Ethnomathematics in Wedding Traditions

Numerical Analysis of Bugis Makassar Wedding Days

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-332-0_17How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Culture; Bugis Bugis Makassar tribe; Wedding Traditions; Ethnomathematics; auspicious wedding days

Abstract

The cultural practice of “A’pa’tantu allo baji,” determining auspicious wedding days, intricately involves calculations rooted in Islamic lunar months or the Hijri calendar. This study deeply explores the symbiotic relationship between cultural traditions and mathematical concepts, centering on numerical considerations within Bugis Bugis Makassar tribe wedding ceremonies. Employing rigorous ethnographic methods, the research investigates the nexus between wedding date selection and mathematical principles, with mathematics playing a pivotal role in determining suitable wedding dates in the Pannyangkalang village, employing the Hijri year/Islamic Calendar. The global adherence to the Islamic Calendar among Muslims hinges on lunar phases, marked by the new moon sighting, serving as future event estimations contingent on factors like weather. The fusion of culture and the calculation of auspicious wedding dates in Makassar stems from distinctive palm patterns, resulting in natural number dates, underpinned by intricate mathematical formulas. The research findings reveal diverse mathematical approaches: (1) Some communities employ 3 points on the hand—wrist to palm to fingertips—for calculations, repeating a sequence from 1 at the wrist (auspicious day), 2 at the palm (auspicious day), to 3 at the fingertips (inauspicious day) monthly. (2) Others use 4 points—wrist to palm to middle finger to back of the hand—repeating the pattern from 1 at the wrist (auspicious day), 2 at the palm (auspicious day), 3 at the fingertips (auspicious day), to 4 at the back of the hand (inauspicious day) monthly. (3) Certain communities combine 3 and 4 points, selecting intersecting days, creating a distinctive set of favorable dates. The utilization of numerical concepts in determining wedding dates involves intricate calculations represented as (x mod 3 = a) and (x mod 4 = a) with communities combining both methods represented as ((x mod 3)(x mod 4) = a) If a = 0 then x indicates inauspicious wedding days. This study sheds light on the profound cultural and mathematical intricacies entwined within Bugis Bugis Makassar tribe wedding traditions, emphasizing the interplay of culture, numeracy, and the Islamic Calendar.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ja’faruddin
AU  - Wen-Haw Chen
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/12/18
TI  - Ethnomathematics in Wedding Traditions
BT  - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Statistics, Mathematics, Teaching, and Research 2023 (ICSMTR 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 145
EP  - 154
SN  - 2352-538X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-332-0_17
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-332-0_17
ID  - 2023
ER  -