From the folklore,
there was a relative of Sultan Kutai named Aji Pao, with his determination and
his enthusiasm walked with some of his trusted people to find a place that can
be used as a land for gardening, hunting and a new place of residence for his followers.
Lots of hills have been climbed, bulk are descended, from cape to cape and
finally Aji Pao's group arrived somewhere, the place was guarded by a genie
with the title SANG, namely SANG ATTAK as the keeper of the Api-Api tributary
Sanggata. The second was SANGKIMA,it was a genie too that the guardian of the
Sangkima tributary. The third was SANG ANTAN which also maintains the api-api
tributary which is now called Santan.
Then Aji Pao asked
the three of Sang to made the place a
residential area and be used for farmed, hunted and managed forest products.
The three of Sang finally agreed to grant Aji Pao's
request, and even promised to take care of his security and safety with his family and followers.
It
turned out that the choice of relatives of the Sultan of Kutai was not wrong,
the watershed was indeed fertile because the first harvest of grain was long
and full, and the pumpkin they harvested was very satisfying. Hunted animals such as deer are easily available,
snares that are installed never escape. So is the sea, rich in various types of
fish and eatible marine animals. Thus, after Aji Pao and his followers succeeded
in creating a granary that not only contained rice but also various types of
crops, beef jerky and salai. So Aji Pao
turned back with his followers to Kutai to talk about the situation of this new
area to the people of Kutai. Then he and his followers brought their families
to live in the new area which coincided with the reign of the 16th Sultan of kutai ,that was Sultan Aji Muhammad
Salehuddin (1782-1850), the move was estimated around 1826.
Beginning
in 1826, Aji Pao was asked by his relatives and followers to become the first
leader in this unnamed village. Then the next leader was not known because of
the lack of literature and writing about the journey of the new community
unknowned too. The Important is that we only know the first person who lived
here and became the first leader.
Time
continues, the life of the coastal communities was increasing, which was
originally inhabited by Malay Kutai, by perseverance and enthusiasm can build a
market system. The transaction was by barter or exchange of goods. for example,
they offered the results of gardening,
hunting and sea products to be exchanged for household utensils or items that
they can produced, such as tobacco, sugar, salt, garden tools etc. With the
growth of the market system, the village has become more advanced and attracts
the opposite Sulawesi people that commonly referred to as bugis and bajao. The
migration of these Sulawesi people occurred since 1900. The presence of
migrants made the area even more crowded. So that male migrants married local women and vice versa. Do not miss the Malay
Banjar that come from the south, joined
in and stayed in this village.
Because
of the difficulty of communication between those of different languages,
then
the Malay language is used as the language of trend at that time because radio
broadcasts that are the entertainment of the people always use Malay and the
songs are also Malay. The use of Malay language became the everyday language of
the first generation born in this region in the 1920s and continued to be
passed on to the next generation.
BONTANG KUALA
The
existence of a society that continues to advance and population growth due to
birth and the increasing number of migrants, the market also develops. Chinese
traders also took part in doing business in this region, Chinese
traders were expert so they can master the market in a short time by offering
goods that are indeed attractive and especially for women. In
addition, the Chinese traders generously offered their merchandise through the
system “Take it first, pay later”.
With
sincerely, without thouht again the members of the community
took it,took it and kept took it, problems with payment
later after they came home from hunting, gardening and sailing. Take it first,
pay later became a habit, then Chinese traders forced to
write a bill for each transaction. If there is sufficient
income to pay the bill then pay it off, but not infrequently
some people could not afforded to pay the price of the item entered in the bill,
So
the remaining unpaid bills were recorded by Chinese traders as debt. Finally,
the debt is increasingly piling up, the fisherman could not sail because of bad
weather. Then the solution is a Bon (Bill), Bon and Bon. Starting from the habit
of the bill (Bon) then a term appears “Couldn't pay BON (Bill) to become HUTANG (Debt), BONTANG”.
From that time the people who lived in the Api-Api river estuary were called BONTANG
people, because the stack of unpaid bills then became a debt.
In
another story from the origin of Bontang that around 1900s, a
group of people dwell on a coast that the house like shaped stage and be on the
water if there is a tide, they were carpenter,farmer,fisherman and trader. This
community group comes from a variety of different ethnic groups, such as
Bajao,Bugis,Kutai,Banjar,Arab,Melayu and Chinese. But the difference in
language was gradually united by Malay language which until now has survived
for a century or a hundred years. Indeed, in the era before Indonesia
independence, the Malay language was the language of conversation in the Borneo
region, including
Sarawak, Sumatra and Malacca or Malaysian land at this time because there was
no Indonesian at that time. Seeing the condition of the people living in this
coastal area, a Kutai noble named Aji Pao who lived in this area named the area
with BONTANG, whose abbreviation is Bon or Bond means association
/ Tang and Tang taken from the word Pendatang(Indonesian) or Arrivals.
The
first Bontang, now called Bontang Kuala, is the first and second generation
residence, after the second generation got married, they looked for a new place
on the north or Lok Tuan Village that transported it using a sailboat. And some
of them went to the west or to the mainland which is now called Bontang Baru. The
second generation was born around 1920-1930 ,when talked to their children,
they used Malay language. Even so to the people around the village, so
that Malay language was become the main language among the community that began to develop. Because
of the influence from Bugis culture, Malay language here is
rather rough and hard compared to other Malay languages. With its language
characteristics, the language here is called the Bontang Language. That the
beginning of the language came from Malay Kutai with a Bugis accent.
