THE DAYAKS
People
Dayak – a generic term coined by early Europeans that held no significance for the people it described – is still the catch-all label for any indigenous, non-Malay inhabitants of Borneo.
They are distinguished from the Malay population which are more coastal trading communities.
For the most part the Dayaks are not Muslims, living in the interior of the island .
The Dayaks are former head hunters and the original “wild men of Borneo.” They continued to practice headhunting Ngayau, after it was outlawed by the Dutch in the 19th century. Up until World War II most of them were river-dwelling head hunters. Now many have been Christianized and forced into settlements. Even though they were the original inhabitants of Borneo they are now greatly outnumbered by Malays and Indonesians.
It is believed that most Dayaks lived along the coast until they were driven inland after the arrival of the Malays.
With over 50 ethnic Dayak groups speaking more than 170 languages and dialects – and spread out over the third-largest island on the planet – the Dayaks are anything but a homogenous crowd.
There are the Kayan – known in Indonesian Kalimantan as Bahau –an important and powerful group cultural group living in the northern and eastern part of the island, the Kenyah and Bidayuh of Malaysian Sarawak and Kalimantan, the Iban (or ‘Sea Dayak’) of Sarawak far up in the north of the island, and the Ngaju of central and southern Kalimantan.
Current estimates put the number of Bornean Dayak people at just over 2 million.
The majority of Dayaks groups live communally along navigable rivers in protective raised village structures known as long houses.
LONGHOUSES
Historically, these riverine peoples lived mostly in longhouse communities, seldom with more than a few hundred members, and traced their descent through both the male and female lines. The family was the basic unit, and children remained with their parents until married. Despite the lack of unity between groups closely related in language, custom, and marriage, a boy often sought his bride outside his own village and went to live in her community.
In contemporary society, however, many young Dayak men and women leave home before they are married, often to study or work in urban areas; many also pursue rural employment, usually at timber camps or on oil palm plantations.
Long house
Village of Muara Pahu
4 K
2022
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Although some Dayaks still reside in longhouses that traditionally served as a mean of protection against slave raiding and inter village conflict, during the headhunting days, the Dayak are not communalistic anymore. They have bilateral kinship, and the basic unit of ownership and social organization is the nuclear family.
Among Borneo’s spectacular indigenous buildings, the longhouses, mortuary monuments, and other architectural forms of the interior are some of the most outstanding constructions.
Most recently, these have renewed much interest in indigenous architecture and tribal arts among collectors and scholars.
Dayak tattoos are known as “Tutang” and can be applied on the body for several reasons. Most notably, Dayak people believe that the black ink will turn gold after death. This alchemy is said to take place because of the memorial ceremony for the dead, and helps light the deceased person’s path to the after life.
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THE FOREST
For countless generations, the Dayaks Borneo’s indigenous subsistence farmers and hunter-gatherers depended upon the forests and managed these as their primary source of livelihood. Under their stewardship, the forests were able to maintain the highest species diversity of any terrestrial ecosystem, supplying food, medicines, cash crops, and building materials.
Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
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For rice cultivation, the Dayaks practice land clearing and crop rotation.
They cut down the trees, work the land, and when they feel the soil’s nutrients are starting to run out, they abandon their fields to become forests again, waiting to be cleared again.
This cultivation method created natural ecosystems with high biodiversity, rich in carbon stocks and low risk of soil erosion.
Most Dayak village economies are based on the shifting cultivation of hill rice for subsistence (as opposed to sale). Fishing and hunting are subsidiary activities. Traditional iron tools, such as machetes and spears, are still important, although blowpipes are most significant as cultural artifacts in the 21st century.
Additionally, the Dayaks have a reputation for being very careful about maintaining natural balance, especially in forest areas, which they consider to be the home of ancestral spirits.
KAHARINGAN
The Dayak communities are today divided among several ethnicities, and most of their members have embraced major religions such as Christianity or Islam.
Some of them such as the Ngaju in Central Kalimantan still shared a belief system called Kaharingan (which still permeates their culture today).
