Bidayuh

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The Bidayuh , also known as Land Dayak , are an indigenous group of people from the island of Borneo and count among the Dayak peoples. Today they settle in the southwest of the Malaysian state of Sarawak and the neighboring Indonesian province of Kalimantan Barat . Most of the Bidayuh in Sarawak live in the administrative divisions of Kuching and Samarahan within a radius of about 40 km around the region known as "Greater Kuching". Today many Bidayuh moved to Kuching, the capital of Sarawak.

Most of the Bidayuh settlements are located in the rural areas of Lundu, Bau, Penrissen, Padawan and Serian, where they usually make up the largest population group. Their main settlement area is on the upper reaches of the rivers Lundu , Sarawak , Sadong and Samarahan . Traditionally they practiced shifting cultivation and hunting. Today almost all traditional longhouses have been replaced by single houses with streets. There is some plantation and a little cultivation of mountain rice . Fruit trees, especially the durian tree , are still used to mark possessions. An important cultural and architectural feature of the Bidayuh was the chief's house, which is now used as a symbol. The "Baruk" is a round house that is erected about 1.5 meters from the ground.

languages

In general, three language groups are accepted in Sarawak today: Biatah, Bau-Jagoi and Bukar-Sadong. However, based on differences in vocabulary and intonation, locals can often tell the origin of a speaker from a particular village. The dialects can be summarized in the following groups:

  • The Lundu speak Salako and Lara .
  • The Bratak, Singai, Krokong and Jagoi speak Singai-Jagoi .
  • The Penrissen and the surrounding area of ​​Sibu speaks Biatah .
  • Bidayuh, who live around Serian, like the Tebekang, Mongkos and from Tebedu to Tanjung Amo near the border with the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, speak Bukar-Sadong .
  • The Bidayuh in Padawan speak several related dialects such as Pinyawa , Braang , Bia , Sepug and Emperoh .

Since not all dialects are easy to understand among each other, Malay or English is often used as the lingua franca.

religion

The Bidayuh ethnic religion was originally animist , but animist influence declined dramatically after the time of the Brooke Rajahs , when missionaries brought schooling and medical care, and after the colonial era, when the Malays gained more political influence. Most of the villages have either a Roman Catholic or Anglican church. Mosques are rather rare. There is rarely more than one religious building in a village, as this could otherwise split the village community. The Biatah around the Sarawak River tend to be Anglicans, while the people in the Bau area tend to be Catholics.

literature

  • Geddes, William (1985): Nine Dayak Nights , Oxford: OUP South East Asia.
  • Walker, JH (1998): James Brooke and the Bidayuh: Some Ritual Dimensions of Dependency and Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Sarawak. In: Modern Asian Studies 32, 1 , pp. 91–115.