Dayak's Traditional Custume & Races

There are a lots of different kind of races in Sarawak. Therefore we are unique and we live in harmony. 

Estimated population: 2,357,500 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2006)

Ethnicity: Iban, Bidayuh, Chinese, Malay

First language/s: Iban, Bidayuh, Malay, Hakka, Hokchiu, Cantonese, Hokkien

Religion/s: Christianity, Animism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism

Sarawak has a population of almost 2.5 million, made up of some 26 different ethnic groups. The non-Muslim indigenous groups are collectively called Dayaks – most of whom are Christians or practise animist beliefs – and they account for about 40 per cent of Sarawak’s inhabitants. The two biggest ethnic groups within the Dayak community are the Iban (also known as Sea Dayaks), who constitute just over 31 per cent of the population, and the Bidayuh; others include the Kenyah, Kayan, Kedayan, Murut, Punan, Bisayah, Kelabit, Berawan and Penan. Dayaks who live in the interior of Sarawak are sometimes referred to as Orang Ulu, or people from the interior. Members of this group typically live in longhouses and practise shifting cultivation; they engage in fishing to supplement their diet if they live near a river. Only a few hundred of the Eastern Penan continue to live as a nomadic people of the rainforest.

The Chinese, at around 30 per cent, make up the second largest ethnic group in Sarawak, though they themselves can be subdivided as including speakers of Hakka, Fu-chou (Hokchiu), Cantonese and Hokkien. Most live in urban areas and are Buddhists or Christians or practise Taoism.

The number of Malays has increased to about 25 per cent of Sarawak’s population. They are in fact a heterogeneous group of people since many are probably the descendants of indigenous peoples who started to convert to Islam from the fifteenth century and become Malay through their adoption of the Malay language. Like the Chinese, they constitute a large percentage of the coastal and urban population.

Iban

Bidayuh

 

Melanau

Orang Ulu