Folklore and Illustrated Children’s Books: A Simple Indigenous Knowledge Preservation Form to Foster Culture and Literacy

One of the activities to preserve indigenous knowledge in Indonesia is preserving oral culture in the form of folklore. This activity is carried out to preserve oral culture as a community identity. This research aims to describe preserving activities of indigenous knowledge folklore and its use to foster the culture and literacy skills of elementary school-age children in Parigi Moutong Regency, Central Sulawesi Province. This research uses a qualitative approach and finds that (1) students know the folklore of the indigenous community primarily through oral speech, and there is still a lack of children's literature containing the folklore of the indigenous community, (2) the process of preserving indigenous knowledge of folklore is carried out by interviewing traditional leaders and traditional figures, local writers carried out the transfer of folklore into illustrated children's books in collaboration with professional illustrators, and (3) the introduction of folklore through illustrated children's books was carried out through read-aloud activities and enriched students' to understanding of folklore and culture from Parigi Moutung Regency.