Dayak traditional weapon: Mandau

The mandau comes from South Borneo, the land of the Dayak. Dayak tribes recognize various kinds of weapons that are commonly used for hunting and fighting in ancient times, or for daily use such as in fields. For example, blowpipe, mandau, lonjo (spear), shield (telawang), and spurs.

The Mandau is a jungle as well as the traditional head-hunting sword. Mandau was an effective lethal weapon used during ancient days and in tribal wars by the Dayaks of Borneo.

The handle is usually decorated worth goat heir or human hair. The blade is of hardened iron. It has a slight curve and is single edged. It is relatively plain although has decorative notches along its length.

The mandau may be used in combination with a shield, and the blade may be coated with poison for special occasions.

While head hunting is supposedly no longer part of the Dayak animistic religion, there is no doubt the mandau is still capable of deadly battle.
Dayak traditional weapon: Mandau

Dayak headhunter

Dayak is a term for natives of the island of Borneo. They are a tribe of people living in Kalimantan especially in Central Kalimantan. Dayak, divided into 405 sub-sub clans. Each sub-Dayak both Indonesia and Malaysia are identical. Dayak customs and culture comes from the word "Power" which means upstream, to refer to people who live in inland areas or in the interior of Borneo. In the arsenal of art and culture, Dayak has many similarities such as; saber, chopsticks, beliong, betang, cupai, renjung, empajang and others.

Warfare, including headhunting, slave capture, plunder and conquest, was practiced by Dayaks in various parts of Borneo until early part of the 20th century.

Until now there are still some Dayak tribal customs are still preserved. Dayak supernatural world in ancient times still looked strong until now. This custom is one of the cultural property owned by the Indonesian nation. A long time ago the famous Dayak with the term "ngayau" (adventuring by finding the opponent's head to become "Dengah").

Headhunting played a central role in the social organization, religion, and worldview of nearly all Dayak groups of Borneo. Headhunting among the tribe is believed to have begun when the land inhabited by the Ibans grew into over-population and confrontation was an inevitable requirement for survival.

Headhunting, derived from the word "me and ngayau". Me means action, ngayau: beheading enemies, decapitating enemy action (Mengayau contained in the Iban language and Ibanik, also on the Dayak community in general).

Successful headhunters enhanced their own prestige, in part because their actions were perceived to contributes to the prosperity of kin and community through the performance of certain important rituals.

These rituals, such as the Iban kenyalang and the Kenyah mamat, required fresh human heads for their performance.

Headhunting has been associated with ideas regarding the head as the seat of the soul, with some forms of cannibalism in which the body or part of the body is consumed in order to transfer to the eater the soul matter of the victim, and with phallic cults and fertility rites intended to imbue the soil with productivity.

A few groups decorated their trophy skulls in characteristic ways by either attaching wooden or other elements to individual skulls and/or by engraving mostly floral elements on the neurocranial and facial parts of the trophy.

Dayaks are very careful to defend their females, hence in their system of head-taking, the heads of females are more highly valued than those of the men, in as much as it requires more artifice and bravery to obtain them.
Dayak headhunter

Banjar people

The Banjar people, also known as Banjarese, are a Malay people inhabiting parts of the large island of Kalimantan in Indonesia north of the central island of Java.

The Banjar language, Banjar Hulu is a Malayo-Polynesian language thought to have originated in Sumatra with significant admixtures of local Dayak and Javanese words.

The island of Kalimantan was originally settled by colonist from the Asian mainland about 2500 BC and these ancestors of the Dayaks were later joined by Malay settlers. The fusion of the Malay and Dayak peoples is considered the origins of the Banjar ethnic group and the Banjar Hulu language.

South Kalimantan was anciently ruled by a Kingdom known as Nan Serunai, and long the center for Buddhist and Hindu realms that evolved into the first Banjar kingdom.

A Hindu Javanese style court, was established at Negara Dipa in the 13th century. By the 15th century the capital had moved to Negara Daha and during these centuries the Hindu Banjar kingdom was a power along coast of Borneo, although latterly vassal to the Majapahit empire of Java.

Kayu Tangi near Martapura, was the site of the fourth and last, Banjar royal compound and capital, although in fact it was Banjarmasin, the third capital, that the Dutch attacked in 1612, and it was Kay Tangi to which the Banjarese fled.
Banjar people