A Bag for Everything

A woman from the village Sukamaju, Mentebah sub-district in Kapuas Hulu, was carrying tengkalang contained bananas.
Tengkalang or tengkin is a basket used to carry fruit and vegetables from farming. It's made from rattan. The natives of Kapuas Hulu use it as a bag to bring anything to go farming.
It's very useful to carry heavy things, such as fruits, firewood and sweeden rice, and sometimes it's used to hold their little children. Ngamben, is the way of local people to carry their kids on their back by bounding them with cloths or putting them
in a tengkalang.

Lanting, Living On the Floating House

No matter how hard the wind blows, it keeps standing on its shelf. Often ripple shakes, it feels like a beautiful dance of an earthquake. Such a long unbroken swell from a speedboat rushing past through the river, it stands still, tough and rough along-side the river.

It looks like a house, because, yes, it is. It’s a floating house, an unique abode which also can be found on several canals in Amsterdam, Netherlands that’s called woonboot; but for people of Kapuas Hulu, it’s called “Rumah Lanting”.

Lanting refers to some large logs bounded together on the water that is used by local people as a quay for their dinghies to be moored. Besides, lanting is also utilized as a “floating bathroom” in where they take a shower, wash clothing and other household stuffs with the water from river. People live next to the river side still use “lanting”.

But rumah lanting, is a dwelling. It also has several bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, a small toilet, and of course, a rather wide of porch in front and terrace. Rumah lanting is allowed to take electricity current from house on the upland, and the owner is also obliged for electric bill. From four directions: two in front side and remains in rear of the building, there are ropes tightly holding the house from breaker therefore it won’t be drifted.

On Kapuas rive, in towns of Putussibau, Kalis, Embaloh Hulu, Bunut Hulu, Jongkong, Suhaid and Semitau we find some “Rumah Lanting” are still use as residence by natives (mostly for them who are acquainted as Non-Dayak).

Instead of permanent house on the land, some people live in Rumah Lanting with the reason of efficiency that they don’t have spend more money and energy for cutting grass on the yard. You don’t have to buy a land to build that house, and you also do not have to pay any kind of tax due to the presence of rumah lanting nearby the river. But when the dry season comes and river goes subside, the owner should slack the rope so the house could reach sufficient level of water to keep it floating.

Surprisingly, floating house is not only in Kapuas Hulu, but also can be found in Netherlands. I looked at some canals in Amsterdam.

There’re some woody floating houses with some greeny plants decorate as if they’re not ordinary houses. But those were built on deck of the metal ships, while rumah lanting is purely from wood.**

Lubuk Liuk, a Seasonal Hamlet in Sentarum Lake

Children are playing in the wooden path along the huts. That path is the only place for kids’ playground in that hamlet. They do not have another place as the hamlet is surrounded by water and swampy forest. In the daytime when sun shines heatly, those children play on an shed, enjoy the windy air in Sentarum Lake.


It’s name Lubuk Liuk, a small village in Sentarum Lake watery. It’s 20 minutes by speed boat (with 60PK machine), from Lanjak, the capital of Batang Lupar sub-district. It encompasses tens of small wooden houses. It’s occupied by fishermen’s family during the dry season.

This hamlet is empty during the wet season (rainy season). The innate atmosphere of this community has become an interesting point for visitor.
Along with its simplicity, for many times Lubuk Liuk became a spot for documentary film shootings, from national and foreign TV stations.


With 132,000 hectares widely, Sentarum lake is the source of life for fishermen. Many kind of fish could be found here, in particular fresh water fish species.
Hasan Basri, head of the Lubuk Liuk hamlet, their income has decrease since Sentarum Lake got a status of national park. The authority of national park forbids fishermen using certain traditional fishing tools which can be harm the lake’s inhabitant.

Working as a fisherman on the lake Sentarum, according to Hasan Basri, does not give satisfactory financial outcomes. The high price of fuel for their boats, is one of the reasons, while the selling price the fish is uncomparable. The price of fish in lake is very lower than in town. Therefore more people choose to make salted fish and smoked fish as those are higher in price than fresh fish.


Women and children will greet every boat that came as they belief it brings many fishes. In dray season they would get plenty, and often they catch expensive fish, for instance jelawat fish and betutu fish.

When the fish arrived, the women took role, cleaned the chosen fishes for their lunch and dinner. In this picture, a wife of fisherman was cleaning the jelawat fish. In town, this fish could reach a price of Rp. 80,000,- per kilogram.


Unlike village in general, Lubuk Liuk is a seasonal hamlet. Fishermen only stay there during the dry season as it’s a harvest season for fishing in the lake. It’s from the end of April to the end of July. During school holiday (June-July) the hamlet will be more crowded as fishermen also bring their children. This time is a right time for tourist to visit. A place to stay overnight is provided by local people.

In the rainy season or at the season when watery is in high level, the hamlet’s residents return to their initial village. Most of them are from Selimbau sub-district. They work in agricultural field, like farming, gardening and keeping livestock (cows, chickens), in their home village.

