Lotud

Lotud people
Dusun Tuaran

Lotud Dusun in their traditional dress
Total population
11,000
Regions with significant populations
Malaysia (Sabah)
Languages
Lotud language or standard Dusun language, Malay, English
Religion
Christianity (majority), Animism, Islam
Related ethnic groups
Kadazan-Dusun

The Lotud people are an indigenous ethnic group residing in Sabah, eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo. They reside mainly in the Tuaran district (including the Tamparuli and Kiulu sub-districts) and also a portion of this tribe's population also reside in the village of Kampung Sukoli located in the Telipok suburban township of Kota Kinabalu city, all located in the West Coast Division of Sabah. Their population was estimated at 5,000 in the year 1985 but now believed to be more than 20,000. They are a sub-ethnic group of the Dusunic group, now also known as Kadazan-Dusun.

Nowadays, most of this ethnic group's population has been Christianized by adhering to denominations such as Roman Catholicism (in Tuaran district proper as well as the suburban township of Telipok in Kota Kinabalu city) and Seventh-Day Adventism (mostly those residing in Tamparuli and Kiulu sub-districts as well as in Telipok since the neighbouring town of Manggatal, both within the Kota Kinabalu city area has a Seventh-Day Adventist majority population among its native Dusun populace) with a large Muslim minority (both converts to the faith and Muslim by birth and ethnic descent alike) and some lesser extent to evangelical Christianity (Sidang Injil Borneo) as well as other denominations such as Anglicanism, True Jesuism and Lutheranism (Basel Christian Church of Malaysia), with a dwindling number are still animists. Less than 20 traditional priestesses are still alive, with no prospect of future replacement.

The Lotud ethnic group has their own spiritual world. In the Lotud spiritual world, their god Kinohoringan and his wife, Umsumundu, are widely believed to be the creators of the first humans and everything in the universe. The asug tantagas exists in the spiritual world of the Lotud ritual expert. She is sent to the spiritual world to persuade Hajin Sambawon. She is said to be the spiritual leader of Libabou (equivalent to Heaven), a place said to be located in the clouds. The role is specifically mandated by Kinohoringan and Umsumundu in overseeing human behavior in the invisible realm. If there is a violation of customary laws or natural rules of life that emphasize the balance between the visible and invisible worlds, the universe will become disordered. The role of the asug tantagas is to facilitate the release of trapped human spirits. In the Lotud spiritual world, the asug tantagas functions as the intermediary between the human world and the unseen world.

History

From the available written historical sources, the Tuaran area is likely to be among the oldest centers of civilization in Sabah due to its rich history and advanced civilization. The word tawaran in the Dusun language means "corn", while other Dusun dialects use the term luong for corn. The earliest record of the term "Tawaran" appears in the written records of the Persian explorer ibn Rustah who wrote a journal of his trip to Southeast Asia in 903 AD, in which he says that there is a famous trading city called "Tawaran". Tawaran (now Tuaran) in this year was controlled by Srivijaya in its attempt to control it, being the city that produced the best camphor in the world.

Some sources suggest that Tawaran was conquered by a Tang Dynasty military unit during the reign of Emperor Dezong, in its attempt to control the city that produced the best camphor in the world. However, the colony of the Chinese military unit was expelled by the local government forces, before Tawaran was conquered again, this time by Srivijaya forces, during the reign of Maharaja Balaputra, before the Srivijaya forces also were finally removed from Tawaran.

On the oldest map of northern Borneo drawn by Petrus Plancius in 1594 AD, the Kota Kinabalu or Tuaran area is labelled "Canciraö". This city or settlement was under the auspices of the Sultanate of Brunei during the reign of Sultan Bolkiah or Sultan Muhammad Hasan. Indeed, Tawaran was most likely the best camphor-producing city in the world at that time. The Dusun people collected camphor from the forest and traded it in the city of Tawaran. At this time, there were no Bajau people in the Tuaran area, the coast of Tuaran was inhabited by Kadazan-Dusun people, who had a maritime culture, as evidenced by the name of the city Tawaran that was recorded as early as 903 AD. According to historical records, Bajau people, specifically the West Coast Bajau, migrated from Johor to the coast of Sabah around the 16th century. The Bajau people, or better known as Samah, settled in Mengkabong and the surrounding area, and they began to establish permanent settlements. The Bajau people have been mixing and trading with the Dusun people for hundreds of years.

