Tag Archives: Bajau

Tamu Besar Festival

Another late post from me about the Tamu Besar Festival happened from 24 to 25 October 2009. I first went to this annual event in year 2005 and always wanted to come back, coz it is one of the most colorful cultural events of Sabah. Too bad I missed it for 3 years for some unavoidable circumstances.

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Without my malfunction wide angle kit lens, I was partially “handicapped” and only shot with a 70-200mm tele lens. Luckily I was still able to bag some good photos. The photo of a Dusun Tobilung girl above is my favorite. Coz of less ideal lighting condition, I tried 20 times to get this.

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Tamu means Native Market in Sabah. Very week (usually morning of Fri, Sat or Sun) the traders, from different businesses and villages, gather in Tamu and sell their products. You can find basically anything here, for examples, vegetables, meat, seafood, handicrafts, local food, drink, clothing, electronics, and toys. It is an open market and crowded. Locals also socialize and mingle around.

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Besides attracting more tourists to tamu market, Tamu Besar Festival also showcasts the colorful cultures of Kota Belud, where Bajau, Iranun and Dusun Tindal people live. If you look for beautiful Bajau girls dressed in traditional Bajau costume, then you should not miss Serimpak beauty pageant.

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Bajau people love bright colors, so you always see very bright red, yellow and blue colors in their handicraft and costume. Bajau people are mainly farmers and fishermen, they are also very skillful weavers and crafter. Tamu is the best place to shop for handicrafts (baskets, containers, etc.), knife, cloth and food made by Bajau.

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Don’t miss the highlight of second day, the parade by hundred of Bajau horsemen. Bajau is skillful riders and they are also known as “Cowboys of the East”. Not only the horsemen wearing traditional costume, they also dress up their houses with colorful outfit. The show was supposed to start at 1pm, but the VIP late by more than 30 minutes. I find that the government VIPs love to be late, probably to purposely keep everyone waiting, to show that he is important.

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Then the show began, and I didn’t stop clicking shutter. I loved to get some nice shots of traditional horsemen. But some of them were wearing sun glasses, and AHH!!! the Maggi banners are just everywhere! Many photographers were there too. We were checking out the lens of others, as if we were looking at someone wife. I am planning to buy new lens, but I spent RM400 on repairing my car, RM400 for apartment management fee, insurance, etc. this month, sigh… no money..

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Bajau people can ride anything, includes buffalo. You should not miss their buffalo racing, they do it more for fun and laughter, so funny.. Buffalo has lower IQ than horse, so it is harder to control, especially making them to turn. It is not wise to use them as car then.

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When everyone was enjoying the show, a white horse lost control. It stood up and tap the rope like mad. I was not sure if it was scared or angry.

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From its below, I guess it was overexcited. Its lengthy thing made some female shy. lol…

“OMG, it’s so long…”

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Related Post:
Tamu Besar 2005

Photos taken in Kota Belud, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Mari-Mari Cultural Village

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“Mari-Mari” means Come Come in Malay. This new cultural village is located in Kionsam of Inanam and received many positive feedback from tourists. There are five indigenous houses in the village for you to see how Sabah ethnic groups, i.e., Murut, Bajau, Dusun, Rungus and Lundayeh lived in their past. The air there is fresh, maybe the village is inside the forest and next to Kionsam River.

Above: tourists try Lihing the local rice wine

Above: experience traditional Bajau mock wedding

Tourists are presented the traditional way of bamboo cooking, rope making, tree bark processing (for making Murut’s cloth), blowpipe making, etc. You also can try out the traditional food and even experience their activities such as blowing blowpipe and smoking local cigarette.

Above: trying lansaran (wooden trampoline) in Murut headhunter longhouse

The guide will bring you to visit each houses and explain the ancient lifestyle. Some “staircases” are quite steep. As a local, I find that I know so little about our cultures. At the end of the tour, you can enjoy the performance of traditional dances and lunch after that.

