Bayangkis is unique with beautiful weaving designs with a story behind each of the designs. This costume has an opening in the middle for inserting the head, and side opening. The frontal part covers the wearer’s abdomen, while the back part is longer going beyond the waistline.

Originally, Bayangkis had only four colours that are red, yellow, brown and black. The process for producing each colour is also different.

The men of Lobou Dusun wear Bayangkis with Ulos, a red cloth of head tier that functions to protect the wearer’s head from heat and danger in a battle. Normally Ulos is embroidered and the pattern is the same as found in Bayangkis. A long red cloth called Kasumba is a belt to tie the Bayangkis so as not to loosen easily and this visualizes tidiness too.

Obau refers to the loincloth of the men’s Bayangkis traditional costume, made from the same substance to make Bayangkis that is woven cloth. The Obau cloth is entwined on the wearer’ waist and let dangling at the front and back. Obau too has design that contains its own motif.

Buner and Lungkaki are copper rods shaped into coils and worn on the feet for Buner and at the waist for Lungkaki. In the Lobou Dusun language Buner is another name for copper. The aim for wearing these accessories is to protect the wearer from injuries on the important body parts during battle.

This traditional costume has a number of accessories too.  Among them is Gantad that is earring for men and women, made of copper or buner. The copper is shaped into rings decorated with small beads, and kingkilab tied nicely using thread along the copper rings. Kingkilab is normally taken from the remnants during the production of gantad. Nowadays, kingkilab is made of plastic material and shaped elongated.

Rarayut is necklace made from coloured beads. This decoration consists of three necklace parts combined to become a rarayut necklace. The back part of the rarayut is known as papan, while the front part consists of inurabayan or linangkuit.

There are two types of Sulou accessory with this Bayangkis costume. The first, shaped like a white disc made from cut and refined elephant tusk, embroidered in the middle of the Bayangkis’ neck opening. This society believes that elephant tusk is an element for protection. The tusk is shaped to make ring, bracelet or even necklace as protection against poison, illness and black magic.

This decoration is also believed to be able to prevent the wearer from genie’s disturbance and other super naturals (poinsakit), as well as protecting the self from black magic. Nowadays, Sulou is deemed as a valuable accessory due to its scarcity and not everybody owns it. Jade stone is used as replacement as it is deemed as having the same element of protection.

The second Sulou is bracelet made from big white sea clams, cut and refined. This bracelet is worn as hand accessory as well as a tool for protecting the hand from enemy’s attack. Nowadays, this kind of Sulou bracelet is hard to obtain, therefore white coloured bracelet acts as its replacement.

Every Lobou Dusun warrior is compulsory to own a tool like Gayang, a type of machete used in war and to protect oneself. Gayang is also deemed to be symbolic to a warrior as it is often related to be an emblem of the warrior’s chivalry. 

The uniqueness of gayang lies on its head to its cover. The gayang’s head is cream-coloured made from deer’s horn. There is a fine engraving on the gayang’s head or holder with emblems of mythical animals like snake and dragon that symbolize strength and heroism spirit. Human hair is pasted on the gayang’s head to symbolize success of beheading enemy’s head.

The gayang’s blade is straight and curved at the blade’s back, and there is engraving on the blade. Among other characteristics is a curvature or sign on the blade that shows the number of heads successfully beheaded by the warrior.

The gayang’s cover is tied neatly using rattan to tighten the cover’s joint so as not easily loosen. The cover too has engravement as decoration.

The main substance for producing this attire is cotton thread. The women in yester years twisted the cotton thread and dipped it into a dark coloured plant soaking.

The ober tree bark is used to produce brown colour. Yellow colour is produced by the soaking of the sepang tree leaf and bark. The black colour is produced by soaking the thread into a mixture of clay called ronok, like a thick mud. The colour red is produced by a soak mixture of tree bark with six types of leaves grinded together till very fine, called inabah.

The method of processing the cotton thread is interesting. Gapas Landa (cotton fruit) is basked until dried and the seeds separated, and then the cotton is twisted to become thread and coloured according to the requirement of the attire maker.

All the colours, except red, undergo the same process with the aim of maintaining the colours, that is the threads that have been boiled together with the soaked water are left for a month before basked in a shaded area till dry.

There are three stages in producing Bayangkis, that are mongoloting, tudungan and mangawol (menurip). Every stage has an important function.

Mongoloting is the process of arranging the thread into the weaving tool, arranged according to the placement and colour to determine the colour group arrangement of the attire. If there was a mistake in the arrangement the pattern colours would be unbalanced and untidy.

Tudungan is a rattan plait weaved onto the Bayangkis 

as a guideline during the weaving process so as to avoid making mistakes. The costume’s pattern depends on the pattern as produced on the tudungan. 

The mengawol (menurip) is the last process whereby the arranged thread during mongoloting is weaved to become Bayangkis. Tudungan is also used as a guide to produce pattern during the mengawol stage. This cloth is weaved elongated then cut into two parts and sewn in the middle to become Bayangkis.

This costume undergoes changes from the wearing aspect. Originally, it was worn by pulling it down from the head through the opening in the middle of the attire. Only this attire is worn as there is no inner clothing for both men and women. The obou or loincloth is worn by the men and tapi or skirt by the women. Nowadays, this attire is made like a jacket worn on the outside with a black long sleeve innerwear. The loincloth is replaced by black trousers.