After an interesting morning like the one we had at the Yu Lin Gallery today, we'd normally have had lunch, and gone home to put our feet up.

But there was more in the works on this sunny Saturday. Namely, Niti Daun, which is a big Gawai Dayak parade.

To quickly unpack that: Gawai is the harvest festival here in Sarawak. There doesn't seem to be total agreement about the word Dayak, but it generally seems to be used as an umbrella term to refer to most but not all of the ethnic groups that are native to Borneo. And well, a parade is a parade. On a smaller scale, Gawai parades are held at Iban longhouses or villages. But big ones like this are much rarer (the last was held in Kuching in 2018, but that was the first since the 1990s).

And what a parade it was...

Firstly, it was a living museum of traditional clothing, regalia, and artefacts. And secondly, the atmosphere was fantastic. So many exuberant cheers. So many smiles, waves, and messages of welcome. So many good wishes. We saw every single one of the more than 90 contingents (this was the biggest ever parade, with thousands of participants). And we came away feeling uplifted by the infectious spirit of it all.

Selected highlights follow (and you can find the whole album here).

First up, we were blown away by the headgear:























I'm not expert enough to comment on the details of costume and regalia, but you can easily see the huge variety:

















And there's a whole library's worth of music and culture here:















In sum, this was a powerful and energizing experience, yet another reminder of Sarawak's total uniqueness.