Borneo-Dayak CRAFTS
indonesia exporter of dayak tribe's handmade crafts & tribal arts

Borneo's Dayak handicraft, the beauty of ancient tribal arts and handmade crafts

The beauty of ancient tribal arts and crafts

Formerly known as Borneo, Kalimantan is the world's second largest island. The North and North-western part of the island are the East Malaysian state of Serawak and Sabah, with the newly independent state of Brunei Darusalam between them. The rest of the island is part of Indonesia, divided into four provinces - East Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan.


Dayak is a collective name for over 200 different tribes living throughout Borneo's interior. They are the true "people of the jungle". The Dayak people lives in the hinterland along the banks of major river and in a long house. It is customary for them to live with a whole extended family or with one clan. Each family has their own compartment and the chief of the clan will occupy the central chamber.

Since hundred years ago, the Dayak tribe has its own arts and crafts as part of their traditional culture. It is the beauty of Dayak tribal crafts that stimulated us - Borneo-Dayak Crafts Indonesia - to present various Dayak crafts products here on this website.

The Dayak tribe's culture

Traditionally, most of the scattered ethnolinguistic groups inhabiting the interior of the vast Borneo island have been labelled collectively by outsiders as Dayak. Among the Dayak are the Ngaju Dayak, Maanyan, and Lawangan. Although they have traditionally resided in longhouses that served as an important protection against slave raiding and intervillage raids, the people of this region are not communalistic. They have bilateral kinship, and the basic unit of ownership and social organization is the nuclear family.

Religiously, they tend to be either Protestant or Kaharingan, a form of native religious practice viewed by the government as Hindu. The Dayak make a living through swidden agriculture and possess relatively elaborate death ceremonies in which the bones are disinterred for secondary reburial.

A number of the peoples in the region practice the Kaharingan religion. Through its healing performances, Kaharingan serves to mold the scattered agricultural residences into a community, and it is at times of ritual that these peoples coalesce as a group. There is no set ritual leader nor is there a fixed ritual presentation.

Specific ceremonies may be held in the home of the sponsor. Shamanic curing or balian is one of the core features of these ritual practices. Because this healing practice often occurs as a result of the loss of the soul, which has resulted in some kind of illness, the focus of the religion is thus on the body. Sickness comes by offending one of the many spirits inhabiting the earth and fields, usually from a failure to sacrifice to them. The goal of the balian is to call back the wayward soul and restore the health of the community through trance, dance, and possession.