Arts and cultures of the Dayak of Central Kalimantan are reffers to the original religion of the people, Kaharingan. The Kaharingan's affects in the arts and cultures can be seen in the custom rule wedding ceremony, building typical, guest welcoming, musics, songs, and dances. Some ritual ceremonies which are held by the priest of Kaharingan are considered as the culture festival for the other people or foreign tourists.
Among of the ritual ceremonies are : Tiwah, this ceremony is the last phase of the death-ritual ceremonies it is believed that Tiwah ceremony is to take spirits of the death to the heaven. The process of the ceremony is to remove bones of the death, to clean, and to put them in a coffin above the ground named Sandung a house-like building. Sandung usually made Ulin (iron wood), it may has one, two or more pillars. The different amount of the pillars symbolizes of the social status or the way of his or her death. Its pillars, roofs, and walls well decorated with the Dayak typical carving.
A Tiwah ceremony may take about thirty days and sacrifice many offering like buffaloes, cows, pigs, and chickens. Since carrying out the ceremony cost lot of money, time, and energy, usually the ceremony is done by the families collectively. Ijambe, is almost the same as Tiwah. Tiwah is Carried out by Dayak Ngaju and OtDanum, and Ijambe is carried out by Dayak Ma'anyan, Lawangan, in South and East Barito.
In Ijambe all the bones of the death are burned and relatives then collect the ash and store it in a jag in their houses. Wara, is also almost the same as Tiwah and Ijambe. Wara ceremony is not concerned with the bones of the death but the priest rather act as a medium to communicate with the spirits of the death and shows them the way to heaven. Wara is held by the Kaharingan of Dayak Tewoyan, Bentian, Bayan, Dusun, along Barito river.
Belian, this ceremony is used to cure sick person. Through its magical musics, song and dance the medium invite Gods to cure the sick while the sick person is laying surounding by his or her relatives. This is not really ceremony but rather a magical medicine. Potong Pantan, This ceremony is held to welcome honorable guests who visit Central Kalimantan for the first time. The original of Potong Pantan was held by the Dayak of Central Kalimantan to welcome their heroes who just came from a war. This ceremony held by a chief of tribe. Pantan is a small wood with colorful decoration put to block gate. The guest who are welcomed should stop there and start the dialogues. The host asks what the purpose of coming and the guest should explain what their coming are for, where they are from and so on. After the dialogue finish, the guest are pleased to cut the block "Pantan" accompany with songs, musics, and dance.
In Kaharingan faith it is believe also to drive away bad spirits. ARTS. As it is said before that arts are also affected by Kaharingan faith like carvings, dance, musics, weaving etc. eventhough those have been affected by another cultures but it is not too dominant. The statues carving for ins-tance symbolizes of proctective Gods. Some dance also performance ritual ceremony like Tari Manganjan (Nganjan) is performed in Tiwah ceremony, balian bawo or wadian dadas a dance in balian to cure sick persons, Mandau (could be bought on our online store) and Kinyah dance are heroic to show the bravery of Dayak, while Giring-giring and Manasai dance are comunitles dance since these dance can involve all the people. Many new creation dance are created for the interest of entertainment, but they are still rooted to the original one.
