Smong means more than tsunami: The understanding of tsunami in the Indonesian context

¹ Pusat Riset Ilmu Sosial dan Budaya (PRISB), Universitas Syiah Kuala, Darussalam, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
² Department of Social Sciences, Toyo Eiwa University, Japan
³ College of Health and Human Sciences, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia
⁴ Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Darussalam, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
⁵ Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center (TDMRC), Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: alfi.rahman@unsyiah.ac.id

Abstract

Smong is an indigenous knowledge related to the tsunami. The word of smong comes from the Devayan language of Simeulue and refers to the complex of earthquake/sea receding/giant wave that is typical of tsunami events in Indonesia. Now their pride in the word smong has spread to Aceh and is being adopted in their efforts to adapt to earthquake and tsunami disasters. Simeuluean people, grateful to their nation for the reconstruction after 2004 and want to grow their pride in smong to a national level. They wanted to make a gift of smong to be owned by the Indonesian people. To do this, they feel this study initiates that the word smong should be part of the narrative in Indonesian as the basis for a new understanding of the tsunami disaster by Indonesian people. Initiating the word smong in Indonesian vocabulary does not mean removing the word tsunami that now an international word. But the acceptance of smong should be a source of pride in the protection of our greatest wealth of people.