Suku Bangsa DAYAKThe Dayak ethnic group

Rumah Adat Indonesia

In Indonesia, the typical way of buildings in Southeast Asia is to build on stilts, an architectural form usually combined with a saddle roof. Another characteristic of Southeast Asian houses is the forked horn on the roof, which is considered to be a symbol of the buffalo, regarded throughout the region as a link between Heaven and this world.

The most famous stilt houses of Indonesia are those of the Dayak in Borneo, the Minangkabau and Batak on Sumatra, and the Toraja on Sulawesi.

Suku Bangsa DAYAK tinggal di Kalimantan TengahMereka tinggal di Rumah Adat ‘Longhouse’.

• On Borneo the long house forms a centre for both social life and for rituals. Here people meet to talk after work, and its here the central ceremonies and rituals of the group are performed.

The long houses were often decorated with representations of water snakes and rhinoceros birds. They were connected with the group's central creation myth, for water snake is associated with the underworld and the rhinoceros bird with the upper world of the good spirits.

Dayak Longhouse In each long house is a central stilt or

main post which is the first to be placed in position when the house is built.

This post is associated with the ancestor who founded the house has a sacred significance; it stands in the centre of the house and its looked on as the link between the underworld and the upper world.

Dayak Long House – Borneo

Long House - before 1920, Tumbang Malahui, Central