According to this belief, the world is populated by invisible spirits.
Kaharingan is a term in the Sangen (Old Dayak) language, built on the root haring. Haring means “to exist and grow” or “to live well”, a concept symbolized by the “Tree of life”, known as “Batang Garing”.
This tree is shaped like a spear pointing skyward. The lower part of the tree has a jar filled with holy water that represents “Jata”, the underworld. The celestial and subterranean worlds are connected as a single entity, in which they need each other.
The Dayak believe that there is a spirit in every element, including trees.
VILLAGES
Dayaks have traditionally lived in villages along Borneo’s complex river system, grown rice and other crops in shifting slash-and-burn plots, tended orchards and gardens that look like forests to outsiders, tapped rubber trees, and gathered forest products such as rattan, resins and gums. Dayaks grow special kinds of rice, sometimes named after ancestors and always adapted for their home territory.
To get around, the Dayaks have traditionally navigated the rivers of Borneo with dugout canoes that were propelled forward by ten standing punters. Today they mostly use motorized dugouts or long boats.
Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
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Dayak Sculptures. Hampatongs
The most unique Dayak sculptures are wooden statues, known as hampatong, tempatong, sepundu, temadoe, or death post and amulet.
Hampatongs are erected in sanctuaries; small sacred areas with a sacrificial shrine used in connection with headhunting or mortuary feast.
In headhunting days, an hampatong was erected below the village for each head taken in a raid in order to appease the spirit of the victim to prevent its retaliation against the living.
This practice has now disappeared with the eradication of headhunting.
Hampatongs can also represent named ancestors. They are erected in the vicinity of the longhouse and depict humans who have passed away.
They are the temporary “home” for the soul of the dead.
Other carvings are represented with large posts in the form of human beings.
These usually represent important individuals or they refer to the significant members of the community (e.g., a hat that had been worn by an ancestor). These life-size statues can be male or female. They have been referred to as sapundu.
The Dayak call them “The Guardians of the spirit”
MANCONG
Mancong is small village of Benuaq dayak tribe around Jempang lake located in the West Kutai regency of East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. People live an extremely simple life where much depends on the river water that surrounds their stilt village.
It has a traditional dayak longhouse called Lamin house.
Dayak Longhouse at the village of Mancong in East Kalimanta is a beautiful example of Benuaq Dayak peoples ceremonial hall which in the past was originally constructed to house up to 12 Dayak families. This Dayak Longhouse is famous for its many Patung or wood carved statue posts which are a sign of the number of buffalo’s killed at various traditional ceremonies.
In front of the longhouse are the patongs, of hampatongs, the wooden sculptures of people and spirits that define Dayak culture. Some are phantasy figures, but other have recognizable features, a hat, a moustache, a knife, clearly modeled on a once existing person. A great collection, which wouldn’t be out of place in any anthropological museum. And which is even more impressive in its original environment.
Mancong
Dayak Benuaq
2022
4K
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ACTIVISM
For many Aboriginal cultures, land means more than property– it encompasses culture, relationships, ecosystems, social systems, spirituality, and law. For many, land means the earth, the water, the air, and all that live within these ecosystems. As scholar Bonita Lawrence (Mi’kmaw, Indigenous studies at the University of Ontario Canada) points out, using historical examples: “to separate Indigenous peoples from their land” is to “preempt Indigenous sovereignty.”
Land and Aboriginal rights are inextricably linked.
Today, conflicts of interest between customary law communities and companies holding forest concessions for gold, between traditional communities and logging companies for wood and coal, have been inevitable.
In the 1980s, resistance began to emerge with the slogan “petak ayungku”, “my land”.
AMAN
AMAN stands for Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago. AMAN is a representative organisation that consists of a Central Governing Body with 20 Regional/Provincial Chapters, 99 Local Chapters, 3 Wing Organizations representing Youth, Women and Lawyers, and 4 Autonomous Bodies. AMAN represents 15 million individuals from 2,230 indigenous communities across Indonesia.
AMAN’s mission is to empower, advocate for, and mobilize indigenous peoples of the Indonesian archipelago to protect our collective rights, and to preserve our cultures and environments for current and future generations.
