02 September 2009

Dusun tatoos?

I believe no one would ever associate tatoos with Dusuns nowadays. I, for one, has never seen any Dusun with a Dusun made tatoo since my late paternal grandfather who tattoed his name on his arm. (He died at 102 in 1993). I never thought much of his tatoo then because unlike our Iban neighbours in Sarawak, his looked too simple. Just a spelling of his name, no patterns whatsoever.

It came as a surprise when somebody emailed me this picture:


Apparently in the 1900s, tatooing was quite a common practice among the Dusuns. And this particular one is of a man in Kundasang/Bundu Tuhan area, my hometown. How exciting!

4 comments:

Wel^Beiolman said...

I wanna do tattoo..tribal tattoo..huhu..tapi selalu saja lupa bawa tu design balik sabah..here mahal gila...huhu..it will cost me RM500-800

Verone said...

Go to sarawak and get an Iban one :-) They are fantastic!

Unknown said...

May I have a source for that Dusun BunduTuhan tattoo ? My grandmother was from Kampung Imbaan at Bundu Tuhan. Kindly email me at kleewyick@gmail.com

Thanks!

WaM said...

I believe that marks of tattoo on the body represent numbers of enemy heads.