GREAT universal joy has arrived in Sarawak again, with the celebration of yet another Gawai Day on June 1 in the Land of the Hornbills. It is the most joyous occasion for our Dayak brothers and sisters as they rejoice in this most auspicious festival, in the only place on earth they can call their Homeland.This is what Wikipedia says about Gawai Day: “Up till 1962, the British colonial government refused to recognise Dayak Day. Gawai Dayak was formally gazetted on Sept 25, 1964 as a public holiday in place of Sarawak Day. It was first celebrated on June 1, 1965 and became a symbol of unity, aspiration and hope for the Dayak community. Today, it is an integral part of Dayak social life. It is a thanksgiving day marking good harvest and a time to plan for the new farming season or activities ahead.”
Gawai Day is also the most significant of Sarawak’s public holidays. This is the only day in the year that all the shops throughout Sarawak are closed and all the streets are eerily empty, as members of the Dayak community return to their villages for festivities. The fair land of Sarawak is completely shut down for business during these few days.
For the past month, tuak, or rice wine, has been brewing in all kinds of containers in the backrooms of each of Sarawak’s longhouses.
Brewing of the tuak is one of the most important activities for the Gawai celebration. It takes knowledge and experience to brew tuak successfully, because as all Iban housewives know, there are always goblins hiding in the corner attempting to steal a taste of a new brew and threatening to turn the whole stock sour.
On Gawai eve, young people who have travelled far away from home would have returned. The longhouse is the scene of great joy, as returning children bring gifts home for the very young and the very old, who have stayed in the longhouse. Many chickens and pigs would have been slaughtered to prepare for the Gawai Eve dinner.
It is usually around midnight on Gawai Eve when the religious offerings are made to the various deities including the patron saint of agriculture, Pulang Gana, in thanks for blessing the house with a good harvest. In some longhouses, this opening ceremony would be accompanied by the blasting of a shotgun to scare away the bad spirits lurking in the shadows. The great gongs will be sounded to signify the beginning of the celebrations and from then on, it is merrymaking unlimited for a few days.
While I share the aura of great joy permeating the longhouses throughout the land, my heart sit uneasily at the thought of great challenges facing the Dayak people.
Independence has brought great changes to the Dayak community and not all the changes have been good for the Dayak nation.
Today, the Dayak people have benefited the least from the opening of educational opportunities for Sarawakian children. The development of a balanced and prosperous Dayak middle class is still a communal dream, as the Dayak people sit at the bottom of the social ladder in terms of economic development. It is a sad commentary on our political health that the Dayaks are the most marginalised community in our multiracial society.
Even now, our Dayak people suffer from underemployment and unemployment as they occupy low-paying posts at the bottom of the job market. They have to travel great distances, away from family, in order to secure those low-paying jobs in Singapore, Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur and Penang.
I have met many of these fellow Sarawakians throughout my travels in West Malaysia. The treatment of Sarawak workers by their employers is a mere notch above the treatment given to Indonesian workers. The Sarawakians see few of the benefits regularly enjoyed by other members of the Malaysian workforce.
Meanwhile, Sarawak suffers from economic stagnation; hence the desperate need for employment opportunities in West Malaysia. Economic growth in Sarawak is greatly restricted by the limitation of land for development.
Many young Sarawakians see agriculture as a cul-de-sac, and farming is no longer as a natural life choice according to their perception. The development of Sarawakian agriculture is always an uncertain enterprise when farmers have to deal with many seemingly insurmountable problems, such as the fluctuating prices of the commodity markets, uneconomic land size, as well as expensive fertilisers, insecticides and farm tools.
The farming community often has trouble trying to ensure their security of their land tenure. Land ownership through customary land rights is the source of many conflicts and land claims. These problems will require some kind of land reform, to give the farmers a guarantee of land ownership.
The problems faced by the farming community aside, the Dayak people will celebrate their Gawai Day this year with no less abandon than in previous years. This is the only day in the year that they can call their own.
I have lived with the Dayak communities for many years and I am not unfamiliar with the many economic, social and political problems infesting their social fabric. Lately, there have been pockets of Dayak society falling prey to the evil of alcoholism. The proliferation of alcoholism is greatly fuelled by the availability of relatively cheap langkau. This illicit liquor is so potent it threatens to suck the life force out of the Dayak community in many places.
At the same time, though, I have great faith in the communal strength of the Dayak people.
They have weathered many crises of all kinds threatening their communal survival in the past. Yet their living culture seems to furnish them with a natural life force for their survival in the jungle. As long as they can maintain the integrity of their cultural power by ensuring the survival of their adat, the Dayak civilisation will have a bright future in the years to come.
As the old Iban greeting goes, “gayu guru, gerai nyamai”. This is the message of the new Gawai to the whole of mankind, a message of universal peace, love and hope.
(The author can be reached at [email protected]. All comments are welcomed.)