The Head of the Ritual Ceremony beats on the drum as to greet the welcoming guests during the Gawai Eve Dinner. Though the dinner is held in an exclusive hall, we still maintained the old traditions in our festivity rituals. Then again, it seems like a good opportunity for him to flirt around, looking for good looking chick.
The young ladies greet the visitors with some rice wine called 'tuak' which are made from fermented rice with yeast. The wine is the typical liquor produced by the Dayaks for generations. However, the "Tuak' has become less popular as the younger generations preferred imported liquors. Maybe we should do massive promotions to promote ‘Tuak’ and compete with Japanese ‘Sake’. Most of the Dayak Liquor Entrepeneurs from the Longhouses would become the Multi-million Liquor Tycoon.
The dancers consist of various Dayak tribes in Sarawak. However, they shared the common ground in their annual festivities such as the harvest festival, which is also known as the Gawai Dayak in Sarawak.
The climax of the ritual ceremony is the chanting prayer by the Dayak Priests as to officiate the beginning of our fest. The chanting prayer is made while circling the invited guests as to bless those who are celebrating Gawai and at the same time to prepare their vocal for 'Karaoke' session at 'Meligai Keling' tonight.
The rituals stated above are part of the rituals that are still preserved to date. However, we scared that the next generation might not bother to preserve it as they are more influenced to 'hip-hop' and 'hardcores' in the urban areas; and 'dangdut' in the semi-urban areas. We scared that the chanting prayer would be converted to hip-hop, hardcore or perhaps to dangdut version.
Hence, I have made up my mind and determined to keep on publishing on our existing and dying heritages; for the future Dayaks' generation of Borneo to share and appreciate. Idup Dayak! Long Live the Dayaks!
By the way, I heard that 'Snoop Doggy Dogg', 'Metallica' and some Indonesian's Dangdut singers will be on tour to Kuching next week. Be There!
No comments:
Post a Comment