Above: watch out for chicken dropping above your head

You may try the local cigarette. My grandmothers likes to make her own cigarette by rolling tobacco into dry leaf. The taste is light and not as strong as commercial cigarettes, though it has no filter.

Above: starting fire with bare hands and bamboo in less than a minute

Above: guests are invited to try bamboo dance

The most interesting part for tourists is probably getting a tattoo. They demo the traditional method to create a tattoo.

Then visitors also can ask them to tattoo a favourite figure on their skin. They use something creamy to draw the tattoo and it will leave a stain that can last for a few days (not permanent). Not sure if you can ask them to draw tortoise on your arm.

Besides Mari-Mari, Monsopiad Cultural Village in Penampang also offers the similar things. If you ask me which one I like better, it is hard to answer coz both have its uniqueness. The best of Monsopiad is its House of Skulls, a real historic heritage, but Mari-Mari gets better cultural experience. FYI, Mari-Mari does not take walk-in tourists, so you need to book the tour in advance.

Photos taken in Inanam, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Regatta Lepa 2008

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For photographers who like to picture the colourful culture of Sabah, the annual Regatta Lepa is definitely on their list. Not only it attracts the locals, many overseas photographers also come to Semporna to see this grand tourism event. I went there in year 2006. Though I almost ended up sleeping on the street, I always come back again.

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There are two main groups of Bajau tribes in Sabah. Land Bajau lives in West Coast, mainly in Kota Belud town, famous as the Cowboys of the East and their Tamu (Native Market). The Sea Bajau lives in East Coast. They spend most of their time on the boat, which known as Lepa-Lepa. Some call Sea Bajau as the Sea Gypsies. Many Sea Bajau were pirates in the past (now no more).

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Lepa-Lepa sails with wind and was the main transport for Sea Bajau to travel among islands. The traditional lepa boat is nicely crafted and about 20 feet long. Bajau loves to use bright colours in their handicraft and textile, and such creativity also relects on their lepa-lepa. Now it has become a cultural heritage of Sabah.

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The dancers, who dressed in traditional Sea Bajau costum, on the lepa-lepa are also the highlight, especially when you see lot of them dance at the same time, under loud music from over 50 lepa-lepa. I took many many photos of them in year 2006. But this year I was using Canon 400D with polariser. I think the outcome is quite good. Probably you can tell me which lepa photo gallery you like better, year 2006 or 2008, or none?

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The event was good. I also have comment on 2 things. The first thing is — the floating rubbish on the sea is really an eyesore. Now we have more and more tourists. We hope they will see the beautiful islands at Semporna, but not an island of rubbish! Not only it gives tourists a bad impression, the junk will pollute the sea and kill the sealife. Compare to 2006, the year I first visited Semporna, it is getting worse. I also need to spend a lot of time to use Photoshop to remove the rubbish appears everywhere in my photos.

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The second thing – hmmm… the “Kiasu” (afraid to lose) advertisement bunting and commercial logo all over the lepa boats. Don’t get me wrong. Personally I really appreciate the sponsors who support the culture. However, if the sponsors are really, seriously sincere in promoting the culture, they should not overdo the ad, which makes our cultural heritage looks like something else. This year we got coffee lepa, noodle lepa, telco lepa and supermarket lepa. Wonder what will come next… Ice-cream lepa? Bank lepa? Or a Detergent lepa? Just my personal point of view. You can say I am conservative or whatever.

Photos taken in Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Tuaran Cultural Carnival

People of Sabah

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Traditional costumes of Sabah indigenous people are always one of my favourite photography targets. So far I never see an “expert” in such area. Coz most people, even those from tourism or cultural sector, cannot name more than 10 indigenous groups in Sabah. Many say Sabah is a melting pot for so many cultures and ethnics, but how many of us really know what are inside the pot? I found that even newspapers got the name of the ethnic group wrong sometimes.

