Tag Archives: legend

Sabah Fest 2008

The friendly smiles, the rich colours and the interesting display of our cultures will bring you back to Sabah Fest every year. “Harmony in Diversity” is the theme for Sabah Fest 2008. Diversity? Guess how many ethnic groups we have in Sabah? Even Sabah Cultural Board is trying to figure out. We have about 30 ethnic groups. Each ethnic groups also have 2 or more “sub-ethnic”. So… if all adds up, we have over 100 tribes!

Below are two costumes that my camera likes to lock-on. Left is a Dusun Tindal girl. In case you are curious about the two balls at her chest (I mean the silver ones lah). They are small containers that can store small stuffs such as tobacco and betel nut. The right is a Dusun Ranau girl, cute right?

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The ticket to watch the 1.5 hours cultural show is only RM30 (less than USD10), which I think is really undervalued. There are lot of beautiful things to photograph. Just press the shutter then you will capture something nice. Many bloggers were there too, most of them gathered at the left side of the stage. I carried a tripod and didn’t want to accidentally step on their bodies, so I was at the right side.

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Besides Tagal Murut people from Ulu Berkuku and Ulu Tomani, very interior and remote area of Sabah, another “rare” guest was Cocos people (photo above) from Lahad Datu. They are of Scottish and Malay descent, originated from Keeling Islands (where is it huh?). They are so different from other indigenous groups. Not only their costumes, their Dansa dance and music are like something totally from Europe.

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The Igal Tabawan by Sea Bajau was also a pleasure surprise. It is cool to see hundreds of long tin foil nails moving, though I wish they could do interesting formation like thousand-hand Buddha.

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The most impressive and creative dance was the Pangkulian by children from Kiawaian school of Tambunan town. They look so… cute in Murut costume. They used bamboo to create various types of interesting performance, dances and moves. Even the drum players
were the school boys, amazing… I was also so happy to see involvement of young blood in local culture.

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The performers have done their part on stage. Now I am trying to show the beauty of our cultures online. FYI, the high quality photos are in my photo gallery. To make my blog loads faster, I use low quality setting for my photos in write-up here. I took most of the stage photos without flash, but with the aid of tripod and image stabilizer len. I used ISO 800 instead of 1600. Unlike Canon 40D, I find the noise level in ISO 1600 photos of my Canon 400D is not acceptable. Overall the outcome is quite ok. I hope you like the photos. After seeing the excellent photos from other bloggers, I think I can retire liao..

Related Posts
Sabah Fest 2007
Sabah Fest 2006

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Beaufort Kaamatan

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The launching of Kaamatan Festival (Harvest Festival) on May 1 every year marked the beginning of Kaamatan celebration, which lasts for a month. Today the world food shortage crisis makes Kaamatan more important, as rice is our main source of food. Sadly, more crop such as oil palm is planted to feed the cars (with biodiesel) than the mouth. Every year we got funding for aiding rice plantation. However, after many years, we still heavily count on imported rice. Now our government is crying for more fund. I wonder how the money was used in the past.

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Mother’s Day also falls in May. That reminds me the story of Huminodun, the greatest Mother of mankind coz she sacrificed herself. Her spirit resided in the paddy and became the 7-in-1 Bambarayon (Rice Soul). But the harvesting and processing of the paddy will split these spirits apart. That’s why KadazanDusun people have Magavau ceremony, to recover the Rice Soul, to ensure a good harvest again next time. Sumazau dance is also performed to complete the ritual.

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Beaufort town hosted the event this year. This is the 3rd year I come to launching of Kaamatan. And I never miss the chance to see the Unduk Ngadau (Harvest Queen) beauty pageant. There are a few things unique about this beauty pageant:

1. Traditional Costumes
It is a cultural beauty pageant to choose a figure to remember Huminodun. May is really the best time to see pretty ladies dress in finest traditional costumes. Since Kaamatan is celebrated by KadazanDusun and Murut people, you will see the contestants wear KadazanDusun or Murut costumes. Below are the 3 most common costumes worn in the competition:

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Sometime you see them carry a towel. Not towel lah, just kidding, I forgot the name of that item. You would find each district has its own mix of costumes being displayed, usually represent the ethnic groups in that area. For example, some contestants from Kudat district would dress in Rungus costume. This is the first time I see Bisaya costume in Unduk Ngadau competition.

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2. Mushroom Hair
No offense ok. I am not making fun of it. Even my Kadus friends also think it is very old-fashioned and they wonder why the Mushroom Hair should be the “official” hair style for all Unduk Ngadau. Why ah? Anyone knows? I am curious to find out.

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3. Bare Feet
This is also a “feature” b’coz it is probably the only beauty pageant that doesn’t need shoes. Also no butt-shaking catwalk, show off poses and mouth pouting to purposely act sexy. Instead, the contestants will walk very slowly and pose gracefully. I like it coz it makes my photo-taking a lot more easier.

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Let’s us pray for a bountiful harvest for the world. I got the photos of all the beauties. Please check them out. I lost the name list of the contestants so I couldn’t print their names. I will add the names later. Personally I like contestant no. 11.

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Photos taken in Beaufort, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Monsopiad Village Revisited

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Actually I had blogged about Monsopiad Village last year. You may check out the photo gallery and 360 degree virtual tour if you haven’t. In short, Monsopiad Village is a 300-year historical site about the Kadazan legendary hero and headhunter, Monsopiad. You will see 300-year old human skulls, ritual items, long house, handicraft, etc. and also learn about the history, live and culture of Kadazan community. This cultural village is managed by the descendant of Monsopiad.

In fact, I always think that Monsopiad Village is one of the best tourism spots in Kota Kinabalu area. You are not only invited to see the thing, you are also given many chances to experience it if you like to. For example, drinking the Lihing rice wine, playing the traditional games such as blowpipe and walking stick, making handicraft, participate in bamboo dance, and eating the sago worm (if you dare!). In case you are curious, I ate cooked sago worm before in Sago Festival at Kuala Penyu. It tastes like sweet coconut milk but the skin is like rubber, hard to chew.

The reason I visited Monsopiad Village again was because they got a costume exhibition there this month. As usual, they got friendly and knowledgeable guide to show you around and answer all your questions. The weather was bad. But surprisingly, the guide said the rainy day was a good news to them coz it would bring in more visitors. This is because the tourists cannot go to beach and island during rainy day, so they will come to the village. She was totally right. Very soon we saw plenty of foreigner tourists walking in.

Since I was there, I decided to take some photos of their cultural dances before I left. I found that they changed the dance a bit and made it more interactive and exciting. See the pictures below and guess what happened to the girl. Don’t be scared ok. They purposely acted fierce just to speed up your heart beating. They are very friendly people. Nobody was hurt and shocked in the performance. I won’t tell you what did they do. Want to know? Visit the village then.

Lastly, if you want to visit Monsopiad Village, you can find more information in their official web site. The village is open daily from 9 AM to 5 PM. Please note that they got fixed schedule on guided tour and cultural dance performance.

Monsopiad Village and House of Skulls

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Hope the 360 degree Mount Kinabalu Panoramic views did not make your mouth wide open, cool huh? Before you close your mouth, I still have more Panoramic Virtual Tours to show you. Can you digest fast enough? 🙂

Yes, the next one is Monsopiad Village in Penampang. Monsopiad is the name of the most popular Kadazan headhunter, a legendary warrior who harvested 42 human skulls. In the past, the more skulls you owned, the more heroic you were. The headhunters believed that the spirit of the victim would trap in the skull and protected them. Today there is no more headhunter in Borneo, but you still can see the 300-year old human skulls displayed in the House of Skulls of Monsopiad Village. Monsopiad Village is one of the BEST tourism spot in Kota Kinabalu but is not very well-known among the Sabahans. Don’t know why…

Actually I feel a bit guilty to publish this virtual tour because it is so thorough and complete that — after you watch it, you can close your eyes walking in the village and know where you are, like you had been there. I have posted 150+ photos, 4 video clips, and 1, 2, 3, 4… 10 panoramic tours for this village. Goodness… I hope they will not kill me.

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Video Clips of Traditional Dances
BTW, another thing that I would like to highlight is — I find that the Kadazan Sumazau video clip is the most popular download item of MySabah.com.

To make your life easier (find them all in one place), I list all the links to the Sumazau video clips below:
(1) Orchid De Villa, (2) Pesta Kaamatan, (3) Monsopiad Village.

If you are interested in Murut’s Magunatip (Bamboo Dance), I also got four versions:
(1) Monsopiad Village, (2) Pesta Kaamatan, (3) Orchid De Villa, (4) TV3 Carnival (by kids).

If you visit Monsopiad Village, normally they will show you Sumazau, Magunatip and Sazau (by Kadazan Papar) dances. For more video clips of traditional dances of Sabah indigenous people, you may check out my Pesta Kaamatan page.

Photos taken in Penampang, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo