'Hudoq', ritual dance of Dayak Bahau

'Hudoq', ritual dance of Dayak Bahau

Edi Petebang, Contributor, Samarinda, East Kalimantan

Some 50 people, all wearing masks decorated with red-knobbed bill
bird (enggang) feathers, emerged from one end of the Telivaq
village by a tributary to the Mahakam River.

Their bodies covered with tassels of banana leaves, each of
them carried a wooden stick and a mandau (dagger). They walked
towards the Amin Ayaq customary stilt house, which is 2-meters
high and 12-meters by 20-meters square.

As soon as they arrived, they danced round the house, led by
the customary chief. The sound produced by their sticks when
struck against the ground and the stamping of their feet, coupled
by the long whining of the hudoq dancers, made your hair stand on
end.

After dancing collectively for about an hour, people began to
dance individually. After the hudoq dance performance was
completed, the audience could enjoy other cultural shows.

It is on an occasion like this that the men and women of the
Dayak Bahau tribe will appear dashingly courageous and graceful
in their customary attire.

In the Dayak Bahau language, hudoq means a mask. Except in
Telivaq, the hudoq dance performed by the Dayak Bahau community
in all other villages along the Mahakam (or Mekam in the Dayak
Bahau language) river basin is the same.

The Dayak Bahau people living along the Mahakam river basin
perform their hudoq ritual usually in October and November, the
time when they plant rice in the unirrigated rice fields.

Hanyak, 65, an elder from Mamahaq Besar village, Long Hubung
district, West Kutai regency, said the hudoq dance was intended
to accompany the soul of the paddy on its journey from the house
to the rice field.

This annual rite must be performed in the most festive manner
possible to ensure that the soul of the paddy will be pleased to
stay in the rice field. The Bahau people believe that animals
like deer, hogs, monkeys and birds bring paddy from heaven to
them. The hudoq are designed to reflect these animals.

For the Dayak Bahau community along the Pariq River, the hudoq
dance is performed every day for seven to 10 days ahead of the
harvest. Each day a different hudoq dancer will appear. The
climax of the hudoq festivity comes on the last day when all the
hudoq dancers that have appeared before will again be seen.

Each hudoq dance requires different masks and accessories. In
the Suh Doh hudoq, for example, the inheritor of a hudoq will
have to harvest one kilogram of paddy from the rice field and
keep it inside a piece of bamboo before the rite is performed.
The hudoq rite will be performed for this paddy and at the end of
the rite, the paddy will be distributed to the entire audience.
Later, this paddy will be mixed with paddy seedlings that will be
planted in the rice fields in the next year.

Although hudoq rites are not identical, generally they require
wooden masks, banana leaves and roots to be used for tying. The
banana leaves will be split into several parts to form tassels
that are tied together by their roots. The tassels will cover the
waist, the thighs, the legs, the arms and the shoulders. Every
time a hudoq rite is performed, fresh banana leaves must be used.
After the rite, the banana leaves cannot be burnt but must be
piled up and then left to rot to be later used as fertilizer.

Hudoq performers are usually the people staying in the village
where a hudoq rite is performed. The only hudoq that can be
performed by guests or by dancers from other villages is the
Hakaai hudoq dance. When a hudoq dance is performed, masks
depicting pests in a rice field such as a monkey, a rat, a hog, a
deer and a sparrow will also emerge to entertain the audience.

Aside from the male hudoq dancers, there are also female hudoq
dancers. Some are masked while others are not. Some have their
bodies covered with the banana-leaf tassels but others do not.

If the female hudoq dancers do not wear a mask, their faces
and bodies will have colorful patterns painted on. These dancers
carry household appliances such as baskets.

The hudoq dances by the Dayak Bahau women depict how the Dayak
go dating and raise their babies or how they catch fish and go
hunting. The hudoq performed by the Dayak Bahau women are
comical.

It is interesting to note that in the Telivaq hudoq, the
highest customary chief of hudoq is a woman.

Song Devung, 80, a hudoq customary chief, said that it was a
Dayak Bahau woman that first laid down the hudoq custom and
became the hudoq queen. That's why even today the hudoq rite is
led by a woman. This, clearly, reflects the egalitarian nature in
the relationship between men and women in the Dayak Bahau
community.