can be concluded that the parts and episodes of this story symbolizes knowledge and principles which its manifestation can be found in the actions during a marriage social practices of Serawai ethnic groups in Bengkulu. Part [B] episode [B2], [B3] and [B4] of the story symbolizes begadisan, berasan, and ngulang ghunut in a series of customary marriage. Part [A] episodes [A1] and [A2] symbolizes the principles of adat kulo in the practice of marriage. The storytelling tradition of Betuturu which is limited and closed indicating the maintenance of ketua adat access on marriage and their authority over the legality of the social actions of Serawai ethnic individuals in the practice of marriage. Keywords: Betuturu story, marriage practice, Serawai ethnic group of Bengkulu 1. Introduction In May 2001, I get oral story entitled Betuturu or also known as Rajo Bujang story. So called Rajo Bujang story because the main character of this story is a king who was crowned when he was a bachelor. Rajo bujang means “the bachelor king”. The story is called Betuturu because the main character is named Betuturu. The story we recorded from Mr. Rohani (75 years old), the ketua adat of the village of Karang Anyar in Seluma Regency. i Betuturu story is told in Malay dialect Serawai. ii According to Mr. Rohani, in the past the story is told only on full moon nights at the end of the harvest season and before the next growing season. The story is told in a very limited circle, which is only for ketua-ketua adat iii of ethnic groups of Serawai. The story is considered as a ‘grip’ or ‘benchmark’ which is referred to and followed in terms of the marriage implementation of the Serawai ethnic groups. As oral folklore (Propp 1997) Betuturu story is a sort of biography of ethnic (Dundes 2007) iv for the marriage rite matters in Serawai ethnic and show its characteristics as myth. v This story can be said to have become extinct because nowadays no longer spoken, and perhaps Mr. Rohani is the only ketua adat left who mastering this story. Betuturu story caught my attention for two reasons. First, this story has a plot that form a standard pattern embodied in a series of marriage practices in Serawai ethnic groups. Second, the events in this story contains the principles referred to and guided by each individual of Serawai in running a series of marriage practices. Thus, this paper is intended to discuss the plot and content of the Betuturu story in relation to the marriage custom knowledge, in addition to discuse the story narrative in relation to the social function of ketua adat in the marriage practice in Serawai ethnic groups of Bengkulu. For that purposes above, I felt it was necessary to collect materials about marriage practices series on Serawai ethnic groups through observation and interviews to selected informants. The discussion is based on the view that the Betuturu story as a sign in social communication system. As a story, SB texts is symbolic sign (Chandler, 2007; Danesi, 2005; van Zoest, 1993) were used intentionally to convey notions or knowledge. The story is told by the ketua adat to his audience, i.e ketua-ketua adat, in the particular situation context, in the full moon night at the end of the rice planting season and before the next growing season. In the narrative text tradition of Betuturu story, both narrator and listener involved in the “exchange” of experiences and interactions (Teubert, 2010) vi to interpret the story (McKee, 2003) vii , “make- meaning activity” or “knowledge-making activity” (Sebeok, 2001, 8). Activities to interpreting the story during storytelling process is essentially acts of socially constructing a knowledge viii , that is customary marriages. In such a framework, access to knowledge of a custom marriage means the authority of ketua adat. Therefore, both speakers and audience are ketua adat. Lay groups or common do not have access to most present in the storytelling tradition. Based on statements such as I expressed above, Betuturu story is figuratively custom knowledge on marriage Serawai ethnic group. Meanwhile, storytelling tradition is a social activity that is intended to build marriage custom knowledge on the one hand, and maintaining social function of custom leaders over social actions in the marriage practices on the other.