Functions and Characteristics of Local Wisdom

INTERNATIONAL   |  Local wisdom is the identity or cultural personality of a nation that causes the nation to be able to absorb, even cultivate culture from outside/other nations into its own character and abilities. Local wisdom is also a characteristic of ethics and cultural values ??in local communities that are passed down from generation to generation. In Indonesia, awareness of local wisdom began to flourish after the fall of President Soeharto's regime in 1998.

Furthermore, local wisdom is also defined as the ability to adapt, organize, and grow the influence of nature and other cultures that become the driving force for the transformation and creation of Indonesia's extraordinary cultural diversity. It can also be a form of knowledge, belief, understanding or perception along with customary customs or ethics that guide human behavior in ecological and systemic life.

The values ??rooted in a culture are clearly not concrete material objects, but tend to be a kind of guide for human behavior. In that sense , to study it we must pay attention to how humans act in local contexts. Under normal circumstances, people's behavior is revealed within the bounds of norms, etiquette, and laws associated with a particular area. However, in certain situations where the culture faces challenges from within or from without, a response in the form of a reaction may occur.

Responses and challenges are a normal way of seeing how change occurs in culture. Social structures and values, as well as local manners, norms and laws will change according to the needs of the social situation. Challenges in a culture can occur because of feedback that occurs in the life network of a social system. This indicates the ongoing autopoesis which indicates that a social system in a culture regulates itself, a sign that a society can be said to be a living system. In the face of this change, local wisdom plays its role and function. The following is an explanation of the functions , characteristics , and characteristics of local wisdom.

Function for the conservation and preservation of natural resources. 
1. Function for human resource development. 
2. Serves for the development of culture and science. 
3. Functions as advice, beliefs, literature and taboos. 
4. Socially meaningful, for example communal integration or kinship ceremonies and      agricultural  ceremonies. 
5. Meaning of ethics and morals, which is manifested in the Ngaben ceremony and          the spirit of salvation. 
6. Political meaning or patro-client power relations, etc. 

Characteristics of local wisdom 
1. Must incorporate knowledge of virtues that teach people about ethics and moral          values; 
2. Local wisdom must teach people to love nature, not destroy it; 
3. Local wisdom must come from older community members; 
4. Local wisdom can be in the form of values, norms, ethics, beliefs, customs, laws,        customs, special rules. 

The characteristics of local wisdom 
1. Able to survive in the midst of an increasingly massive onslaught of foreign culture 
2. Has the ability to provide something to meet the needs of elements from outside          cultures 
3. Has the ability to combine or assimilate elements of foreign culture into the original      culture. 
4. Have the ability to control, give direction to cultural development.