ABSTRACT
No visitor to Sarawak can leave without being invited to Gawai Dayak, the Dayak ‘Harvest Festival’. The Festival is held across Sarawak every year on 1 and 2 June. In 1997 I was at Entanak Longhouse, my main fieldwork base, during Gawai.1
The following rite of passage, seemingly minor, helps us to broach the close relationship between Gawai and nation building. At 11.56 p.m. on Gawai’s Eve, the master of ceremonies announced through the PA system the imminent ‘countup’2 to the Gawai holiday. Taking up their positions along the outer wall of the gallery – the place of honour – the elders filled their glasses with Gawai rice wine (ai pengayu’), as indeed did all other revellers. Ten seconds before the stroke of midnight, the collective count-up began: Satu, dua, tiga … (One, two, three …) until we reached a jubilant Sepuluuuhh!!!! (Tennnnn!!!!). This was immediately followed by the customary cheer of joy (bababababaaa-uuuuuuhhhh), a deafening salvo from a nearby veranda, the Gawai Dayak toast, and the collective exchange of greetings and handshakes. It was then that the revelling began in earnest, with taped pop being played at full blast all through the night.