Community Based Forest Protection by Dayak Iban Tribe In Jalai Lintang

The local wisdom of Dayak said that nature is part of your life. When you devastated forest, you created a wipeout not only for your life, but also for your next generations. There’s an ancient idiom, river is the blood and land is the breathing for whole beings.

Forest has the undeniable meaning for Dayaknese. Preserving the forest is the natural bear-ability as a Dayaknese, as the Dayak Iban in Jalai Lintang do. They live with no ambition to enrich themselves excessively, and keep on communal living innately.

Bandi (usually called Apai Janggut), the leader (Temenggung) of Iban community in Jalai Lintang, Sungai Utik, said, his community entrust to sustain farming land, forest, river and lake as “supermarket” for all humankind.

He said, the traditional rights (well-known as Adat-rights) cannot be accused by whoever as it’s an eternal inheritance of their forefather.

Jalai Lintang hamlet encompasses of seven small villages: Lauk Rugun, Mungguk, Pulan, Apan (Langgan Baru), Ungak dan Sungai Telebian. Those are in Sungai Utik Village, north Putussibau, Kapuas Hulu.

Jalai Lintang was a pilot project for community based forest protection program from 2004-2006, by European Union, Indonesian Ecolabelling Organization, Indonesian Forest Watch and Alliance of Indonesian Traditional Community.

This project empowered local community of having more significant role in taking part for the sustainable forest management program on 9,400 hectares of forest in Sungai Utik. For two year-effort in preserving forest, the Jalai Lintang community received a tribute of certification on traditional (Adat, red) forest, from Minister of Foresty of Indonesia, M.S. Kaban several years ago. In Sungai Utik there’s one long house (with 28 doors), occupied by two hundred persons.

The History of Dayaknese

The Dayak or Dyak are the peoples indigenous to Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic subgroups, located principally in the interior of Borneo, each with its own dialect, customs, laws, territory and culture, although common distinguishing traits are readily identifiable.
Dayaks are categorised as part of wider Austronesian-speaking populations in Asia. Physically, many Dayak tend to resemble Occidental rather than Oriental peoples. Clear anthropological groupings are difficult, if not impossible, to determine because of the long admixture of Chinese, Malay, and Negrito stock. The Ibans, known as Sea Dayak and famous as pirates and conquerors, were probably the latest of the Dayak to arrive in Borneo; they alone of the Dayak groups inhabit the coastal region.
They bear strong ethnological similarities to the Malays, who came to Borneo in the 12th century. The Dayak were animist in belief; however many converted to Christianity, and some to Islam more recently. Estimates for the Dayak population range from 2 to 4 million.

Common interpretations in modern anthropology agree that nearly all indigenous peoples of South East Asia, including the Dayaks, are descendants of a larger more common Austronesian migration from Asia, regarded to have settled in the South East Asian Archipelago some 3,000 years ago. The first populations spoke various languages and dialects now termed under the collective Austronesian Lingua, from which Dayak languages are traced. About 2,450 years ago, metallurgy was introduced and subsequently became widespread.

The main ethnic groups of Dayaks are the Bakumpai and Dayak Bukit of South Kalimantan, The Ngajus, Baritos, Benuaqs of East Kalimantan, the Kayan and Kenyah groups and their subtribes in Central Borneo and the Ibans, Embaloh (Maloh), Kayan, Kenyah, Penan, Kelabit, Lun Bawang and Taman populations in the Kapuas and Sarawak regions. Other populations include the Ahe, Jagoi, Selakau, Bidayuh, and Kutais.

The Dayak people of Borneo possess an indigenous account of their history, partly in writing and partly in common cultural customary practices. In addition, colonial accounts and reports of Dayak activity in Borneo detail carefully cultivated economic and political relationships with other communities as well as an ample body of research and study considering historical Dayak migrations. In particular, the Iban or the Sea Dayak exploits in the South China Seas are documented, owing to their ferocity and aggressive culture of war against sea dwelling groups and emerging Western trade interests in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Coastal populations in Borneo are largely Muslim in belief, however these groups (Ilanun, Melanau, Kadayan, Bakumpai, Bisayah) are generally considered to be Islamized Dayaks, native to Borneo, and governed by the relatively high cultural influences of the Javanese Majapahit Kingdoms and Islamic Malay Sultanates, periodically covering South East Asian history.

Borneo is island, third largest in the world (after Greenland and New Guinea), South-East Asia, in the Malay Archipelago. It is bounded on the east by the Sulu Sea, the Celebes Sea, and the Strait of Makassar; on the South by the Java Sea; and on the Wwest and North by the South China Sea. Politically, Borneo is divided into Sabah and Sarawak, which are states of Malaysia; Brunei, an independent sultanate; and Kalimantan, part of Indonesia. The area is about 743,325 sq km (287,000 sq mi).