Festival

Come discover a rich cultural heritage unlike any other in this festive paradise, SARAWAK! :)

There are always different festivals or events going on among the Orang Iban, Orang Ulu, Chinese Sarawak, Orang Melanau, Orang Bidayuh et cetera.

Kindly scroll down for more info.

✖Orang Ulu✖

A vast majority of the Orang Ulu tribe are Christians but old traditional religions are still practiced in some areas. 

Some of the festival highlights celebrated by the Orang Ulu people include the Belaga Regatta. The Orang Ulu also celebrates Gawai Dayak.  

One notable festival, though not traditional, is the Rainforest Music Festival, where many of the indigenous tribes of Sarawak as well as those from around the world, come together to share their music in a spectacular three-day performance. 

Gawai Dayak is a festival celebrated in Sarawak on 1 June every year. It is both a religious and social occasion. The mode of celebration varies from place to place. Preparation starts early. 

Tuak (rice wine) is brewed (at least one month before the celebration) and traditional delicacies likepenganan (cakes from rice flour, sugar and coconut milk) are prepared. As the big day approaches, everyone will be busy with general cleaning and preparing food and cakes. 

On Gawai Eve, glutinous rice is steamed in bamboo (ngelulun pulut). In the longhouse, new mats will be laid out on the ruai (an open gallery which runs through the entire length of the longhouse). The walls of most bilik (rooms) and the ruai are decorated with Pua Kumbu (traditional blankets). A visit to clean the graveyard is also conducted and offerings offered to the dead. After the visit it is important to bathe before entering the longhouse to ward off bad luck.

✖Orang Iban✖

There are some festivals for Iban such as bird festival Gawai Burong, spirit festival Gawai Antu and rice harvesting festival Gawai Dayak. Rice harvesting festival Gawai Dayak is their main festival and they will celebrate every year on the 1^st of June.  

Traditionally, it is held at longhouses to thank deities such as Keiling, Laja and Bungsi Nuing for the year’s harvest and they wish to ask for better harvests and prosperity in the years to come. The festival starts with ngalu pengabang, a welcome ceremony for guests. The ladies will greet those guests with glasses of tuak on one side of the staircase. Man bless those guests by holding a manuk permiau(cockerel) and waving it over their heads on the other side of staircase.  

The Iban traditional dance, ngajat, is performed accompanied by the taboh and gendang, the Ibans' traditional music.  The ceremony continued with the piring alu where a plate of rice with eggs and popcorn was placed on a ceremonial bamboo pole as an offering to the deities.  Following of that, a group of men will beat on long drum, begendang to welcome the deities to the celebration and marked the start of the ceremony. 

Poems will be reciting as the ceremony began and more offering will be offer to the deities.  They praise deities and warriors by those poems and asking them to render wealth, better harvest and protection for the longhouse inhabitants. Then, taku song was sung to praise them. 

After that, the buah inyak representing human skulls was placed on plates and offered to the warriors by a group of ladies in traditional costume as a thanksgiving to the men for their achievements as warriors.  To show they were successful warriors, they had to cut open the coconuts with a parang without breaking the plates and drink the coconut water in one gulp. 

✖Orang Bidayuh✖

All bidayuh festivals are related to their main economic activity, padi planting. Rice is something given by God (Almighty) not only a sustenance of life. They got four related festival of padi planting. The first one is Gawea Oran which celebrate before padi planting season begin for planters select sites for their farm. 

A small patch of land is clean and certain birds and certain twining plants are observed and examined for omen. If the omen is good then gawea oran is held but a new site is selected if the omen is bad. It is held by the roadside leading to the farm and altar is built and offerings are placed on it. 

The purpose of the offerings is to seek permission from the spirits living in the area to be farmed to make use of the land. The second festival is Gawea Nuruk .  before planting, the padi seeds are bless and 'Ieng podi' are called upon to enter the seeds. The land is bless for fertility and to get rid of diseases.  They also ask for assistance blessing from Ieng Topa (God) and past ancestors to ensure good growth and hence bountiful harvest.  

The following festival is Gawea Tubi Bauh.  It held to ask permission from 'Ieng Topa' (God) to harvest the padi. They believed the people will fall sick after eating the newly harvested rice if this gawea is not held. This being so, the gawea is held just when the padi grain turn golden. The obtained rice is cook and during the ceremony the rice is divided among all members of the family and is eaten.  Harvesting proper will takes place after this gawea.   

The fourth festival is Gawea Sowah . It is held after harvesting is over and padi safely stored. This is the mark of the end of the old life cycle of the padi planting season and marks the beginning of the new cultivation season. It is thanksgiving for a fine rice harvest, safety of the villagers, bountiful fruit seasons, and availability of fish in the rivers and animals in the forest and good health of the villagers.

✖Orang Melanau✖

The colourful Kaul festival is undoubtedly the best event to showcase the richness of Melanau culture and heritage. The festival is a ritual of purification and thanksgiving as well as one of the propitiation for good fortune. The Melanaus express their gratitude to the spirits for keeping them safe throughout the monsoon season. They are also expressing their desire for an abundance of fishes caught on their fishing journeys. It is celebrated at the end of the northeast monsoon, and it marks the beginning of the Melanau New Year. This festival is one of the main attractions of the state and has been in Sarawak tourism calendar for many years. 

The Melanau community leaders will line up with their serahang to welcome Taib. The main highlight of the event is “tibau”, a traditional giant swing 20 feet high. Those young people would daringly dive down to catch a swinging rope.  Men and women compete to see how many can swing together at the end of a long rope. Traditional alu-alu dance will be performed by those dancers at the event.  Various associations of the other Sarawakian communities also took part in the festival. The active participation of the other communities shows that the spirit of living together peacefully and harmoniously, tolerance and understanding of each other’s cultures, traditions and religious beliefs was a unique characteristic of Sarawakian spirit.

✖Chinese Sarawak✖

The Ghost Festival is celebrated during the seventh month of the Chinese Lunar calendar. It also falls at the same time as a full moon, the new season, the fall harvest, the peak of Buddhist monastic asceticism, the rebirth of ancestors, and the assembly of the local community. During this month, the gates of hell are opened up and ghosts are free to roam the earth where they seek food and entertainment. T

hese ghosts are believed to be ancestors of those who have forgotten to pay tribute to them after they had died, or those who have suffered deaths and were never given a proper ritual for a send-off. They have long needle-thin necks because they have not been fed by their family, or it is a sign of punishment so they are unable to swallow. Family members offer prayers to their deceased relatives, offer food and drink and burn joss paper. Such paper items are only valid in the underworld, which is why they burn it as an offering to the ghosts that have come from the gates of hell. The afterlife is very similar in some aspects to the material world, and the paper effigies of material goods would provide comfort to in the afterlife. 

People would also burn other things such as paper houses, cars, servants and televisions to please the ghosts. Families also pay tribute to other unknown wandering ghosts so that these homeless souls do not intrude on their lives and bring misfortune and bad luck. A large feast is held for the ghosts on the fourteenth day of the seventh month, where everyone brings samplings of food and places them on the offering table to please the ghosts and ward off bad luck.