Id Pagandadan

As the Dusun tradition goes, a person who makes the community proud is a celebrity in his own right. We like to fondly talk about the person, even if in actual fact we may never have met him. We'd try very hard to establish some kind of relationship with him, and we'd dig very hard till our mission is accomplished. It's quite amazing what one always discovers- he'd turn out to be a distance relative, a cousin twice removed, a neighbour, a friend of one of the family members, or even somebody that one of one's acquintances knows.

Today I'm basking in this tradition, for I am proud of the person who sings this song 'Id pagandadan' (While Waiting). Fabian William hails from my humble hometown, Ranau. He also happens to be a close friend of one of my brothers (see, I have unearthed one type of relationship :)) and his family is known to my family (another relationship). But best of all, his music is beautiful. I hope he'll produce more such beautiful music in the future. Way to go Fabian!

Small town politeness

My father doesn't read blogs so I have no qualms writing about him :). He is the epitome of polite Dusuns; small town style. He'd greet anyone, known or unknown to him with the typical Dusun pleasantries like 'hombo ngoyon nu?' (where are you going?), and 'hiti ko pama iya ddi' (you are here also). I often find it funny greeting somebody you hardly know in places like hospitals or restaurants, but to my father, it is 'the right thing to do'. "After all", he reasons, "you are sharing the same space as the person, so you can't be just ignoring one another".

Sometimes he goes overboard. Like the day when he was at a restaurant in Kota Kinabalu with two of my brothers. They had breakfast and when they left, my father nicely wished his next- table-neighbours a polite "makanlah kamu" (enjoy your meal) "kami mau pigi bank ini" (we are going to the bank). Needless to say, it was both hilarious and embarrassing to my brothers. They joked about it for many days!

But the worst I've experienced with his over-politeness tendency was when we were attending a session in which my father's land dispute was heard by some officers. While waiting to be called in, he noticed this lone guy sitting opposite him on the bench outside the office. He politely offered his hand to the guy (well, shaking hands is another indication of politeness) and said "hiti ko pama iya ddi" (you are also here) as if he knew him. To my horror, once inside the dispute hearing room, we found out that the guy was the one my father was versing in the case! If I were my father, I'd have been so uncomfortable that I'd have difficulty responding appropriately to the discussion. It's a good thing that my father didn't seem to have been affected.

I suppose his kind of politeness is the simple kind. Words uttered politely and sincerely at that point of time, and even if those words are spoken to the wrong person, he has got nothing to lose.

The wisdom of 'kuroyon poh' (acceptance)

I guess in many culture there is a concept that is equivalent to the Dusun's kuroyon poh (acceptance). Although it sounds lame, I learned yesterday that there is a wisdom in it.

Well, being pick-pocketed isn't something anyone would want to happen to them. But when it happened, it happened. And of all the time, it happened to me on 23.12.2011, two days before christmas, just as I was in the high spirit of completing my christmas shopping. I can blame myself for being careless if I want to actually, because after all the years living in KL, I should know that it is a bad idea to carry so much cash and put all the cards in one place, but I did anyway. So all my cards and christmas shopping money were gone :(.

Somehow, the concept kuroyon poh surfaced and kept me sane. I guess underlying that is the knowing that there are things that you just cannot change, thus the best thing you could do is to accept them. By doing that, you feel better, knowing that there was nothing you could do to change it now. (and in my case, it would be once bitten twice shy!) Of course the situation is not fun at all but at least I'm not making it worst by whining and regretting. And I still intend to have a good christmas despite that. Who knows next year I might get better luck?

Wherever you are, have yourselves a very merry holiday, whether or not you celebrate christmas :)

Ogulian- what goes around...

(http://www.google.com.my/imgres?q=vector+flower&hl=en&sa=X&rlz=1C1_____enMY444MY444&biw=1280&bih=642&tbm=isch&tbnid=fJ0yf9vl5fJx9M:&imgrefurl=http://qvectors.net)

I finally realized the term for the Dusun's poetic justice concept. It's ogulian, in Sabah Malay kebalikan. I have my friend Trixie to thank for reminding me of this when we had one of our long chats last Friday.

This concept is basically synonym with what goes around comes around, or karma, or whatever one calls it. Except that in ogulian , you are only reminded not to do something bad upon others, while in what goes around it works both way- do something bad, you get something bad in return; do something good then good things happen to you.

My late grandfather used to say if you steal somebody's crops, you might get away with it. But the next generations might suffer because of that, because their blood would be tainted with the bad deed. (either from you eating the stolen food, or selling it and buying food with the money you get for that) That's ogulian.

In a way it is a never-ending punishment for something bad you or your family members do/did. I didn't think of asking my grandfather if there are any ways to stop the punishment :) But logically, I think the only antidote to that is doing something good. That way, it keeps the community in a good order.

