Dayak

Dayak denotes the Land Dayak languages, the Malayo-Polynesian tongues of the Bidayuh or Land Dayaks of north-western Borneo, around Kuching and Serian in southern Sarawak and across the border in West Kalimantan. Their dialects, including Bukar-Sadong, differ so greatly from village to village that Malay has long served as their common language.

The word Dayak comes from Bruneian and Melanau speech, where it meant the interior or upstream people, and Bidayuh itself means inhabitants of the land.

As Brunei built its sultanate from 1368 and stretched its power along the Borneo coasts, the Bidayuh kept to inland river villages, practising rice farming and an animist paddy-spirit religion with harvest rites. The Bukar preserved the custom of laying out their dead on platforms and hanging trees.