West Kalimantan's Cultures

There are so many cultures in Indonesia, especially in West Kalimantan. West Kalimantan is located in Borneo island. Pontianak is the capital of West Kalimantan province. We can find many cultures in there, such as regional language, traditional dance, traditional musical instrument, traditional weapon, and some other.

Bahasa Indonesia generally used by people in west Borneo. Besides that, they use Malay Pontianak, Malay Sambas and Bahasa Senganan. Malay language in west Borneo consists of several types, like Malay Pontianak and Malay Sambas. They use these language to communicate with other people based on their region.

In review of art, West Kalimantan has some traditional dances from Malay and Dayak tribes. Like Monong dance, Pingan dance, Jonggan dance, and Zapin dance. Monong dance is a medicine dance for all dayak people. This dance has function for cure someone who was sick. And this dance is part of Balian traditional ceremony. Pingan dance is a single dance on Dayak Mualang. In this time, this dance has function to entertain people for some food/luck/bless that was given by God. This dance use Pingan for attraction. Beside Monong and Pingan, there is Jonggan dance. This dance tells about happiness in young Dayak people association. This dance usually ask guest to dance together. And the last is Zapin, Zapin comes from Malay people in West Kalimantan. Zapin dance has function for reveal of happiness in association.

Because of many types of dance in West Kalimantan, automatically it is followed by traditional musical instrument which has function as dance’s accompanist. Such as Terah Umat which is a percussion instrument like the Javanese gamelan and it is made from iron, Entebong is a type of drum and fame in local Dayak communtiy, Kangkuang is a percussion instrument made of wood, and Kohotong, a wind instruments, made from a wild plant such as palm trees.

West Kalimantan has a traditional house, it calls Betang. This house is usually used by the Dayak community. Betang house has characteristic. Its shape is like a stage and elongated. On Dayak tribes, in making a long house, the upstream should be in line with sunrise, and the downstream should be in line with sunset, as a symbol of hard work, start from sunrise and return home at sunset.

West Kalimantan also has many traditional foods, like tempoyak, bubur pedas, lemang, and lempok. Tempoyak is traditional cake from West Kalimantan, it is made by ripe durian and salt. Lemang is made by pulut/ketan which put in bamboo. Lempok is made by durian, we can find lempok durian in Pontianak. And Bubur pedas is made by rice and many vegetables, like pakis and some other. It is a traditional food from Sambas region.