Dayak people

The Dayak people of Borneo possess an indigenous account of their history, mostly in oral literature,[6] partly in writing in papan turai (wooden records),[7] and partly in common cultural customary practices.[8]

The independent state of Nansarunai, established by the Ma'anyan Dayaks prior to the 12th century, flourished in southern Kalimantan.[9] The kingdom suffered two major attacks from the Majapahit forces that caused the decline and fall of the kingdom by the year 1389; the attacks are known as Nansarunai Usak Jawa (meaning "the destruction of the Nansarunai by the Javanese") in the oral accounts of the Ma'anyan people. These attacks contributed to the migration of the Ma'anyans to the Central and South Borneo region.

During the Second World War, Japanese forces occupied Borneo and treated all of the indigenous peoples poorly – massacres of the Malay and Dayak peoples were common, especially among the Dayaks of the Kapit Division.[10] In response, the Dayaks formed a special force to assist the Allied forces. Eleven US airmen and a few dozen Australian special operatives trained a thousand Dayaks from the Kapit Division in guerrilla warfare. This army of tribesmen killed or captured some 1,500 Japanese soldiers and provided the Allies with vital intelligence about Japanese-held oil fields.[11]

During the Malayan Emergency, the British military employed Dayak troops against the Malayan National Liberation Army.[12] News of this reached the British parliament in 1952 after The Daily Worker published photographs of Royal Marines posing with Dayak scouts holding the severed heads of suspected MNLA members.[13] Initially, the British government denied allowing Dayak troops to practise headhunting against the MNLA, until Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttleton confirmed to Parliament that the Dayaks were indeed granted such a right to do so. All Dayak troops were disbanded upon the end of the conflict.[14]

Coastal populations in Borneo are largely Muslim in belief, however, these groups (Tidung, Banjarese, Bulungan, Paser, Kutainese, Bakumpai) are generally considered to be Malayised and Islamised native of Borneo and heavily amalgamated by the Malay people, culture, and sultanate system. These groups identified themselves as Melayu or Malay subgroup due to the closer cultural identity to the Malay people,[15][16]

The Dayak people classification is largely limited among the ethnic groups traditionally concentrated in southern and interior Sarawak and Kalimantan. Other native groups dwelling in northern Sarawak, parts of Brunei and Sabah, chiefly the Bisayah, Orang Ulu, Kadazandusun, Melanau, Rungus, and dozens of smaller groups were categorised under a separate classification apart from the Dayaks due to the difference in culture and history.

Other groups in coastal areas of Sabah and northeastern Kalimantan; namely the Illanun, Tausūg, Sama, and Bajau, although inhabiting and (in the case of the Tausug group) ruling the northern tip of Borneo for centuries, have their cultural origins from the southern Philippines. These groups though may be indigenous to coastal northeastern Borneo, are nonetheless not Dayak, but instead are grouped under the separate umbrella term of Moro, especially in the Philippines.

Dayaks do not speak just one language.[17] Their indigenous languages belong to different subgroups of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, such as Land Dayak, Malayic, Sabahan, and Barito languages.[18][19] Nowadays most Dayaks are bilingual, in addition to their native language, are well-versed in Indonesian and Malay, depending their country of origin. Many of Borneo's languages are endemic (which means they are spoken nowhere else). This cultural and linguistic diversity parallels the high biodiversity and related traditional knowledge of Borneo. It is estimated that around 170 languages and dialects are spoken on the island and some by just a few hundred people, thus posing a serious risk to the future of those languages and related heritage.