In an era of challenges including poverty, climate change, and conflict, AMAN provides innovative solutions by utilizing indigenous values, knowledge, and solidarity to promote social justice, ecological sustainability and human welfare.
Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
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Other resistance movements have emerged in the last few year.
Walhd
and from other educated Dayak who decided to return to their native village, like Claudia to advocate their rights
Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
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Headhunting
In the past, the highly developed and complex religious practices of the Dayak peoples involved numerous local spirits and omen animals. Intertribal warfare was common, with headhunting a major feature. Since the mid-20th century, however, Dayak peoples have steadily adopted Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism; by the early 21st century the vast majority of the population was Christian.
Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
Reel Duration:
Carl Bock wrote in “Headhunters of Borneo” (1881): ““The barbarous practice of head-hunting, as carried on by all the Dyaks tribes, not only in the independent territories, but also in some part of the tributary states, is part and parcel of their religious rites. Births and “ naming,’’ marriages and burials, not to mention less important events, cannot be properly celebrated unless the heads of a few enemies, more or less, have been secured to grace the festivities or solemnities. Head-hunting is consequently the most difficult feature in the relationship of the subject races to their white masters, and the most delicate problem which civilization has to solve in the future administration of the as yet independent tribes in the interior of Borneo. The Dutch have already done much by the double agency of their arms and their trade to remove this plague-spot from the character of the tribes more immediately under their control.”
Skulls from headhunting raids have traditionally been displayed in longhouses. Some longhouses today still have heads hanging from the ceiling as relics of their glorious past. The most recent ones are Japanese heads taken in World War II.
Some collected an enemy warrior’s head to take home as a trophy or as proof of their victory. Others had to murder and bring the skull back to the village for permission to marry. Regardless of the motive, the practice of headhunting in Borneo has both intrigued and instilled fear in outsiders for generations. In longhouses one could se. skulls still dangling from the roofs. Even today, the occasional rural community still looks after a head captured by their ancestors.
Headhunting was outlawed by the Dutch and the British on Borneo in 19th century but continued. Head hunting decreased over time, in part because of peace agreements in 1894 and 1924. In the 1940s, the Dutch made a major effort to crackdown on headhunting. Head parties were jailed.
CAVES
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Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
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Dayak religious beliefs
Belian healing ceremony
In regard to religion, Dayaks tend to practice either Protestantism or Kaharingan, a form of indigenous religious practice blending animism and ancestor worship classified by the government as Hindu. Through its healing performances, Kaharingan serves to mold the scattered agricultural residences into a community, and it is at times of ritual that the Dayak peoples coalesce as a group.
Shamanic curing, or balian, is one of the core features of these ritual practices. Because illness is thought to result in a loss of the soul, the ritual healing practices are devoted to its spiritual and ceremonial retrieval. In general, religious practices focus on the body, and on the health of the body politic more broadly. Sickness results from giving offense to one of the many spirits inhabiting the earth and fields, usually from a failure to sacrifice to them. The goal of the balian is to call back the wayward soul and restore the health of the community through trance, dance, and possession. [Source: Library of Congress, 2006]
Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
Reel Duration:
Belian Bewo rituals (day)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
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Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
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Kwangkay
Funeral ceremonies are called “Kwangkay” and conversion to Christianity did not obliterate these practices. The invocations sung by the specialists will accompany the final journey of the souls in the world of the beyond. It is only on the 8th day, after the celebration of other rituals in the longhouse, that the participants plant the “blontang” pole, to which the buffalo will be tied for its sacrifice, on the 13th day, before the end of the “blontang” ritual. second funeral. On this occasion, the bones are dug up, cleaned and the skull is placed in a particular receptacle in the shape of a house. The “blontang” are metaphorical representations of the deceased, highlighting certain traits of their personality, their social status or their physical appearance. They are produced on the initiative of the relatives of the deceased, who bear the cost. They become prestigious effigies, placed in front of the longhouse.