Birthday Celebration is an innovation

The Dusun people didn't used to celebrate birthdays in the olden days. They only celebrated fullmoon (baby's one month event) or whatever it was called then. By the time I was old enough to be dragged around to attend such a celebration (during school holidays, with my grandmother mostly), I remember people calling it ganap bulan (literally 'full moon'). (I wonder if ganap here is from the Malay word genap (complete) or the Dusun word gonop (also complete). Most probably it's the Malay word, as Dusun words are seldom used without affixation.) Anyway, my late grandmother told me that during her child-bearing time, people contributed goods like rice and chicken for the baby's family- to use in the celebration. By the time it was my fullmoon, people started giving little gifts like baby clothes, talcum powder or even a small amount of money. In my mother in law's village, giving money is called mongumpau (giving ang pau), a word which is uniquely based on the Chinese word ang pau.

Back to birthdays, modern day Dusun celebrate birthdays. We just did on July 6. Hubby turned another year wiser on 5 July 2011. But the family celebration could only be done the next evening, as he had to attend a formal dinner of his office on the 5th. I prepared a simple dinner of sushi, baked vegetables, and roast chicken (Aussie style- and I told myself I could have just run to Coles or IGA or Woolsworth to get a perfectly roasted chicken if we were in Australia :)). But since we are now here in KK, I had to roast the chicken on my own. Maybe it's a good thing because I got to learn a few things about roasting. Turned out to be quite simple. Just brine the chicken for an hour (soak it in salt water mixed with a wedged lemon, orange, thymes, bay leaves, garlic and black pepper), rinse it off and rub it with a mixture of rosemary, thymes and pepper, leave for an hour, then roast for about 70 minutes. The result was quite ok for a first attempt. And we had a platter of mixed-fruits for dessert, along with the yummy yam cake from Strawberry cake house.

Since a birthday is not complete without some gifts, the kids and I picked a turqoise paperweight for him, since it is supposed to be a July birthstone. Actually now that I think about the gift buying episode, it was quite hilarious. The Chinese lady who attended to me in the gemstone shop confidently told me that the thing she was showing me was a ruby paperweight, perfect for a July birthday gift. It would promote good health, wisdom, good relationship, and economic stability to the wearer, she told me further. Later on I found out that it is actually turqouise, but somebody told me that turqoise is still counted as a July birthstone. It doesn't really matter, it's the thought that counts :).

So another year wiser was celebrated, as it is commonly practiced among the modern Dusun. Since it is a good innovation, why not?

Man's Best Friend

When it comes to the Dusun people, it is quite true that dogs are really man's best friends. Go to any Dusun's house at any kampung and you'll definitely see a few dogs outside the house.

This is Gurod, my parents' loyal dog. She's been around for about 7 years. A few times, she had shown some signs of aging and dying, but she has never missed a chance to 'go hiking' (going to the farm up the hill) with any member of the family. She lost the function of a leg as a result of stealing a chicken when she was young and playful. Mom said Bapa hit her so bad with a stick that her leg was broken and eventually became useless. But Bapa denied that vehemently, saying that it was because she was attacked by the other dogs. Both my parents love her like a child though.



This one is Kadiu, which my children have accidently christened 'Cardio' when they were readjusting to the local pronunciation, post-Australia-living. Kadiu is a special female dog that had never given birth to any puppy. She's the most fierce of the pack- the leader of the pack according to Mom. She guards the house jealously, never letting any strangers get in the compound without alerting the household.

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This one here is Panda, named so because of his colors. He used to be so cute and panda-like that he was allowed to be the 'inside-dog'. Later, he opted to be an 'outside-dog' like the rest of the dogs. He's been much more lively ever since, though his good look had vanished because of his fondness of playing with dirts.



And these three little puppies here didn't get the chance to enjoy life. They didn't even get names that stuck. (In my parents' household, there is this tradition that a puppy will be called a few names until one of the names stuck). We started calling them 'the three princes-father unknown' but they died barely a month after they were born. RIP triplets.



Finally, we have Tuti, the irresponsible mother of the triplets. She doesn't have a single motherly bone in her body. All she knows is to get pregnant, give birth and leave the puppies to tend to themselves. It's no wonder none of them lived long so far.



Actually there are more dogs in my parents' place but these are all the pictures I have. They keep adopting, tirelessly tending to these dogs- feeding them and taking them to the vets. In return, they get loyal guards, and companions to go to the farms. "At least," Mom said, "I never have to worry about stepping on a snake in the bushes. The dogs take care of that for me".

tooth-fairy?

My little boy lost another milk-tooth last night. As he was brushing his teeth before bedtime, he realized that it was wobbly. He panicked a bit, because his Dad was not around to pull out the tooth for him. I offered to do it for him even though playing dentist is one of the tasks I dread the most. (After all these years, I still shiver at the sight of blood!) He refused at first, determined to do it on his own, and because "Dad has always been the one who did it" (reads: I don't trust mom to do it).