Dayak sociolinguistic map, as compiled by Tjilik Riwut in 1954

In 1954, Tjilik Riwut classified the various Dayak groups into 18 tribes thoughout the island of Borneo, with 403 sub-tribes according to their respective native languages, customs, and cultures:[20]

One of the basic Dayak dances performed in a ceremony in 2007

In the Indonesian region, toplessness was the norm among the Dayak people, Javanese, and the Balinese people of Indonesia before the introduction of Islam and contact with Western cultures. In Javanese and Balinese societies, women worked or rested comfortably topless. Among the Dayak, only big breasted women or married women with sagging breasts cover their breasts because they interfered with their work. Once marik empang (top cover over the shoulders) and later shirts are available, toplessness has been abandoned.[27]

Most of the Dayak people are historically swidden cultivators who supplement their incomes by seeking forest products, both for subsistence (ferns, medicinal plants, fibers, and timber) and for sale; by fishing and hunting and by periodic wage labor.[28]

Headhunting and peacemaking

The Dayak longhouses along the Kahayan River taken in Tumbang Anoi village (c. 1894).

In the past, the Dayaks were feared for their ancient tradition of headhunting practices (the ritual is also known as Ngayau by the Dayaks).

Among the most prominent legacy during the colonial rule in the Dutch Borneo (present-day Kalimantan) is the Tumbang Anoi Agreement held in 1874 in Damang Batu, Central Kalimantan (the seat of the Kahayan Dayaks). It is a formal meeting that gathered all the Dayak tribes in Kalimantan for a peace resolution. In the meeting that is reputed taken several months, the Dayak people throughout the Kalimantan agreed to end the headhunting tradition as it believed the tradition caused conflict and tension between various Dayak groups. The meeting ended with a peace resolution by the Dayak people.[29]

Subsequently, the headhunting began to surface again in the mid-1940s, when the Allied powers encouraged the practice against the Japanese occupation of Borneo.[30] It also slightly surged in the late 1960s when the Indonesian government encouraged Dayaks to purge the Chinese from interior Kalimantan who were suspected of supporting communism in mainland China and also in the late 1990s when the Dayak started to attack Madurese emigrants in an explosion of ethnic violence.[31]

• List of Dayak people
• Dayak in politics
• Bornean traditional tattooing
• Hiram M. Hiller, Jr.

• Benedict Sandin (1967). The Sea Dayaks of Borneo Before White Rajah Rule. Macmillan.
• Derek Freeman (1955). Iban Agriculture: A Report on the Shifting Cultivation of Hill Rice by the Iban of Sarawak. H.M. Stationery Office.
• Derek Freeman (1970). Report on the Iban. Bloomsbury Academic.
• Eric Hansen (1988). Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo. Vintage Books. ISBN 9780375724954.
• Hans Schärer (2013). Ngaju Religion: The Conception of God among a South Borneo People. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9789401193467.
• Jean Yves Domalain (1973). Panjamon: I was a Headhunter. William Morrow. ISBN 9780688000288.
• Judith M. Heimann (2009). The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547416069.
• Norma R. Youngberg (2000). The Queen's Gold. TEACH Services. ISBN 9781572581555.
• Peter Goullart (1965). River of the White Lily: Life in Sarawak. John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-0542-9.
• Raymond Corbey (2016). Of Jars and Gongs: Two Keys to Ot Danum Dayak Cosmology. C. Zwartenkot Art Books. ISBN 9789054500162.
• St. John, Sir Spenser (1879). The life of Sir James Brooke: Rajah of Sarawak: From His Personal Papers and Correspondence. Edinburgh & London.
• Syamsuddin Haris (2005). Desentralisasi dan Otonomi Daerah: Desentralisasi, Demokratisasi & Akuntabilitas Pemerintahan Daerah. Yayasan Obor Indonesia. ISBN 9789799801418.
• Victor T King (1978). Essays on Borneo Societies. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197134344.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dayak people.

• Tribal peoples are fighting huge hydro-electric projects that are carving up the island's rainforest
• The J. Arthur and Edna Mouw papers at the Hoover Institution Archives focuses on the interaction of Christian missionaries with Dayak people in Borneo.
• The Airmen and the Headhunters Documentary produced by the PBS Series Secrets of the Dead