Akar Nusa
The last evening of May on a longhouse veranda. Pots of rice and fresh food crowd the floor. At midnight someone lights lamps, and a family begins to carry out the first offerings for the new year.
The story
Gawai means "festival" or "ritual". Dayak is a wide name for the native peoples of inner Borneo, including the Iban and Bidayuh. Gawai Dayak marks the end of the rice-harvesting season, and gives thanks for good rice, good health and harmony. It is held on 1 and 2 June.
Rice festivals themselves are very old. Every longhouse, and every people, had its own gawai at its own time. In the early 1960s Dayak leaders, mostly based in Kuching, proposed one statewide festival on one fixed day. It would save time and money and give the Dayak a shared day. One teacher, Michael Buma, held a "Dayak Day" gathering at his house in Siol Kandis, now part of Petra Jaya, on 1 June. Sources give 1963 for this, others 1964. In 1962 a Dayak member of the legislature, Tra Zehnder, had put a bill forward, which did not pass. Sarawak gazetted Gawai Dayak as a public holiday on 25 September 1964. The first official celebration was on 1 June 1965.
The festival has different names. The Iban call it Ari Gawai, the Bidayuh Andu Gawai, and in Malay it is Hari Gawai Dayak. It is a public holiday in Sarawak only. Among the Bidayuh it is also tied to the paddy spirit and a good harvest, and related festivals, such as Gawai Padi (rice festival), are kept at other times.
Where you can still see it today
- Open house: on 1 June, Dayak homes welcome visitors. The custom is called ngabang.
- Ngajat: the traditional dance, usually performed with a costume and music.
- Miring: an offering made at each family room, in the longhouse way.
- Tuak: a traditional rice wine, offered to guests.
- Longhouses in the Skrang, Saribas and Rajang, and Bidayuh baruk roundhouses near Kuching.
- The day after: some families keep a quiet day to tidy up and finish food.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
DNA cannot tell you about a festival. Gawai is kept by teaching, by song and by sharing a table, not through genes. Our region and family-line results can show that the Iban and other Dayak peoples share deep Austronesian roots with peoples across Southeast Asia. That is a background to the story, not a reason for the festival.
No test can decide who may celebrate Gawai, or what religion or community a person belongs to.