Belian Bewo rituals (night)
4 K
Kutai Regency East Kalimantan
Tungjung Dayas.
2022
Reel Duration:
HUDOQ
Hudoq is a manifestation of the spirit/god of Hunyang Tenangan, the rice-keeping god sent by the Lord of Apo Lagaan (Heaven) named Ine Aya’. The arrival of the god spirits to the earth is to answer the prayers of men who are doing Menugal, a process of notification to the ancestors and gods that the Dayak tribe will start to plant rice, corn and sugar cane in their fields.
To expect blessings from gods, it is not enough just by Menugal, the Dayak tribes have to prepare a Hudoq dance which is a hereditary inheritance in their families.
A way for the Dayaks to give thanks and receive blessings
excerpt from INUIT LANDS The Melting Point
The U.S Thule Air Base
2012-2013
HD 1080p
Reel Duration: 3′ 03″
excerpt from INUIT LANDS The Melting Point
The U.S Thule Air Base
2012-2013
HD 1080p
Reel Duration: 3′ 03″
THE OLD SNAKE RELIGION
Dayak “psycho-navigators” use visions and dreams to help them find their way in the forest. Dayak shaman practitioners of the “Old Snake religion” describe a hidden highland lake where enormous aging pythons enjoy dancing under the light of the full moon to honor the forest god Aping. Many Dayaks are Christians who have incorporated animists concepts onto their belief scheme. Missionaries went through the trouble of backpacking in paints and brushes to make hellfire scenes on the sides of longhouses. On the positive side missionaries have helped the Dayak clear landing strips which can be used for medical emergencies. [Source: “Ring of Fire” by Lawrence and Lorne Blair, Bantam Books, New York,
CHRISTIANITY
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DAYAKS between Traditions , Modernity and Reality
Dayak men traditionally wore loincloths and had elaborate tattoos running up their shoulders. Sometimes they covered much of their body with tattoos. Women wore knee-length sarongs and went topless.
The women wear a short and scanty petticoat, reaching from the loins to the knees, and a pair of black bamboo stays, which are never removed except the wearer be enceinte. They have rings of brass or red bamboo about the loins, and sometimes ornaments on the arms; the hair is worn long; the ears of both sexes are pierced, and ear-rings of brass inserted occasionally; the teeth of the young people are sometimes filed to a point and discoloured, as they say that “Dogs have white teeth.”
excerpt from INUIT LANDS The Melting Point
The U.S Thule Air Base
2012-2013
HD 1080p
Reel Duration: 3′ 03″
excerpt from INUIT LANDS The Melting Point
The U.S Thule Air Base
2012-2013
HD 1080p
Reel Duration: 3′ 03″
DAYAKS and the Modern World
Many Dayaks now wear Western clothes, watch television and ride around on motorbikes. Their traditional homes sometimes have satellite dishes. Few live in longhouses anymore. Their traditionally dugouts have motors.
The Dayaks are regarded as one the most marginalized ethnic groups in Indonesia and Malaysia. They have been driven off their land by logging schemes, palm oil plantations, deforestation, settlers form other ethnic groups and transmigration schemes. They have been forced to move from their river villages to towns, often dominated by other ethnic groups. They claim they have been denied jobs, education and land and that settlers to their traditional lands are given preferences to these things. . The Dayaks are perceived by other ethnic groups as backward, stupid and lazy. They often occupy the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. The logging companies and palm oil estates prefer to use migrant laborers rather than Dayaks. Forced into the cities the Dayaks often find no work at all. To earn money, many Dayaks pan gold from the rivers in Borneo and tap rubber trees. Lucky ones get dangerous jobs in gold, tin and copper mines or at palm oil and coconut plantations.
Dayaks that remain in the forest have been hurt by drought, fires and soil erosion, The forests fires in the late 1990s were particularly devastating for them. Their villages were engulfed in flames and smoke, and trees and plants they depended on for food destroyed.
THE RED ARMY
The DAYAKS and Tribal Arts
Brief History:
About 50,000 years ago, populations of Homo sapiens migrated from Africa and arrived in this equatorial land of what is Indonesia today.
The oldest traces of this presence are modern human fossils in Niah Cave, Sarawak [in the Malaysian part of Borneo] and cave paintings at Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat, in eastern Kalimantan.
Borneo is part of the Sunda continental shelf, which at that time was still part of the Eurasian continent because it was not submerged by the rising oceans that occurred at the end of the ice age.
It did not exist then as an island, nor did Java or Sumatra: all three were connected by a corridor of low plains made up of savannah which probably served as a corridor for human migrations. Sea level stopped rising about 5,000 years ago.
It was at this time that the Austronesian migrants arrived, known to be accomplished farmers and navigators [the inhabitants of the linguistic area stretching from Taiwan to New Zealand and from Madagascar to Easter Island are called Austronesians , (except for Australia and part of New Guinea).
These farmers mingled with the hunter-gatherers of Kalimantan the Punan, and developed a distinct agriculture.
These farmers now known as Dayak, an umbrella term that covers various ethnic groups in Borneo, most of whom make their living from field rice cultivation as well as hunting and forest products.
Once noted as fierce headhunters, the accouterments of Dayak warriors are highly accomplished yet pragmatic works of art, most notably their combat shields.
Dayak battle swords (mandau, parang ilang)vie for supremacy in their workmanship and blade quality with some go the finest weapons ever created in the archipelago.
Forged from local iron at high temperatures and repeatedly dipped in cold running water to temper their hardness, the Ngaju poetically refer to their swords as “Suluh Ambun Panyulak Andau”) which translate as
“ torch of the dew announcing a new day”
In the feminine realms of artistic production, Dayak groups like the Ngaju and Ot Danum are held in high esteem for their intricate designs on split fiber mats.
Women of the Maloh Kennyah, and various Kayanic people excelled in beadwork.
Iban work weavers fashioned exquisite skates (pua Kombut) and supplementary weft textiles (pua sung kit).
To become a master weaver among the Iban, a woman had to attain a requisite level of expertise and receive permission from the spirit world through dream quests in order to transmit the most potent designs to cloth.
Ceremonial textiles were displayed in a variety of ways to invoke blessings from the ancestors and the gods, to protect warriors, and to exhort menfolk to great feats in combat.
To this day “Women’s warfare” (kayu Indus) remains the denomination for the ceremony where threads are dyed and female prowess and determination are celebrated. The weaving arts are a powerful complement to the martial skills of the most vaunted Dayak warriors.
The Kaharingan & the Tree of Life
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“Most of the sculptures are made from ironwood a wood so hard and dense that it is virtually insect resistant.
Because ironwood is considerably more durable than other woods, it is favored by Dayak sculptors for longhouse and crypt house support posts, floor planks, panels, ladders, and roof shingles, as well as protective statues, decorative finials, and ancestral shrines, including ossuaries, and reliquaries.
Most Dayak villages and funerary structures are placed along riverbanks, which are subject to flooding and mudslides, so it is not unusual for objects to fall into the water. If exposed to the constant flow of gritty sandy river water, grinding away at the surfaces over time, the softer areas between the harder grain edges will erode leaving long deep channels, often over the full length of all sides of the object. Many of these objects are eventually recovered when rivers shift course or water levels drop during dry spells. Occasionally, fishermen recover old objects, snagged in their fishing nets. It could be assumed the constant grinding would destroy these sculptures over time. But, how much time? What we are finding via carbon dating is the majority of eroded “river pieces” that have been tested, seem to fall into an average age range of about 100 to 300 years old with a max of 500 years. Based on the time it takes to erode an outdoor sculpture, I believe this is a reasonable age range for extremely hard wood objects found under these conditions.”
(Mark Johnson> Kanyan art)
A perplexing 8000 year old Borneo sculpture recovered from river mud and tested by C14 (Carbon date) three times by two laboratories could be considered as a Prime Object of the Paleo-Dayak art styles. This figure was originally discovered in Borneo by Michael Palmieri in 1978 and is now part of the promised gift of Thomas Jaffe at Yale University Art Museu