Lendawi: The Multifunction Chants and Their Metaphorical Expressions Among The Lany Tribe In Papua

The Lany is a tribe in the mountains inhabiting the area, close to Wamena, formerly called West Dani. This tribe has a type of chants called lendawi that is chanted for a number of occasions. Ethnographic method was used to find the functions of the lendawi; for analysis of the metaphors, Halley’s semantic field hierarchy was used. The study found that lendawi may be carried out anywhere anytime depending on certain functions. Seven functions were found: (1) for lamenting a dead person, (2) for thanking people contributing something in an event, (3) for remembering a family member who is already dead or in a foreign land, (4) for releasing a newly wed girl to follow her husband or a family member to go to a foreign land, (5) when meeting a person who resembles a family member already dead or far away, (6) when visiting a sick relative or friend, (7) for welcoming a relative or family member from overseas. The semantic field shown in the metaphorical expressions were found to be at the levels of (a) being e.g. sadness like in the landawi for the dead; (b) substance like clouds for eternity and rain for tears, (c) terrestrial like mountains and rivers, in the mention of mount Tari, and Donggi and Konda rivers, (d) living like weeds or grass in the mention of gardens, (e) animate like birds in the mention of the birds kimagi, welem, uluwe, prikokir, piage. The semantic field is more around the surrounding area or some other places but still in Papua as found in the metaphors.