Happy Gawai Day to everyone!

First of all, I would like to wish everyone "Happy Gawai Dayak" and have a blast. I could not celebrating Gawai Dayak because I have an examinations from 12th June until 22nd June. It is sad to say that I am not going back to Kuching and to my village and meet my big family. This is my freshman year in University.

I wanted to share about my village back in Kuching, Sarawak. My village's name is Kampung Stass located at Bau, Sarawak. The people in Kampung Stass, Bau was coming from Jagoi hill. I did not know much about my village's history and I am still learning about my own village.

Gawai Dayak is a festival celebrated by Dayaks in Sarawak and West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The distance between West Kalimantan and Sarawak is not that very far. It is still took more than an hour to reach in West Kalimantan. Dayak people can be divided into three which is Sea Dayak, Land Dayak and Orang Ulu people. The three Dayak people have their own native languages.

I am Land Dayak and I will be talking and share about Bidayuh.  The Bidayuh Dayaks, the traditional dances comprises tolak bala which means danger repealing dance performed before the harvesting season to ask for blessing and to protect the community from danger.

Another dance is totokng dance that is performed during the harvest festival to welcome the paddy soul and guests. Next, langi julang ritual dance which is performed at the closing of the harvest festival to thank gods for bestowing good health and rich harvest and the eagle-warrior fight dance to win over a girl as a wife which is usually performed after the harvest season as a form of entertainment for guests of the longhouse.

Yes, it is considered as animism but most of the Dayak people converted into Christians. Some of them chose to converted into another religions, but mostly they are Christians for the meantime. I want to teach some of the Bidayuh words for my readers which is 'Slamat onu gawea' means happy gawai day, 'Okuk nyayang kupuo Stass' means I love Kampung Stass (my village's name) and 'Oni abar muu' means how are you.

There are a lot of tourists went to my village during this festival before. They enjoyed watching the performances by the Dayak people. When it is time to dance, they were so friendly that they joined the dance. Since most of the people in my village converted from animism to having religions, the original tradition of Gawai Dayak is hardly to be applied.

For this year, 2015, the Gawai Dayak in my village is on the 11th June. The Gawai Dayak is still in the original tradition for this year because there are a few of them are pagan. So that is it! Kindly drop your comments or ask me to know more. Thank you for spending your time reading my post.