Myths form the worldview of ancient people, believed to be true, considered sacred, often related to the origin of the cosmos in certain tribes (Magoulick 2017:35) and appear to explain the metaphor (Ackerman 2002:28). Coupe (2009:6) explains the metaphor stating that myths are traditional sacred stories often associated with rituals. The told characters are usually gods, demigods, spirits or ghosts or in the supernatural world. Hence, myth can be called sacred stories (Ulvydienė 2018). This is in line with Lévi-Strauss (2001:8) stating that mythological thoughts were often considered irrational in the past yet through myth analysis, diverse explanations underlying these thoughts would be found.

Myth primitively manifests ancient culture and acts as a cultural entity identical to belief so that it is culturally universally accepted by the supporting community (Falco 2010:89–116). Bronner (2007:56) states that myth is a significant source explaining the process of forming the world and human life to become what it is today so that it can be a guide for humans to behave (Frias, Isidori & Papaellina 2015:595). This shows that beliefs and myths have been embedded in their consciousness (Gürçay 2017:72). Also, folklore is a medium for preserving ancient fragments, cultures considered inferior and primitive human culture (Storey 2003:6).

To sum up, myth is a sacred story telling the origin of the creation of the world and everything in it in certain tribes to form a culture passed down orally from generation to generation aiming at guiding human behaviour. Furthermore, myth has been carried out by its supporter community from ancient times to the present.

The Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people view myth or Tempuutn as the essence of the life philosophy of both tribal communities including all the most basic concepts and beliefs, as well as maintaining the culture alive. Myths are significant as they do not only tell how something happened but also explain why certain customs can survive and must be obeyed (Madrah & Karaakng 1997:2–3).

Tempuutn is in the form of folk tales telling supernatural things from primitive ideas and shaping culture and ritual practices (Koven 2008:27). Folklore is part of a culture including knowledge, understanding, attitudes and beliefs traditionally transmitted orally by one person to another one (Hariis 2008:viii). Folklore refers to stories widely accepted in a particular culture. Although folklore looks ridiculous or cannot be understood by other groups of people, it contains a wealth of symbolic meanings for people supporting it (Harrison 2007:5). Intercultural education would not exist without folklore (Rosenberg 2019:1). A collection of folklore from various tribes all over the world summarises how stories lived in reality in the past and then gave rise to an attitude of belief in the traditions of these folklores (Naithani 2014:73). Folklore can affect the spiritual identity and cultural awareness of the community holistically (Elior 2008:50).

Folklore is considered to be an ornament of culture, beliefs, traditions and rituals (Sims & Stephens 2005:22). Folklore can analyse the cultural attitudes (Onainor 2019:6) since basically folklore shows how to judge from the past by documenting the stories, sayings and attitudes that they then share in the present (Wilson 2017:3).

Tempuutn is a myth telling the story of the world and everything occurring in and above it from before the world was created, which is essential in human civilisation (Joyce 2003:xii). Tempuutn denotes something more than folklore or local belief systems (Schneider 2017:69) and became the forerunner of the emergence of customs run by the supporting community. The customs are such as traditional ceremonies, norms, values of social life and all matters regarding the concept of custom. Custom is part of a traditional belief (Russell 2014:81) linking social groups with spiritual and environmental contexts through rituals (Cohen 2013:9).

In line with this, until now, the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people still carry out various traditional ceremonial rituals, such as the death [kewangkey] ceremony, treatment [balian] and believe in gods and spirits. The origin of the customary law and ritual ceremonies is explained along with the places so that they can be followed correctly in tempuutn. In other words, tempuutn is a folklore in the form of a myth revealing events and becoming a habit until it becomes the essence of the philosophy of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people related to the most basic concepts in a belief system so that the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung culture remain to exist until now.

Dayak is a general term referring to non-Muslim indigenous people on Kalimantan Island, who inhabit the middle and upper reaches of the river in Kalimantan (Ting, Tan & John 2017:22). The Dayaks do not inhabit the coast of the area, but generally, they live upstream and along smaller creeks or in the hills as far as water can be easily obtained (Staal 2018:55).

