Local Wisdom and Cultural Identity in English Versions of Indonesian Folktales

Abstract

This study analyzes how local wisdom and cultural identity are represented in English versions of Indonesian folktales. Although previous studies have examined folklore as a source of moral values, educational materials, and cultural preservation, fewer studies have addressed how Indonesian cultural meanings are narratively constructed when folktales are retold in English. Using qualitative textual analysis, this study examines three widely circulated English folktales: Malin Kundang, Bawang Merah Bawang Putih, and Sangkuriang. The data consisted of words, phrases, dialogues, descriptive passages, and narrative episodes that represented moral values, kinship relations, belief systems, and symbolic links between people and place. The analysis involved repeated reading, manual coding, thematic categorization, interpretation of narrative elements, and cross-textual synthesis. The findings show that local wisdom is represented through three main patterns: moral causality, kinship and domestic obligation, and cosmology and mythic relation to place. In the selected texts, ethical conduct is made visible through reward, punishment, transformation, and landscape memory. Cultural identity is therefore not presented as an abstract label, but is embedded in family relations, moral consequences, supernatural justice, and explanations of social and natural order. The study contributes to literary and cultural studies by showing that English versions of Indonesian folktales function as mediated literary-cultural texts in which local wisdom is preserved, negotiated, and rearticulated for wider audiences.