6 Things About Dayaks

1. The Dayak people represent a group of Proto-Malayans inhabiting the inner part of Borneo. They are related with the Batak of Northern Sumatra, Toraja of South Sulawesi, and various tribes Timor, Celebes, Sumatra and Moluccas. During their history, the Dayaks experienced many external influences, especially of Hinduism, a religion that many ethic groups of Borneo converted to. Still, Dayaks are highly conservative, and each village is organized in clans composed of various families that admit the authority of a sole chief; this structure allows a tight collaboration in field labor and other collective works. During the harvesting period, festivities accompanied by dances are kept.

2. Dayaks usually make their villages on the banks of the rivers and lakes. They make branch huts. The large houses are destined to host a whole clan. Sometimes, these houses can be 200 m (660 ft) long. The whole clan works to make these houses built from trunks, bamboo, branches and leaves. Their interior is divided in compartments destined for the life in common of the men, workshop for crafts and shelters for each family.

3. Dayaks worship a superhuman power, called semangat, that rules the lives of humans, animals and plants. This invisible life force dwells many places: all the human body parts, cut hair, shadows, names, the water in which a human or animal bathed, traces imprinted in the mud.... Semangat can enter any body, and it is somehow like a soul that can be destroyed by other more powerful souls. The soul of any man is inherited from a forebear, that's why the cult for the forebears is crucial. Wooden earvings are supposed to host the souls of the dead. All the souls submit to divine powers: the sky, whose image is the hornbill bird, and the land with water, symbolized by the infernal snake.

4. Like all Proto-Malayans, Dayak are a mix between Mongoloid and Asian Blacks, with the predominant genetic background being Mongoloid. Dayaks, both men and women, are famous for their heavy metal rings worn as earrings, that deform their ear lobes.

5. Men are assigned to four classes: children, teenagers, young men and old men. Each class has specific tasks. Young men are before all warriors that have to defend the village against neighboring tribes. When defeating the enemy, Dayaks beheaded them and preserved their heads as trophies in the communal houses. That's why they inspired dread amongst other people, being famous as "head-hunters".

6. Dayaks use machetes during their journeys through the jungle. They use blowpipes and envenomed darts for hunting small game and birds. Only Proto-Malayan, and some tribes of Amazonia are known to use this weapon.

Dayaks collect rubber from the rubber fig tree (Ficus elastica). They exchanged rubber on the coastal areas for tools, farm equipment, seeds and western products.

Dayak fishermen used canoes made of wood boards, joined by resins or rubber for a total impermeability. These people used reds, fishing baskets or wood barrels with a funnel-shaped orifice.