Tawaran or Tuaran, as the oldest and most advanced Dusun civilizational hub in Sabah and one of the important trading centers in Asia at that time, has raised questions about the Nunuk Ragang legend. Lotud people claim that Nunuk Ragang is not the oldest Dusun settlement in Sabah. According to written and oral historical analyses, the Nunuk Ragang settlement only appeared around the 12th century, and was the last and largest centre of the Dusunic expansion. Several Dusun oral stories say the pattern of the Dusun migration was from the coast to the interior, indicating that the earliest Dusun settlements were not in the interior but the coastal areas, and that they initially had a maritime culture. Dalrymple, who explored the west coast of Sabah in 1762, said that coastal settlements such as Tuaran and Kimanis were still inhabited by Dusun pagans whom he called Ida'an (Dalrymple, 1793:552). Henry Keppel named the Dusun "Idaan the Voyager" (Keppel, 1847:194), where, according to Sir Hugh Low, they had extensive trade routes, reaching as far as Java and other places that were far away from Borneo (Low, 1852:2).

Accounts by Arab and Western scholars

The name Muja is used by Arab scholar al-Idrisi in his description of a kingdom or settlement on the west coast of Borneo in 1154 AD (Robert, 1983:40). This kingdom was ruled by a dynasty called the Kamrun Dynasty, where one of its cities was called "Haranj" (possibly Tuaran). The city was said to be "a city of spices" that became famous at that time because the camphor produced in the city was the best in the world. According to al-Idrisi, the island of Haranj was famed for a deep precipice from which camphor was extracted, an allusion that scholars believe corresponds to Tuaran, or the forested foothills of Mount Kinabalu, long renowned as a major source of Borneo camphor. Al-Idrisi says:

There exists in the island of Haranj a great precipice, of which no man has been able to measure the depth. It is a remarkable feature.

The Kamrun Dynasty was founded by Raja Alaka Bhatara, a Dusun king who founded the kingdom around 690 AD. Around 800 AD, this kingdom allied with the Kingdom of Mayd in present-day Philippines, which was probably a colony of the Kingdom of Muja, or Poni (Robert, 1983:38). At this time, the Dusun people were still a single ethnic, not yet divided into various tribes as can be seen today. According to oral sources, the name of the Dusunic ethnic group in ancient times was "Kadayan" (Evans, 1953:11). Then, "Kadayan" and "Dusun" were possibly used interchangeably by the Bruneians and the British to refer to indigenous peoples on the west coast of Sabah, which later caused an identity crisis among the Kadazan-Dusun in the mid-1900s. The Dusunic ethnic group then split into many small tribes during the Nunuk Ragang period, moving out of Nunuk Ragang to other areas, forming their own tribes and controlling the areas where they settled. A legend says that the ruler who founded Nunuk Ragang was King Korungkud, some say King Gumarong, and there are also other sources that say King "Gomurun".

In al-Idrisi's notes, there are notes about the culture of Dusun communities at the time. According to al-Idrisi, during the rule of the Kingdom of Muja, the early society there still had a maritime culture. This historical record from al-Idrisi, which tells stories from the oral history of the Dusun in Sabah, says that the ancestors of the Dusun, in ancient times, had expertise in navigation and maritime culture. Among the famous oral stories is the story of Indai (possibly the location of the city of Haranj), a maritime settlement that established trading relations with Dusunic tribes from across the kingdom, for example, Bongawan. Similarly, the story of Nunuk Ragang tells of the voyage of the ancient Dusun from Brunei to Nunuk Ragang, with some of them migrating to the Philippines (Shim, 2007:18). The oral history of the Lotud Dusun community in Tuaran also says the same thing, that their ancestors were seafarers, but their maritime dominance was eventually replaced by the Bajau, Iranun and Suluk tribes who migrated to Mengkabong and Sulaman around the end of the 1700s. This is evidenced by the writings of Dalrymple, which were quoted by Dr. Leyden, saying that the Dusun continued maritime voyages reaching as far as Java up to the year 1762, then this maritime culture disappeared (Dr. Leyden, 1814:9). It was likely that the maritime culture died out in the early 1800s, evidenced by the writings of Logan, who said that the Dusun people sailed to Java in ancient times but no longer did when he came to Sabah in 1852 (Logan, 1852:1-2).

