The Kelabit are an indigenous Dayak people of the Sarawak/North Kalimantan highlands of Borneo with a minority in the neighbouring state of Brunei.

In the past, because there were few roads (only poorly maintained logging roads, which tended not to be too close to the Bario Highlands) and because the area was largely inaccessible by river because of rapids, the highlands and the Kelabit were relatively untouched by modern western influences.

With a population of approximately 6,600 people (2013), the Kelabit comprise one of the smallest ethnic groups in Sarawak.

There, tightly knit communities live in inherited longhouses and practice a generations-old form of agriculture.

The English academic Tom Harrisson led the Semut I operations (one of four Semut operations in the area), which parachuted into their midst in 1945 to make contact; they were supplied with weapons by the Australian military and played an essential role in the liberation of Borneo.

[5] After the Second World War, the Kelabit people received visits from Christian missionaries of the Borneo Evangelical Mission.

Prior to conversion, they had a custom of erecting megaliths and digging ditches in honour of notable individuals.

As the Kelabit people began to Christianize in the early 20th century, so did the process of ethnic consolidation were also intensified.

[7] The Kelabit language is used in one of the most remote areas of the Borneo island in the Bario highlands of Kalimantan and northern Sarawak.

Kelabit people mainly eat rice, as well as meat, fruits, vegetables, corn, and sugar cane.

The form of the stone adze (chopping tools) of the Kelabit differs noticeably from the types previously recorded in Southeast Asia; where its 'quadrangular' is from Malaysia, and there is no 'round ax'.

[15] Kelabit people engage in salt extraction; which plays a significant role in their economy.