Lawet : The Icon of Kebumen

The icon of Kebumen Regency is Lawet bird. Commonly, we can find this kind of bird inside the cave in the seashore, especially in Karang Bolong. But now, we can find it in the town because many people build a great building for breeding this bird. So, what’s for? Do you know, they want to get a big profit from this bird by selling its saliva. What a valuable bird it is!! As an icon, of course, we can see Lawet’s picture in the seal of Kebumen Regency. Besides that, in the cross-road among Pahlawan Street, A.Yani Street, Pemuda Street, and Kusuma Street, there is a monument called “tugu Lawet”. This monument describes about the harvesting of Lawet’s saliva.
Lawet bird also became an inspiration for Sardjoko, Sardjono, Rabimin, and Sruwono, to create a special dance of Kebumen, named “tari Lawet”. Tari Lawet tells us about the behaviour of Lawet bird in Karang Bolong cave. It’s about the detail of how Lawet bird flies, how Lawet bird sharpens its bill, how Lawet bird makes its nest, e.t.c.. The music of Lawet dance is named “gending Lawet aneba” which is the form of “lancaran laras pelog patet barang”. What’s that??Lawet dance has its own costume which is made just like the real Lawet bird. The basic color of Lawet bird’s fur is black with a little of white-colored fur on its chest. The costum of Lawet dance consists of wings, shirt, pants, Jamang (in the form of gold-colored Lawet bird), necklace, uncal, belt, rampek, sonder, and binggel. What a complicated costum it is!!
About ten years ago, every student in elementary school is able to dance this Lawet dance because Lawet dance is introduced to children to make them know about their culture. But now, elementary school students aren’t taught to be able in this dance anymore. I don’t know why, but if this still happens, the next generation will not know about this dance.

Written by Selvia Anggraeni
SSHS 1 of Kebumen