Madura
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For the rock band, see Madura
Madura is an Indonesian island off the northeastern coast of Java, near the port of Surabaya.
It has an area of approximately 4,250 kmē and a population of about 1.5 million, predominantly Muslim since the sixteenth century. It is administered as part of the East Java province. The main language of Madura is Madurese, which is also spoken on many of the 66 outlying islands.
Madura_bull_racing_1999.jpeg
Madura is famous for is bull-racing competitions, where a jockey, usually a young boy, rides a simple wooden sled pulled by a pair of bulls over a course of about 100 meters in ten to fifteen seconds. Several towns on the island hold races in August and September of each year, with a large final for the Presidential Trophy held in Pamekasan in late September or October.
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Economy
On the whole, Madura is one of the poorer regions of the East Java province. Unlike Java, the soil is not fertile enough to make it a major agricultural producer. Limited other economic opportunities has lead to chronic unemployment and poverty. These factors have lead to long-term outmigration from the island.
Subsistence agriculture is a mainstay of the economy. Maize is a key subsistence crop, on island's many small landholdings. Cattle-raising is also a critical part of the agricultural economy, providing extra income to peasant farmer families, in addition to being the basis for Madura's famous bull-racing competitions. Small-scale fishing is also important to the subsistence economy.
Since the Dutch era, the island has also been a major producer of salt.
The western Madura city of Bangkalan has industrialized substantially since the 1980s. This region is within a short ferry ride of Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, and hence has gained a role as a suburb for commuters to Surabaya, and as a location for industry and services that need to be near the city. The long-planned Surabaya-Madura (Suramadu) Bridge, now under construction, is expected to further increase this role.
Arts
Several forms of music and theater are popular on Madura, particularly among poorer people for whom they provide an inexpensive form of entertainment and community-building. The topeng theater, which involves masked performances of classical stories such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, is the Madurese performance art best known outside the island, due to its role as a representative Madurese art form at exhibitions of regional cultures from all over Indonesia. However, performances of it are rare on Madura, and are generally restricted to entertainment at large official functions. The less formal loddrok theater, where performers do not wear masks and perform a wider range of themes, is more popular on the island. Similar is the drama theater set to modern Malay music, and where women perform alongside men.
The gamelan orchestra, best known as a classical Javanese instrument, is also played on Madura, where several of the former royal courts, such as at Bangkalan and Sumenep, possess elaborate gamelans. Tongtong music, more exclusive to Madura, is played on several wooden or bamboo drums, and often accompanies bull-racing competitions.
See also
References
- van Dijk, Kees; Huub de Jonge, and Elly Touwen-Bouswsma, eds. 1995. Across Madura Strait: the dynamics of an insular society. Leiden: LITLV Press. ISBN 9067180912.de:Madura