''Hudoq'' is a masked dance performed during Erau harvest thanksgiving festival of many of sub-groups of the Dayak ethnic group of East Kalimantan province,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea. In ...

. The ''Hudoq'' culture and performance is indigenous among Dayak population of East Kalimantan province, and it is said to have originated from Mahakam Ulu Regency.

Mythology

According to the traditional beliefs of the

Bahau Bahau ( Jawi: بهااو, ) is the principal town of Jempol District, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The town's name is believed to have been derived from a Chinese phrase. Bahau's literal translation is "horse's mouth" while the nearby town, Mahsan ...

, Busang, Modang, Ao’heng, and Penihing people, ''hudoq''s are thirteen crop-destroying pests, including

rat Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include ''Neotoma'' (pack rats), ''Bandicota'' ( bandicoot ...

boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is n ...

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus ''Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

s, and

crow A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientific ...

s. In the festival, the ''Hudoq''s are symbolized by dancers who wear masks representing pests and jackets made of ''pinang'' ( areca palm) or

banana tree A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

bark. The entire body is covered with frayed pinang palm leaves. The dance is finished when two human hudoqs come out and chase the pest hudoqs. The duration of the dance is 1–5 hours. It is arranged from village to village after people dibble the land to grow dry-field

rice paddies A paddy field is a flooded field of arable land used for growing semiaquatic crops, most notably rice and taro. It originates from the Neolithic rice-farming cultures of the Yangtze River basin in southern China, associated with pre-Aust ...

in September to October every year. They pray so that their fields will grow abundantly.

Gallery

File:Hudoq mask.jpg File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Houten dansmasker gedragen tijdens feesten voor de zaaitijd van rijst TMnr 391-161.jpg File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Houten dansmasker gedragen tijdens feesten voor de zaaitijd van rijst TMnr 391-162.jpg File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Een deelnemer aan een maskerdans in Laham ter gelegenheid van de aankomst van pater Groen TMnr 60051378.jpg File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Een maskerdans in Laham ter gelegenheid van de aankomst van pater Groen TMnr 60051453.jpg File:The Hudoq Dancers.jpg

Mythology

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading