Around this time of the year, my Sarawak roots always rumble uneasily. As I write, countless Dayak youths flung far and wide to the four corners of our nation and beyond will now be homeward bound for the land of their ancestors before the Gawai Dayak Day falls on the first day of June.

Throughout the vast Land of the Hornbill, in traditional longhouses and modern villages, the Dayak people will be celebrating this annual festival in earnest, for a week or two at least. There will be great joy in family reunion and meeting of old friends, amidst much drinking, feasting, and dancing.

The Dayaks in Sarawak seldom come into the limelight in our national media, and so Malaysians in the mainstream of things know next to nothing about them. I suppose that within the framework of our official ethnic classification, they will come under the ambiguous and not entirely complimentary category of "others" - after the Malays, the Chinese, and the Indians.