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There are more than 30 indigenous groups in Sabah. Each indigenous group can have over 10 sub-ethnics / sub-groups, which might use different languages and costumes. For example, Suluk and Iranun are the sub-ethnic of Bajau. Getting the photos for 100+ groups seems like a Mission Impossible.

In the past one year of travelling around Sabah, I have been trying my best to “collect” the photos of indigenous people in different district. Their photos are scattered around in my 50+ photo galleries here, so I decide to categorise them for easy viewing below (most photos may look familiar to you). I know my collection is far from complete, but it is one of the best sources to see the people of Sabah online. You can even find the photos of minority such as Iban and Ulu of Sabah. Anyway, this is just a draft verion. In the future, I will add more photos and write-up. If there is any mistake, please correct me.

Click Here to see 230+ photos of Sabah Indigenous People >>

Photos of Sabah indigenous people:

Related Links:
1) Kaamatan Festival 2006
2) Sabah Fest 2006
3) Kaamatan Festival 2005

Sabah Fest 2006

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It is quite late to blog about it coz it has happened for more than 10 days (since May 5). Sabah Fest was started annually since 1988, but this was the first time I watched it. I would say it is the most colourful and best cultural show of Sabah. I will come again next year.

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Though the cultural show (8pm – 10pm) was only two hours, it gave you a very good overview of the traditional dances and colourful costumes of Sabah indigenous people such as Bisaya, Murut, Bajau, Idahan, Suluk, Kadazan, Lotud, Rungus, Orang Brunei, Dusun Tobilung. Tell you, I have seen all these costumes and dances, after I travelled almost a year to many places in Sabah like Kota Belud, Semporna, Lahad Datu, Kudat, Kota Marudu, Sipitang… Now you only need to pay RM10 (USD2.50) ticket to watch all these comfortably, in an air-cond ballroom. So lucky lah you.

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As a Sabahan, if all you know about Sabah indigenous people is only Sumazau and KadazanDusun, your knowledge is really poor man. I have seen many locals who can’t even differentiate the costumes of Bajau and Murut. If I am not mistaken, Sabah got over 30 ethnic groups, and each of them may have sub-ethnic that they may speak different language or wear different costume. For example, KadazanDusun got 16 sub-ethnics such as Dusun Tatana, Dusun Tindal, Bajau got 20 such as Suluk, Iranun, Murut got 14 such as Tagol, Paluan. If you sum up all these, it will be more than 100 groups. So far I don’t see any book has complete text + photo documentation on all Sabah ethnic groups.

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In normal Sabah cultural show, one or more of the dances below are popular choices for performance:
1) Sumazau by Kadazan Penampang
2) Sazau by Kadazan papar
3) Magunatip (bamboo dance) by Murut
4) Limbai by Bajau
In Sabah Fest, you will see more:

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Before the show began, all the dancers were lining up from the entrance to the hall, to welcome all the guests with friendly greeting, dances, and traditional musical instruments. I walked back and forth many times, to see if I could name their ethnic and took some photos of them. Many of them were really the village people so they could be a bit shy, but very willing to cooperate. I know coz I saw my Idahan wives from Lahad Datu (just kidding), haha… they still recognised me. So happy to see them again.

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If you miss Sabah Fest, don’t worry. You can see more indigenous people dress in their beautiful costumes at Penampang KDCA from May 30 to 31. Last year I took a lot of photos and post them all here. According to my web report, it is always the TOP visited page every month. FYI, it is the first photo gallery of MySabah.com (posted in June 2005). My first blog was started in August 2005, so I didn’t blog about it. One of the goals of MySabah.com is to provide the most photos of Sabah people (especially beauties). Hope you will continue to support me by introducing this site to your friends.

Regatta Lepa + Water Festival, Semporna

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I was in Semporna from April 14 to 16 coz of the Regatta Lepa. “Lepa” means “boat” in the dialect of east coast Bajau. Semporna’s Regatta Lepa is one of the most popular and colourful annual tourism events. All the hotels there were fully booked and I saw more foreigner tourists than any other events.

