Move over Santa Claus and make room for Santa Dayak tonight

A Christmas doodle with Dayak themes for FMT readers, designed by Joseph Romey Dures.

GEORGE TOWN: Tonight’s the night that children around the world have been waiting for.

It’s Christmas Eve and Santa Claus will be riding through the cold mid-winter skies on his sleigh bringing gifts for children who have been good all year. Or, at least some of it.

Every child knows that Santa flies his reindeer-drawn sleigh from the North Pole to homes all around the world, placing gifts for them under Christmas trees and in stockings hung at the foot of their beds.

We all know what Santa looks like. He’s a kindly, white bearded, tubby old man in thick red robes. His booming laugh rings out across the rooftops, “Ho, ho, ho!”

But Kuching native, Joseph Romey Dures likes to imagine Santa a little differently. He sees a more tropical bringer of joy for every girl and boy. A Sarawak tribesman, in fact, a Dayak Father Christmas.

He imagines Santa Dayak, tattooed and carrying a blowpipe, travelling by boat along the mighty Rajang river, stopping along the way to deliver gifts to children sleeping in their longhouses.

Instead of heavy red robes to keep out the freezing snow, tropical Santa wears a loincloth, red of course, and not much else, baring his traditional tattoos for all to admire.

Instead of a team of reindeer, a giant crocodile draws Santa’s boat along the river.

A Santa Dayak with tribesman with Bornean tattoos and a Dayak people loincloth, next to a Christmas tree fashioned out of a banana tree.

And instead of conifer Christmas trees from the dark forests of northern countries, Santa Dayak places his gifts under a tree fashioned out of banana leaves.

The 37-year-old’s imagination beautifully translates onto paper, as he moonlights as a cartoonist after his day job as a commercial banker in Kuala Lumpur.

Joseph is a Bidayuh, a subgroup of the Dayak people, and calls himself the Bidayuh Skateboarder.

He tells FMT the idea of drawing local themes came about when he and his wife Catriona Su-Yin Evan-Cook, 32, decided to integrate the unique Sarawakian culture into every facet of their lives, including art.

He started by drawing tribal motifs on his skateboards. This soon gained the interest of his friends.

Joseph Romey Dures and wife Catriona Su-Yin Evan-Cook draw local Christmas themes, integrating Sarawakian culture.

One of them suggested that he draw a “Santa Dayak”, which he did. People liked it, so he started drawing more Dayak Christmas themes.

“That’s when I started drawing the one with the blowpipe. And we just thought that was a brilliant idea,” he grins modestly.

“We don’t see many drawings in Borneo styles, compared with the three main cultures we have: Malay, Chinese, and Indian,” he says. We wanted to create a unique style that was unlike traditional arts from Sarawak.”

Joseph says Catriona, who is a graphic designer and his source of inspiration, then turns his drawings into greeting cards.

A mix of the old and the new–Joseph Romey Dures’ Dayak tribes design on traditional Christmas symbols.

“All I need is my Sharpie, an Artline pen and a pad of drawing paper. Or I’ll draw on a skateboard or a canvas, whatever comes to hand.

“I plan to draw on a wall soon if time permits.”

Santa carrying a blowpipe may not seem to be exactly spreading the traditional Christmas message of “Peace and Goodwill to all men.”

Nevertheless, as Santa Dayak speeds down the Rajang tonight, drawn by his faithful crocodile, tattoos gleaming in the moonlight, his cry will ring out across the jungle:

“Sramat Ondu Krismas nudu su’e dep ingan! Merry Christmas to you, one and all!” - FMT