Bunsuton: a Dusun myth

Last night I went to see the Joseph Ashton's family circus with the family. Since it was my first time seeing a real circus performing, I was in awe of the many acts they performed, esp the acrobatic feats.The 7th generation of Ashtons lives up to their reputation. I am indeed impressed.

Anyway, having been brought up with the Dusun tale 'bunsuton', I cringed a bit to watch the cute dogs performing. One of them, obviously a girl wore a cute pink mini-skirt, and they all did amazing tricks.


Back to bunsuton- in the Dusun folklore, there is this story about a community who made a dog and a cat dance together. While the two poor creatures were dancing, the members of the community supposedly laughed their hearts out at that. A young bride from the community who was fetching water met a creature with horns as sharp as axe, who asked her to ask the people to stop their silly entertainment, or else the creature would cause them harms. The bride did as she was asked but no one listened to her. The creature then ordered her to run away from the place with her husband, and using its sharp horns, caused some kind of landslide and flood, and killed all the people who made fun of the animals.

Of course this is merely a myth, but it is so ingrained in me that I had to hold myself from laughing out loud to see the cute tricks of the dogs :-)

I guess what this really tells is that we have to respect animals. I can appreciate the moral of the story though I think the punishment that the people received was a bit too harsh :-)