Dichotomy Concept of Urang Asa And Urang Dagang In Tambo Minangkabau: A Semiological Interpretation

Tambo Minangkabau stores the thoughts, ethics, and aesthetics that govern people’s lives. However, as a work of literary historiography, all ideas are wrapped in diction and symbolic language styles that need to be interpreted more seriously and in detail. This article aims to explain the symbolic meaning contained behind the concept of Urang Asa and Urang Dagang Dagang in one of the episodes Tambo Minangkabau. Roland Barthes’s semiologic theory is applied to explain the heap of symbols that wrap around the discourse about Urang Asa and Urang Dagang. The method used in this study is an interpretive descriptive method of analyzing data sourced from words, phrases, sentences contained in Minangkabau Tambo. The results showed that Tambo resented the different rights and obligations between the groups of Urang Asa and Urang Dagang in the order of life of Minangkabau people. Semiologically, this episode indicates the ideology of materialism also influences a person’s position in possession of communal relative’s property in Minangkabau society. As it turns out, classical literature also holds that ideology.