Lombok Island is an island rich in natural beauty, delicious culinary riches and rich culture, also has a number of deep and meaningful legends. One of the most famous stories is the legend of Cupak-Gerantang, a story that teaches moral values ​​about honesty, justice, and courage.

The Origin of the Cupak-Gerantang Legend The Cupak-Gerantang story is one of the folk legends that has been passed down from generation to generation on Lombok Island. This legend tells of two brothers, Cupak and Gerantang, who have very different natures and characters. This story is often told to children as a bedtime story and is used as a tool to teach moral values ​​that can be taken from this story.

The Story of Cupak Gerantang

Cupak and Gerantang are a pair of siblings with their own characters and uniqueness. Each has a distinctive character. Cupak as an older sister with a fat and tall personality. She is known to be cunning, greedy, jealous, likes to lie and steal. Her face is also described as ugly and scary.

Her language is also rude and impolite. In contrast to Gerantang, the younger sister who is tough but flexible, her speech is smooth and polite, beautiful and agile, polite, honest and forgiving. Filled with envy and jealousy, Cupak continues to try to kill her younger brother, Gerantang. But the forgiving older brother always forgives what his brother has done.

Cupak and Gerantang live in a country called Daha Negara, which is run by Datu Daha. Datu Daha has a beautiful daughter named Dewi Sekar Nitra. There was once a princess who was kidnapped by an evil giant.

Dewi Sekar Nitra was trapped in a very deep old well. Datu Daha held a contest to see who could save his daughter, then marry the princess and become the sole heir to the kingdom. The competition reached Cupak’s ears.

Fight with the Giant

Cupak then invited his younger brother to join the contest. With the help of two Pathi from the Daha Negara kingdom, they were taken to the desert where the giants lived. Cupak boasted that he had defeated the giant himself. Gerantang tried to remind his brother not to be arrogant. When he arrived at the giant’s residence, he heard loud snoring that shook Cupak until he peed his pants.

Having boasted, he dared to fight the giant alone. He fell and lost. Seeing his younger brother fall, Gerantang immediately helped him and fought the giant. The giant fell, fainted and lost himself. Cunning by nature, Cupak used this incident to deceive his own younger brother.

Cupak saw this great opportunity and immediately killed the giant with the keris given by Datu Daha before going into the forest. Finally the giant died with Cupak’s keris in his chest.

Cupak did it on purpose so that people would think he had succeeded in fighting the giant. Cupak’s cunning nature never ended and then asked Gerantang to go into the well to save the princess.

The well was very dark and deep so that Cupak did not dare to enter it. Gerantang followed his brother’s wishes to go into the well where the giant Dewi Sekar Nitra was hiding. With the help of a rope, he went down the well alone. He was amazed to see the beauty of the princess who was scared.

After introducing himself to the princess, Gerantang called Cupak who was waiting on the surface of the well. Then Cupak pulled the princess through the rope. Gerantang stayed alone in the well. Cupak did it on purpose because he wanted to win the race. Cupak went to the palace with the princess. The King of Daha Negara met his competitors.

Cupak was very happy because he would marry a beautiful princess and become the heir to the kingdom. The princess testified that Gerantang saved her. Cupak was furious and challenged the royal minister to compete in Peresean, one of Lombok’s traditional arts, to prove the truth of his statement. Cupak was lucky because he managed to defeat the royal minister. The arrogant Cupak bragged even more and held Begawe Beleq, a big festival, in the palace.

Apart from that, Gerantang has managed to get out of the old well with effort, patience and God’s help. He rushed towards the palace. Seeing that his younger brother was still alive, Cupak was angry and challenged Gerantang to a duel to prove who had saved the king’s daughter.

Cupak And Gerantang Fight

Gerantang, with a humble nature, initially refused his brother’s request and chose to give in. However, Cupak still insisted because he considered Gerantang’s relenting attitude to be an insult, so Gerantang accepted the challenge.

Cupak collapsed because he lost to Gerantang. Putri also told Gerantang who had saved her. Cupak was then captured and killed by Daha soldiers. Gerantang defended his brother again and asked the king to forgive his brother’s mistakes. Upon this request, Cupak was forgiven.

Gerantang then married the king’s daughter and became the sole successor to the Daha Negara kingdom. They live happily ever after. Cupak is actually a good person like people in general, but if he suddenly becomes evil, cruel, greedy, greedy, it is solely because of the circumstances he experiences or the reality of life.

Moral Message from the Legend of Cupak Gerantang

Like the story of Cupak Gerantang, we as humans must have jealousy and envy even though it is our own brother, but we can avoid this by we as humans must always return to God, so that these things are far from our lives.

As humans, we should take care of and help each other. There is no point in being greedy and greedy for the wealth in this world.