Bauma Tahutn as a way of life: an ethnography of moral ecology among the Kanayatn Dayak community in Sungai Ambawang

This article examines Bauma Tahutn among the Kanayatn Dayak community in Sungai Ambawang, West Kalimantan, as a cultural system linking swidden management, ritual practices, customary authority, ecological control, and intergenerational transmission. Shifting cultivation is often reduced to a production technique often associated with deforestation . Yet, this view obscures how local communities regulate relations with land, fire, neighbors, and the spiritual world through adat. Based on ethnographic fieldwork involving participant observation, interviews, documentation, and field note records involving customary leaders, tuha tahutn, village officials, farmers, activists, and community members, the study shows that Bauma Tahutn unfolds through structured stages from bahaupm, baburukng, land preparation, controlled burning, planting, maintenance, and harvesting to Naik Dango. These stages embody religiosity, responsibility, hard work, democratic deliberation, social concern, and environmental care. The article argues that Bauma Tahutn is a form of moral ecology.