Guardians of the Forest, Navigators of the Future: How the Dayak People Are Rewriting Modernity
On the Banks of the Kapuas: Where Traditions Once Stood Tall
Along the Kapuas River, where longhouses once stood as the beating heart of communal life, the Dayak people of Borneo now confront a world spinning faster than the currents. Globalization, with its boundless internet and towering cities, has encroached upon Kalimantan's rainforests—the birthplace of Dayak ethics and aesthetics. And yet, ancestral values like Adil Ka’ Talino (justice among fellow humans), Basengat Ka’ Jubata (the divine breath), and collective consensus remain alive, reshaping themselves through new forms—from indigenous schools to digital art.
In an age that lures the individual away from their roots, how does Dayak heritage reclaim its space on the global stage? And what can the world learn from their resilience?
Tradition Amid Transformation
Imagine a night in an Iban longhouse, where elders convene in the ruai to resolve disputes over land. Once, these decisions involved both human voices and, symbolically, ancestral spirits. Today, many longhouses have given way to concrete housing, and the youth migrate to Palangkaraya or Jakarta, wielding smartphones instead of carved spears. As Victor King notes, the New Order's 1970s policy of forced relocation to individual villages weakened the communal soul of Adil Ka’ Talino. Yet this tradition did not vanish—it transformed.
In West Kalimantan, Iban communities now host virtual musyawarah (consensus meetings) via WhatsApp to plan Gawai, the harvest festival, as reported by indigenous groups in 2023. In Central Kalimantan, the Ngaju uphold tiwah rituals with online crowdfunding, blending Kaharingan spiritualism with digital tools. Bernard Sellato observed that Dayak Kayan schools in Nunukan now teach karungut (oral chants) alongside digital literacy. Once confined to the ruai, consensus has migrated to group chats, proving that Dayak togetherness adapts without losing soul.
Dayak art, too, breathes anew. Hornbill carvings, once adorning longhouses, now appear in city galleries or as NFTs in digital marketplaces, as showcased by Dayak artists in Pontianak in 2022. Ngaju dotted-thread fabrics featuring the batang garing motif are sold on Etsy, though Anna Tsing warns of the risks of commercialization eroding sacred meaning. Such adaptations reflect Dayak strength: they don’t reject modernity—they weave it into the fabric of heritage.
The Cost of Modernity
Modernization is not without its toll. Deforestation, which has erased more than half of Kalimantan's forests since the 1950s, has robbed the Dayak of ulin hardwood and natural dyes. Forests—once teachers of ecological ethics—are now replaced by palm plantations and mines, as Tsing documented in Dayak Bukit's conflicts with corporations in the 1990s. Urbanization draws youth to cities, where TikTok and soap operas outcompete ngajat (traditional dances) and weaving. King reported that by the 2010s, only 30% of Dayak youth in Central Kalimantan understood customary law—a sharp decline from previous generations.
Religion adds complexity. Anne Schiller found that conversion to Christianity or Islam sometimes supplants Kaharingan rituals like basangiang with modern worship. Yet core values—respect for nature and communal harmony—often survive in new forms, such as Christian prayers blessing the forest. Globalization also brings commodification: dotted-thread fabrics mass-produced in China for tourists blur the ancestral stories behind their patterns. These pressures test Dayak resilience: will they remain storytellers of the forest, or be reduced to global market commodities?
Engaging with the Modern World
Dayak heritage invites a critical dialogue with modernity. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes described progress as a social contract taming the wild—a notion that underpins environmental exploitation. In contrast, the Dayak philosophy of Basengat Ka’ Jubata suggests true progress lies in harmony with nature, not dominion over it. Where John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism celebrates global market efficiency, Dayak communalism shows that the greatest happiness often comes from sharing, not consuming, echoing Adil Ka’ Talino.
Their adaptive strategies also resonate with Amartya Sen’s concept of development as freedom. By blending tradition with technology—from online consensus to digital art—Dayak communities expand their cultural space without sacrificing identity. This contrasts with Western individualism, which often divorces people from community, as Charles Taylor critiques. Virtual musyawarah demonstrates how technology can strengthen rather than sever social bonds—a vital lesson for a world fractured by social media.
Resilience Through Innovation
The Dayak’s resilience is visible in their innovations. In Sanggau, Iban communities use drones to map customary forests, defending territory while upholding customary law, as Mongabay reported in 2021. In Palangkaraya, the Ngaju stream their annual Kaharingan festival, drawing the diaspora back to their roots. Sellato noted that Dayak youth in Balikpapan form urban art collectives, creating hornbill murals blending graffiti with indigenous symbols. These initiatives show that Dayak heritage is not relic, but seed—growing in new soils.
Yet innovation must balance with tradition. The global market for Dayak art, such as dotted-thread fabrics, can dilute spiritual meaning, as Tsing warns. Modern education must embrace Dayak languages—as of 2020, only 10% of schools in Central Kalimantan taught Ngaju or Iban, according to local reports. Without this, oral traditions like karungut may fade, weakening the aesthetics and ethics they carry.
Reflections for a Global Audience
In an age of algorithms and acceleration, Dayak heritage offers a mirror. Their consensus-building, now digital, reveals technology's potential to unite, not divide. Their art, respectful of forests even in urban galleries, reminds us that beauty carries responsibility. In a world obsessed with efficiency and profit, the Dayak ask: how do we carry tradition into the future without losing our soul?
Like elders in a virtual ruai, the answer may lie in our willingness to listen—to human voices, to the forest, and perhaps to the spirits still whispering among the trees.
Stay tuned for our next article exploring what the Dayak can teach us about the future of humanity.
Sources:
King, Victor T. (1993). The Peoples of Borneo. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Schiller, Anne. (1997). Small Sacrifices: Religious Change and Cultural Identity among the Ngaju of Indonesia. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sellato, Bernard. (2002). Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Tsing, Anna L. (2005). Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mongabay. (2021). "Indigenous Mapping in Borneo." https://news.mongabay.com