The Dayaks describe themselves as people struggling against neo-colonialism, ecological destruction and economic marginalisation (King 2018:2). For the Dayak people, the environment is not just nature, but it becomes an inseparable part (Luardini, Asi & Garner 2019:83). The Dayak tribe is divided into seven races or ethnicities and grouped into 405 sub-ethnics spread across various regions on Kalimantan Island (Murhaini & Achmadi 2021:1).

In conclusion, the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung tribes are two tribes in Indonesia that still perform various traditional and ritual activities to live in harmony with nature. This harmony aims at realising the community’s belief system.

In an oral tradition, all cultural representations are easy to remember (Cordoneanu 2012:133). Supporting communities believe that some sacred rituals and stories are a divine truth (Saikia 2018:29). Ritual is the embodiment of myth (Gasanov 2021:115). Traditional knowledge and folklore are significant cultural heritages as they create an identity for the community (Dimova & Sarafova 2011:2358; Janthaluck & Laila 2012:219). Moreover, traditional knowledge and folklore are part of the culture of indigenous and non-indigenous communities (Society 2004:297).

The representation system is related to the awareness of life reflecting the real existence of society (Procter & Hall 2004). Indirectly, cultural representation can reach back to the state of society from the past to the present (Bendix 2018:105). The culture is correlated to an inner order in society (Goody 2000:71) and held firmly by every individual in the social and cultural environment (Rapport & Overing 2000:53)

In short, cultural representation is a state representing human knowledge in understanding the environment through folklore describing the identity of the tribe.

Cultural values are a crucial aspect, serve as a way of life (Wittgenstein 1980:107) and contain a cultural heritage of traditions preserved and passed down from generation to the next generation (Tursyn et al. 2013:37) reflected in social behaviour and activities undertaken (Czepczyński 2008:29). Cultural values in each culture have five basic issues forming the basis for the framework of variations in the cultural value system (Kluckhohn 2018), namely:

The five main cultural values construct cultural identity through discursive formations and cultural symbols (eds. Gentz & Kramer 2006:1). Through these variations in the orientation of cultural values, an overview of the cultural value system of the ethnic community in Indonesia, especially the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung tribes, will be obtained. This effort is intended to promote intracultural and intercultural values as an effort to know the culture of one of the tribes in Indonesia (Arbona & Chireac 2015:60) because basically culture is a significant sign of the identity of a nation (Bankauskaitė & Andriukevičiūtė 2018). In other words, cultural values describe social behaviour in society related to human relations and the cosmos.

This study employed cultural values from Kluckhohn’s point of view as it can relate the basic issues of culture to the construction of community identity. Hence, the concept has a relationship that can explore the cultural values of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung ethnic groups in Indonesia.

According to the beliefs of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung tribes, after the heavens and the earth were created, then humans were created from a semi-finished statue inserted into a Suko (bark) swing facing the rising sun. Then, the feet and hands of the statue moved and became the first human named Temirukng Langit. After that, he threw his ribs, and the ribs falling on the ground became a woman. The woman’s incarnation into a human would be complete on the eighth day. On the seventh day, she has been forcibly brought home with her feet still attached to the ground by scraping the soil. Soon, the woman became pregnant. Because the body was still made of soil and she was imperfect when she was created, the woman died in the water, but the child lived. When her daughter grew up, the father married his daughter. However, soon, the child died leaving behind a daughter. The father intended to marry that daughter, yet she refused for fear of the curse. Then, the father went around the earth for 8 years. When he returned, he had changed his face and with his cunning tricks, he could deceive his daughter so that she did not realise that he was her father. Subsequently, they got married. Gradually, the daughter realised that the person she married was her father. To avoid the curse then, she said prayers and changed her name.

