Ot Danum (also known as Dohoi, Malahoi, Uud Danum or Uut Danum) people are a subethnicity of the

Dayak people The Dayak (; older spelling: Dajak) or Dyak or Dayuh are one of the native groups of Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic groups, located principally in the central and southern interior of Borneo, each ...

(hence also referred as Dayak Ot Danum) dwelling at the upper reaches of south

Kapuas River The Kapuas River (or Kapoeas River) is a river in the Indonesian part of Borneo island, at the geographic center of Maritime Southeast Asia. At in length, it is the longest river in the island of Borneo and the longest river of IndonesiaMacK ...

, and along the Schwaner range, bordering

West Kalimantan West Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Barat) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five Indonesian provinces comprising Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city is Pontianak, Indonesia, Pontianak. The province has ...

and

Central Kalimantan Central Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Tengah) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. Its provincial capital is Palangka Raya and in 2010 its population was over 2.2 million, while the 2 ...

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 Guine ...

. They are the most important group of the upper

Melawi River Melawi River is a river of north-western Borneo, Indonesia, about 900 km northeast of the capital Jakarta. It is a tributary of the Kapuas River. The people in upper reaches of the Melawi speak Ot Danum and elsewhere along the river speak va ...

and culturally and linguistically the most distinct from the

Malay people Malays ( ms, Orang Melayu, Jawi: أورڠ ملايو) are an Austronesian ethnic group native to eastern Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and coastal Borneo, as well as the smaller islands that lie between these locations — areas that are ...

. Besides, the

, the Ot Danum people are also linguistically distinct from the

Ngaju people The Ngaju people (also Ngaju Dayak or Dayak Ngaju or Biaju) are an indigenous ethnic group of Borneo from the Dayak group. In a census from 2000, when they were first listed as a separate ethnic group, they made up 18.02% of the population of C ...

who live along the middle reaches of

's great rivers and who are numerically and linguistically the dominant

group in the area. Just like most

group, majority of the Ot Danum people also practice

Kaharingan ''Kaharingan'' is an indigenous animistic folk religion of the Katingan, Lawangan, Ma'anyan, Ngaju, and Ot Danum people native to the Central Kalimantan region in Indonesia. The word means something like ''Way of the life'', and this belief ...

religion. The word ''Ot'' means people or upstream, while the word ''Danum'' means water. Therefore, the name ''Ot Danum'' means "water people" or "upriver people" or "people who live at the upstream river". The Ot Danum people are closely tied to living with nature and would revere the traditions of their ancestors by taking care of the balance between mankind and the surrounding nature.

References

Ethnic groups in Indonesia Kalimantan Dayak people {{Indonesia-stub