Daya

Daya (or Dayak ) is a generic term which designates various people of the interior of the Malaysian islands indonésiennes and of Southeast Asia.

The term daya is resulting from an old root austronésienne meaning “upstream” and is found in the traditional Ethnonyme of a great number of these populations (Kayan, Kenyah and Ngaju with Borneo, Gayo in the north of Sumatra, Toraja or Toraya in the south of Célèbes). Other examples are provided to the Filipino (Mandaya), with Taiwan - Formosa (Siraya) and even with Madagascar in the form “Merina”, resulting from *i-raya-na .

In the ethnology of the colonial time, Daya were classified like “proto-Malayan” (at the sides of the Batak and the Toraja) judicious belonging to a first wave of settlement which would have preceded the people by the littoral, among which the Malais and Javanese, qualified then the “deutéro-Malayan one”. Today, this interpretation is null and void. In fact, Daya are not distinguished from their cousins of the littoral (often themselves from old Daya, while at the same time many daya groups go down in their turn from former sailors being established tardily inside the grounds) that by a less foreign acculturation, in particular compared to the Islam.

In the European tourist folklore, Daya passed readily for frightening “headhunters”, because of old habits of decapitation of the overcome enemies. But nowadays, the people daya (term that the Malayan ones of the littoral often pronounce with a final stop glottal, transcribed Dayak , with a pejorative nuance) partly gather strongly christianized ethnic minorities, often of Protestant confession. A minority of them however preferred to convert with Islam, without to disavow their identity daya.

Certain people daya like the Iban of Sarawak (Malaysia) or the Ngaju of Kalimantan count among the most modern people of the Southeast Asia. Their elites constitute everywhere a large fraction of the national elite of their respective country (of the professors of university, high level scientists, senior officers, famous scenario writers or other artists, etc).

These populations speak about the languages of the branch Malayo-polynésienne of the Langues austronésiennes, distributed between the following groups:

Barito
Kayan-Murik
“Dayak Land”
Malaïque (various dialects of the Malayan)
.

History

The " Large Dayak" ( Dayak Besar ) was the name of one of the federal territories of transitory the " Republic of the United States of Indonesia " created on December 27th, 1949 at the conclusion of the Conference of the Roundtable, and replaced on August 17th, 1945 by l'" Unit state of the Republic of Indonésie".

This territory is wholesale that of the current province of central Kalimantan.

See too

External bond

ethnologue.com: Languages off Kalimantan

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