Apart from maritime culture, al-Idrisi also recorded the clothing culture of an ancient Dusun community. During the rule of the Kingdom of Muja, Dusun women were said to like to keep their hair long and wear head accessories, or susuga, and they also wore necklaces. As for men, they were divided into ranks according to the type of metal used for their neck ornaments (Ferrand, 1913:344). For the higher-ranking groups, they wore gold-plated or real-gold neck ornaments, while those in the lower ranks only wore necklaces made of copper. The culture of wearing necklaces in Sabah is only found among Dusun communities. Several Western writers have provided notes on the culture of wearing necklaces among Dusun men. St. John, who came to Sabah in 1851, and Frank Hatton, wrote the following:

...then came a band of Dusun men, led by a young leader, of strong build, with a tightly bound waist, with the appearance of a wise man...on his neck was a collar that was open at the side, which allowed him to open it easily.
— St. John, 1863

The Dusun men of Toadilah all wore neck ornaments, bracelets and anklets made of copper, black cloth wrapped around their heads, tied with rattan dyed red.
— Frank Hatton, 1882

This is one of the earliest records of Dusun clothing culture recorded by al-Idrisi in 1154 AD, or the 12th century, and the culture of ancient Dusun communities changed over time. A document by Yuan Dynasty historian Wang Dayuan, titled Daoyi Zhilüe, is said to have been written in 1350 AD, providing interesting data on the heyday of the Kingdom of Muja, or Poni. The record is about the residents of Longshan (Dragon Mountain), or Mount Kinabalu, in which the surrounding area is referred to as a flat-land area that is quite cold but comfortable. The residents in the area, both women and men, like to decorate themselves, whose hair is bunned and their waists are wrapped in colorful cloth. Surprisingly, there are residents in the area who are Buddhists and have relations with the Chinese, whether through marriage or trade. This is deemed unsurprising because, during this period, the ancient Dusun community had close relations with China and began to absorb agrarian culture from China. The rapidly growing agrarian culture of this period likely shifted much of ancient Dusun society away from its maritime roots. The king who ruled the Kingdom of Muja, or Poni, during this period was Maharaja Karna (Ben Randawi, 2019).

Culture

Traditional attire

The Lotud ethnic group has 3 types of traditional clothing, namely:

• The tantagas (priestess) attire
• The traditional dance attire
• The wedding attire

The Lotud insist that their traditional clothing be preserved with the passage of time and free from foreign influence. They always ensure that their traditional clothing is preserved as authentically as possible for the next generation.

Lotud women's attire

• Sukob kopio (long-sleeved shirt)
• Sukob (short-sleeved shirt)
• Gonob (short skirt)
• Lilimbo (a girdle made of a bamboo or rattan cord)
• Red lilimbo (unmarried)
• Black and white lilimbo (married)
• Madapun (neck chain)
• Siwot (chicken feather jewelry)
• Sigar (headwear)

Lotud men's attire

• Sukub (shirt)
• Sundi or sigar (headdress)
• Mugah (long skirt)
• Binandus (long trousers)
• Haboi (belt decorated with linangkit)
• Sandai (shoulder cloth)
• Botungkat (silver coin belt)
• Karoh (bead chain or neck decoration)
• Simpai (bracelet)
• Tarapapan (Lotud keris)
• Kuluwu (scarf)

Linangkit

According to folklore, the linangkit originated from patterns brought by traders from China. This can be proven through the migration of Chinese people to Borneo to trade, and they carried out a barter system. Meanwhile, a tantagas from the Tuaran district believes that the linangkit actually originated from within the Bornean people themselves, namely the Dusun, Rungus and Bajau. The traditional embroidery of the linangkit and lumangkit (the act of needle-weaving by hand) have been passed down through generations from their ancestor Puan Pinar, known as Odu Liugan, from Kampung Panjut, Tuaran, who was a woman of Lotud Dusun descent. Another opinion is that the linangkit originated from the inspiration of the embroiderer themself. It was passed down through generations by them. This statement was from the owner of the Tuaran Lotud Museum, Pediman Jabau, who was the eldest son of Puan Pinar.

Originally, it used cloth sewn with fabric stiffeners on the left and right sides, with a thin piece of cloth as a base to start the needle-weaving. The needle-weaving beginning at the starting point is connected to the fabric frame on the left and right sides. The needle-weaving technique is a count-by-ear technique, and it is done while looking at the holes in the fabric as well as its "squares". Linangkit weavers in the past used rice water as a fabric stiffener. The original needlework requires a small pillow as a base to facilitate the process. This is because the piece's frame will be pinned on the left and right sides of the pillow so that its position is more stable. Linangkit needlework of this type is made by using the imagination and inspiration of the embroiderer to produce motifs.

Food

"Moniang" is the term for chewing betel nuts used in the Lotud Dusun language, and it is a cultural tradition found among Dusun women. Red chalk processed from sea snail shells mixed with a few gambir and aged areca nuts or areca nut skins, wrapped in betel leaves, then it is placed in the mouth to be chewed until the saliva in the mouth turns red, but it is not swallowed; when the mouth feels full, the betel chewer spits out the reddish saliva.

Music

Lotud's traditional musical instruments

Among the traditional musical instruments used by the Lotud ethnic group are the gongs, the kulintangan, the gagayan (sundatang in Central Dusun), and the traditional drum.

Bojumbak Festival

The festival was introduced by the Sabah Lotud Komulasakan Association and the Lotud Suang Association, and it was officiated by The Most Honourable Datuk Seri Panglima Hajiji Noor in 2017. The festival is a Lotud cultural instrumental music competition. They perform songs from several villages across Tuaran, each with its own meaning conveyed through rhythm.

Traditional dance

Sumayau, or madsayau, is the traditional dance of the Lotud Dusun in the Tuaran district. Typically, this dance is an attraction during the celebration of the Magahau Day, which is a ritual to worship the spirits of the gusi. Usually this ceremony is held on a large scale and takes up to five days, and it aims to show reverence for the gusi, or jar. In addition, it is used for the commemoration of family members who have died.

The ritual is led by a monolian, a woman well-versed in the ritual, and she is of monolian descent. As soon as the music starts, the dancers move straight to the dance floor and begin dancing. The female dancers' hand movements follow the rhythm of the music, and their foot movements are slower than their hand movements, which only occur in very slow increments. The male dancers ring tiny bells, or giring. The dance movements become more lively when they receive applause from the audience.

Marriage

There are five stages in the Lotud marriage, namely merisik (pre-engagement visit), monunui (engagement), popiodop (staying overnight), matod (marriage) and mirapou.

Timpu' merisik (Pre-engagement visit)

The representative of the male's side who is knowledgeable in customs, called the suruhan, plays the main role of an intermediary for the woman's family who sets a suitable time for merisik, or negotiation. He visits the woman's house for this task. During the merisik, the woman gets to know the man's background such as family lineage, character and his ability to interpret the meaning of dreams from the woman's side. If the dream is not good, sogit mimpi (dream fine) is imposed for the purpose of reconciliation or peace. According to custom, if the man does not have a suruhan, he will be "fined" with adat malu (reprehension) by the woman's family.

Timpu' monunui (Engagement)

The custom of monunui, or engagement, is carried out by setting a date in advance if the proposal made in the previous merisik is accepted and both sides agree to the stipulated conditions. Usually, this custom is carried out on the 14th day of a one-month cycle, called tawang kopiah, or the 15th day, called tolokud. This custom can only be done in the morning and the man's family must leave the woman's house before 4.00 p.m.. The man gives the woman a ring as a sign of engagement. The engagement period is usually one year.

During the engagement ceremony, the head of the village and his servants sit in the front row. At this time, the bride-to-be is not allowed to leave the house. The groom-to-be is not allowed to be in the house area until the ceremony is over. Important matters that may be discussed during the engagement are such as the tinunui, or berian in Malay, belanja hangus (literally "burnt expenditure" or non-refundable customary payment to cover the wedding reception), bride's gifts and sogit (fine). The custom of paying the bride price and covering the belanja hangus are part of the main elements of the marriage, and this is discussed by the head of the village, the male's side and the female's side. The "meal" for this discussion is usually a simple one, consisting of a few kirai leaves (tobacco leaf buds) and dried tobacco to be made into cigarettes.

Timpu' matod (Wedding ceremony)

The demand of the female's family for the bride price usually consists of a buffalo, RM1,000 in cash and RM5,000 or above in cash for "kitchen expenses". The mandatory custom of giving land is known as pinolusadan do aluwid, along with approved land tax. The purpose of this gift is the construction of a house for the couple to use when they have children. If the groom does not have land, then giving four binukul (precious ancient items worth around RM1,000), a custom called adat berian, is considered to have fulfilled the specified conditions.

