The Power of Kajang Indigenous People from Covid-19

¹ Departement of Sociology Education, Universitas Negeri Makassar
² Departement of Sociology Education, Universitas Negeri Makassar
³ Departement of Sociology Education, Universitas Negeri Makassar
⁴ Departement of Sociology Education, Universitas Negeri Makassar

^* Corresponding author: m.syukur@unm.ac.id

Abstract

The principle is a teaching of simplicity to avoid excessive life influences through modernism, technology, and globalism. The world has been encountering a Covid-19 pandemic for the last two years; however, Kajang indigenous people become one of the communities that could endure exposure to the Covid-19 virus. The study aims to disclose the following: first, what type of ethnic wisdom that makes Kajang community still survive the aggression of changes in their surrounding communities, and second, how could the ethnic wisdom of the Kajang community become an antidote for Covid-19 exposure, which is the fruit of modernism, so that it has almost no effect on the community. The study employs a qualitative descriptive approach. The data analysis is carried out in three stages, namely data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. The research finds that first, Kajang’s ethnic wisdom known for their tightfistedness in interaction with their surrounding world has local wisdom that becomes a cultural paradigm in managing its behavioral relationship and social interaction. Second, the ethnic wisdom of kamase-masea life principle that forms behavioral and interaction systems indirectly creates herd immunity that has implication on less exposure to Covid-19 among the Kajang indigenous people.