The territory of Bajau people is not only limited to the land, as we see in Kota Belud’s Tamu Besar. The Bajau at east coast, someone calls them Sea Bajau or Suluk, is good at sailing too. I consider Bajau got the most colourful culture in Sabah. They like to use bright colours in their costumes, handicrafts and even boat (lepa). In this festival, they decorated their boats with colourful flags, trying to win the first place in Beautiful Lepa Contest.

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After you see my photo gallery, you will understand that why I was willing to “risk” myself sleeping on the street (coz all hotel room fully booked). It was a fruitful and rewarding trip. I took nearly 700 photos in 2 days. Don’t be shocked. Usually I take multiple pictures of the same object, with different angles, timing, distance, camera setting, etc. At the end, I would only like one (or none) of them.

The Lepa boat has existed for several hundreds years. It was mainly used as a public transport in Semporna district, to transfer passengers and goods from island to island, village to village, between Borneo, Sulawesi and Suluk. Now we usually see lepa in wedding ceremony and special occassions such as National Day, celebrations and festival.

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There were more than 50 lepa, each represented a village, participated in this regatta. The colourful boat is not the only thing that makes this event so interesting. Every lepa got its own dancers and band. As early as 8 AM, they already played the gongs and drums, the dancers were wearing colourful traditional Bajau costumes and faked long fingernails, performed on the boats. Just imagine 50 boats made loud noise together. It was so grand and lasted until evening. You may check out my video clip (Format: Windows Media Video, Size: 7 MB, Length: 3:30 minutes) to get the idea.

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Needless to say, I was as excited as a kid, busy taking photos of the lepa and dancers. I particularly like seeing the little girls in their colourful costumes, so adorable and look like doll. I was there for whole day, so I knew they got two set of clothing, one for morning, one for afternoon. They were very cooperative. Everytime I just did a simple eye contact, they would smile and look at my camera.

After the festival was over, the heat was still on. I saw a “Lepa Car” Competition in the stadium when I was on the way leaving the town. So funny… You may check out the photo gallery for more pictures.

Cultural Carnival, Lahad Datu

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I think I am among the very few Sabahans who really appreciate the traditional costumes of indigenous people. Whenever I tried to share the photos of these colourful costumes with my friends, most would answer coldly, “Hmmm, Hmmm… good…” (try to entertain Smoke Head)

Well, I don’t really care if anyone is interested in my hobby. I just enjoy doing it, and that is what motivates me to visit all the local festivals throughout Sabah since last year. After nearly 1 year of photo hunting, I have posted hundreds photos of so many Sabah indigenous people such as Bajau, Suluk, Dusun Tatana, Rungus, Bisaya, Murut, Kadazan Penampang, Kadazan Papar, Lotud, Dusun Segama Subpan, Kimaragang, Dusun Lobou Sook, Dusun Tindal, Kimaragang, Tombonuo, Iranun, Orang Brunei, Lundayeh, Kedayah, Orang Ulu… Hope there are foreigner visitors, who like this stuff, attracted by my photos and come to Sabah. I am looking forward to the Harvest Festival in May. That whole month will be really a harvest time for me.

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I read the news about Cultural Carnival 2006 in Lahad Datu (Mar 11 – 12). Without hesitation, I went to Lahad Datu excitedly to see it. It is fun to look for pretty models wearing beautiful traditional costumes. They are always happily pose for photo shooting. Not bad lah this trip, coz I got the photos of people in Idahan, Lidu, and Bugis costumes.

The 2-day Cultural Carnival was organised by Sabah Cultural Board. I must say it is very well done. They got cultural performance in the morning and evening. The stage setting, dance performance, costumes… all was excellent. High quality show, a big thumb up. Because of that, my index finger lost control already and kept on pressing the camera shutter, until my 1 GB memory cards all full. You don’t need to travel long distance to see this. Just click the picture below to view the photo gallery.

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