Gayang Tinompusuan

Gayang Tinompusuan or Tenumpasuan, in I.H.N. Evans' book, is a type of sword that is derived from the talwar, a sword originating outside Borneo. The talwar was often traded by traders from Brunei who came to Sabah. The talwar is a sword that originated in the Indian subcontinent, and the art of designing this sword is said to have originated from the Turkic peoples of Central Asia in the 1200s, or 13th century, and began to take its final form around the 1500s. This sword probably first became known in Southeast Asia around the same time, which is in the 1500s, brought by Indian, Arab, Persian and Turkish traders. They exchanged goods with various indigenous tribes, connecting inland regions to the coast through trade relations. Tomé Pires, in his book Suma Oriental que trata do Mar Roxo até aos Chins ("Summa of the East, from the Red Sea up to the Chinese"), written between 1512 and 1515, confirmed that, around the same time, all the trading ports in Southeast Asia had many Persian, Turkish, Arab and Indian traders. Different from other Dusun tribes, the Lotud tribe has replaced the original scabbard to their version that is adorned with intricate floral carving typical of the Lotud tribe. At the end of the scabbard is a carving resembling a scorpion's tail and is adorned with human hair from headhunting activities.

The Lotud Dusun has long been known as a strong tribe. When the Iranun tribe migrated from Mindanao to Sabah in the late 1700s, they established their colony on the coasts of Sabah, with one of their main settlements in the Tuaran area. The Iranun tribe at that time was ruled by "Sultan Si Mirantou". Due to the Iranun doing illegal activities that threatened the safety of the Lotud in their daily lives, the Lotud attacked their settlements, forcing Sultan Si Mirantou and his people to migrate to Tempasuk. The Bajau who came to Tuaran were able to assimilate well with the Lotud, so there were few conflicts between the two. The Lotud also fought many wars against other Dusun tribes such as the Tangara, the Tagahas, the Bundu, the Liwan, the Tobilung and the Rungus. In the wars, the Tinompusuan sword became one of the weapons that were used by the Lotud Dusun in battles against their enemies in ancient times. One of the notes about this weapon is in the book of I.H.N. Evans, which pertains to a headhunting ritual in the Tuaran area, which he called "Domali", a ritual carried out when warriors returned from war or headhunting with having taken an enemy head. Evans explains a part of the ritual as follows:

...The portion of the ceremonies that I witnessed was a procession of seven or eight men walking in single file near a village, while they kept up a continual cry that had a peculiar whistling sound. Each man was wearing one of the brass-hilted swords known as "pedang", but this was sheathed in a scabbard about four feet long, which broadened out to a width of six inches at its farther end. The lower edges of the scabbard were profusely decorated with human hair and its outer face with carved patterns, the whole weapon being called a "tenumpasuan". The leader of the party carried a conch-shell trumpet, on which he blew occasional blasts, and all wore attached to their belts large bunches of silad leaves. One man had a human vertebra to which was tied a triangular plaited ornament of the same kind of leaves. (I.H.N. Evans, 1922:162)

Settlement

Demographics

Population in Tuaran – 1911 statistics

Population			Percentage
Lotud			74.6%
Bajau			25.3%
Iranun			0.1%
Source: Among the Primitive People

Traditional house

The traditional Lotud house in the Heritage Village of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

The traditional Lotud house consists of six parts, namely soliu, soriba, rapuhan, kawas, pantaran and tilud. According to the tribe's belief system, Lotudes are iimitate s in the spirit world.

• Soliu, or the living room, functions as a place for discussion, meetings and traditional ceremonies.
• Soriba, or the space at the bottom, is also used as a bed for guests.
• Rapuhan or ropuhan functions as the kitchen and is divided into salahan and paah for drying meat. The area separated by a wall is where unmarried girls sleep.
• Pantaran is the passageway and holds a water storage container for washing feet and hands before entering the house.
• Tilud is the space for storing rice and agricultural products.

Today, the traditional Lotud house is in the form of traditional architecture that is seen as the most sophisticated achievement in architecture in the entire state of Sabah apart from the Murut longhouse in the Tenom district. The architectural structure of the Lotud house is made of planks (in the old days) that were roughly carved with an adze without the facility of a saw. The entire house does not use a single nail (nails that were almost impossible to obtain in the old days) but use a clever slip joint technique utilising the appropriate structural beams, as well as applying varnish to the wood surface. Each house unit consists of the sleeping area (ko'odopo), the kitchen (ropuhan), the attic (tilud) and the corridor (olot-olot) that separates the front wall of the house from the veranda (soliu).

Language

The Lotud ethnic group has its own, distinct language known as the Suang Lotud language. Suang means "group", while Lotud is the name of the tribe. The official language code for the Lotud Dusun language is dtr.

Standard Dusun Language	Suang Lotud Language	English
Kopisanangan.	Kopiranggayan.	Greetings/Hello.
Pounsikou.	Palad-palad.	Thank you.
Kopisanangan, dokoyu toinsanan.	Hai, jumuyu.	Hello, everyone.
tadau	adaw	day
lindung	bodung	eel