Dayak or Daya is a collection of various sub-ethnic Austronesian which is considered as indigenous people who inhabit in the island of Kalimantan. The word 'dayak' in local language means people who live in the river upstream. Dayak communities lived most of their life in the surrounding watershed Kalimantan hinterland. They usually held many festivals. For example, in March or April, they held a festival called Robo-Robo.
In Robo-Robo festival, there is a variety of Dayak delicacies, such as spicy sour fish sauce, lemon grass shrimp, and also served a nutritious water sherbet to recover stamina. There is also a traditional canoe race that appears in Sei Kakap, Kuburaya district.
There's another festival of Dayak communities; Gawai Dayak usually held on May 20 to 24. The event is a festival of Dayak culture. At the core program, will read nyangahathn (reading spells), ceremonial games, traditional games, and various nuances of traditional crafts. Gawai Dayak is also an event that is exotic to behold and is present in modern urban society.
There are also many kinds of traditional foods of Dayak Tribe, such as Lemang, that made of sticky rice, put in the bamboo. Lemper, made of sticky rice filled with meat or beans. Lepat, made from flour that is inserted inside a banana. Jimut, traditional cakes that made from flour that formed pingpong ball-sized. Lulun, similar with lepat, that is content brown sugar. Tehpung, traditional cake on Uut Danum Dayak, made from fried sticky rice.
The first of traditional dances of Dayak communities is Tari Kencet Papatai. This dance tells about a Dayak Kenyah's hero. The dance movements are very agile, energetic, and sometimes followed by shierks of the dancers. And the second is Tari Gantar. This dance depicting the movement of people planting rice. Tari Hudoq, performed by using a wooden mask that resembles a wild animals, and using banana leaves or palm leaves as the cover body of the dancers.
The first prohibitions of Dayak communities is namely restrictions that bring freedom to make their population increased sharply, and the second is restrictions resulted in fewer and fewer of their population.
For example, a life that should never be mixed with another communities of their tribes, so that their lives had never advanced even likely primitive. And like the Dayak Punan, which is difficult to communicate with the public, which most of them live in dense forest, caves, and mountains that are difficult to reach.
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