The Cultural Meaning of The Tiger Myth in Asia: A Comparative Literary Study

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-224-8_28How to use a DOI?

Keywords

tiger myth; in Asian region; comparative literary study; cultural significance

Abstract

The Tiger is one of the most essential predatory animals in the food chain, so it is feared and respected animal among in the wild. Some of tiger’s myth in Asian countries such as Bangladesh, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, and India tell relationship between tiger and humans being. Some tiger myths relates to the spiritual matters such as creation of myths, cosmology, religion, and esoteric philosophy. Likewise, the naming of tiger have a lot of names which means human respectfull to this animal. The lot of name of the tiger in Asian is adapted from the local beliefs and local culture. In Sumatra, tigers have several honourable names for instance Inyiak balang ‘striped grandmother’, palimo ‘panglima’, Dubalang ‘Hulubalang’ Datuak Pangulu ‘Datuk Penghulu’ (West Sumatra), Ulubalang ‘hulubalang’ (Aceh), Ompung (North Sumatra), Imaw Srabat, Rimueng, Imaw, Ulubalang (Jambi), Puyang (Bengkulu), The Mustache (Lampung), Maung Bodas (West Java), and Si Mbah (Java). In India and China, tigers are depicted as vehicles or mounts of Gods, and some others regard tigers as representatiof of gods. This paper aims to compare tiger stories from various countries with the perspective of the comparative literary study and topos analysis. The method used in this study is a qualitative descriptive. Data were collected through a literature study. Data will be analyzed using close reading and critical analysis techniques to compare the intrinsic and extrinsic elements. The comparison results found differences and similarities in the story’s version like topos, and theme. The important topos which found in the tiger myths in Asia are the incarnation topoi, the creation topoi, the agreement between tigers and humans, the sacrifice, revenge, the battle, and the peace. Semantically, the tiger myths in Asia is a reflection of how people respectfull to the tiger. The results of this study can be developed as an enrichment of digital literacy from the Asian region and an enriching understanding of culture and fauna, especially tigers,which have cultural meanings among the people in Asian.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ninawati Syahrul
AU  - Sastri Sunarti
AU  - Ade Mulyanah
AU  - Agus Iswanto
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/05/20
TI  - The Cultural Meaning of The Tiger Myth in Asia: A Comparative Literary Study
BT  - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of Local Wisdom (Incolwis 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 327
EP  - 344
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-224-8_28
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-224-8_28
ID  - Syahrul2024
ER  -