When the wife will give birth she was assisted by special spirits. There were dozens of children born. Some were disabled, such as not having legs and arms, only having one leg, etc. Other descendants became the forerunner of tigers, bears, monkeys, wild boars and other animals. Some eventually became the beginning of ghosts, juata [name of spirits in water], tonooi [name of spirits on the ground], nayuq [group of spirits living in heaven and earth], nyahuq [spirits in the form of birds or other animals to tell good and bad things for the future] and other spirits. The last was Puneen, the forerunner of human descent to this day. Figure 1 illustrates a female character giving birth to many children later becoming the origins of various animals, ghosts, spirits, and humans to this day (Hopes et al., 1997:30).

Before the parents went to the field, they advised their children if their younger brother or sister in the swing woke up then slaughter the piaak bura [white chicken] to eat, but they misheard and slaughtered their brother or sister waking up to eat. The child who ate raw meat and blood was transformed into an evil spirit disturbing humans and did not live on earth. Others became animals. Meanwhile, those who ate cooked meat became human companion spirits. Father advised Puneen not to forget their brothers or sisters who had changed their forms and lived in different places to make offerings in every ceremonial activity.

The story in Tempuutn Senarikng explains that the life essence for the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people is that although life is bad, humans must strive to live a good life, for example by trying to distance themselves from curses by praying. The essence is based on the quote from the mythical story of Tempuutn Senarikng as follows:

This is in accordance with the statement that through their traditional religion, the Benuaq Dayak people believe that all elements of the earth have a soul, and thus proper offerings must be made to maintain cosmic harmony (Crevello 2004:70).

The work essence is that the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people consider work as a living. The work commonly executed by the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people is farming. This relies on the quote of Tempuutn Senarikng story as follows:

Throughout history, the Dayaks have heavily relied on forest resources. As people who live in the forest, the environment has shaped their culture and way of life. The Dayaks have intertwined with their environment and developed a complex system of cultural aspects concerning the forests on which they depend for survival from agricultural products cultivated on shifting cultivation and forest gardens. Their customary knowledge systems are deeply integrated into the mosaic of their land use practices (Crevello 2004:70).

Customs are part of folklore (Bronner 2007:55), one of which is related to the perspective of the Dayak community regarding the human essence in space and time oriented to the future so that what they carry out in the present will impact the future if they remember the past as part of life lessons:

For example, based on the above quote, when a child misheard his parents’ instructions, he ate the flesh and blood of his sibling, then turned into an evil spirit harming humans. Meanwhile, those eating the cooked meat became human companion spirits. Then, his father reminded the other children that in every ceremonial activity to offer the blood of the sacrificial animal and cooked food to feed them (offerings) and not forget them. Consequently, until now, they always make offerings in the form of sacrificial animal blood and cooked food in every ceremony. Tempuutn became the forerunner of the tradition carried out until now in line with the theory stating that folklore is considered to be an ornament of state culture in the form of stories, beliefs, traditions and rituals (Sims & Stephens 2005:23). Rituals related to the supernatural offer a unique kind of joy that is communication-related to the spirits of the dead (Tucker 2008:114). In this case, the ritual is associated with the giving of offerings in every ceremonial ritual activity. Figure 2 shows the tool used to invite gods and spirits in healing ceremonies. Meanwhile, figure 3 demonstrates the offerings that humans make for the spirits in healing ceremonies (both figures 2 and 3 are confidential documentation taken on 16 January, 2020).

In addition, the life essence of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people trying to live a good life is depicted in the story of Tempuutn Senarikng.

The Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people view that the essence of the relationship between humans and nature is to always maintain harmony. This is in line with the interview results.

For the Dayaks, the environment is not just nature (Luardini et al. 2019:83) so they always perform various ceremonial activities to get rid of disturbing spirits from human life and be accompanied by good spirits. This tradition continues to this day. Various ceremonies performed by the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung communities are reinforced by the statement that these activities imply the dynamics of transmitting cultural heritage from generation to the next generation (Ben-Amos 2020:30).