After trying a few techniques for about 20 minutes, he gave up and asked me to try. I asked him to lie on his bed, open his mouth wide and think tooth-fairy. He lightened up a bit...but because he kept asking questions like "what colour is the tooth-fairy?" ("colourful", I said) and "what's its name?" (and I said "Casey" because that was the first thing that came to mind). I sang to him a bit. A silly made-up song about a boy who was losing his tooth and how he was rewarded by the tooth-fairy because he was so brave. Then two tugs, and off came the tooth. He cried a bit, but soon was cheered up with the thought that the tooth-fairy would come that night and gave him some money.

"Did the tooth-fairy come when you were little?", his question caught me off-guard. "Well,...yeah". He still wasn't happy with my answer. "Did you put your teeth under the pillow?". "No, no...back then we had to put our teeth at the ropuhan", I quickly said. "Huh, what's that?"...and I went on explaining the ritual of losing a tooth when I was little. True enough, my siblings and I were asked to bury our teeth on the ropuhan, the hearth that was made of soil. Later when we didn't have one available anymore, we were asked to just bury them on the ground,...or else, the new teeth would not grow, supposedly.

Hmm...I wonder how did the tooth-fairy culture get into our household? I can't quite remember anymore but it must have started with the eldest child's insistence (and she is one very strong character), having gotten her input from books and friends. Not that I mind at all. It is actually quite fun, and motivational. After all, we live in a world of cultural-fusion here in Sabah. I guess I'll just have to twist it a bit, in order to preserve the Dusun culture. Maybe get the kids to bury their teeth on the ground instead of put them under the pillows. Who knows, the tooth-fairy might actually reward them extra?

Salt and 'I'm sorry'

The Dusuns do not generally say 'I'm sorry' for their wrongdoings especially among family members. There is the word siou (that means 'sorry') but it is mostly used for politeness purpose. One uses it in such a situation as when one accidentally bumps into a person, for instance- sort of like 'excuse me'. But when the wrong deed is graver, i.e involving deep emotion, one just shows that he is sorry by actions.

Offering a pinch of salt and some rice grains to the person that one has offended is one of the ways of doing it. It is not practiced in all communities anymore, but it is still done nevertheless. My good friend's community still does it. She was giving an example of how the other day she offered her mom a pinch of salt for having lost her temper and hurt the mom's feeling. It's like saying "I'm sorry, I have hurt you". The gesture was well received, and the awkward situation they had was resolved.

Now I don't remember if any of my family members ever did practice this. But it is very practical, I think, especially that the Dusun people are not very good at communicating the soft side of their emotions. Would be good if I could get started with this tradition within my own family...

Mitoruh- peace making

At my age I should have heard about this long time ago...but because of ignorance, mostly, I've only got to know this recently. Thankfully, a colleague who's also a neighbour at the office is investigating a lot of things with regard to the Dusun communities, and so I learn a lot from him.

Mitoruh- is a ceremony to indicate peace-making between two parties. Most people think that it only involves two warring parties during the head hunting time, about 100 years ago. In which case, two parties who had had enough of being enemies would call a truce. They would swear over some kind of animal or human sacrifice that they would no longer be enemies. Some people insist that the sacrifice must be a buffalo, and that later the buffalo meat have to be eaten, although my friend has evidence that there were cases where the sacrifice was human, obviously cannot be eaten after.

The most interesting story of mitoruh I heard was between human and rogon "jinn". A (another) friend told me that when she was 12, her Chinese grandmother bought a plot of land with the intention of farming. For some reason, nothing seemed to grow on the land. Later, the friend's Dusun grandmother saw that the reason for that was because the rogon refused to 'let go'. The only way to make the rogon relent was to have a mitoruh ceremony. They had the ceremony on that plot of land, attended by my friend's family members of all Chinese, Dusun and Bajau sides. A buffalo was slaughtered, the blood sprinkled all over the land...and then it was left on the land. Apparently, a buffalo offered to a non-human party can't be eaten for it would be 'tasteless'.

So that is mitoruh to the Dusun people...

Kitimbok Tinggur Bulawan

Hubby accidently came across this song in youtube today. As I have listened to it a few times on air, I asked him to look for the lyric and the singer for me. The lyric, to someone who had had the chance of knowing a very Dusun grandmother and her cohort, is very beautiful. It revolves around the Dusun's olden day rice-planting culture- about a man who stands on a log, and from a distance sees his sweetheart standing out from the crowd because of the timbok tinggur bulawan (Malay- Cucuk Sanggul "traditional hairpin") that she wears. I guess in the olden days that's how they identified 'the one'. Now I've never actually known what 'tinggur bulawan' means, except that it means a special type of hairpin that once upon a time was precious to a Dusun woman.



When I listened to the song further, I found that not only the lyric praises the beauty of a woman, but it also relates how the sunlight helps the rice to grow well, and the singer's plea for the rice to produce a bounty harvest because rice is his (the people's) source of strength. My grandmother and her friends used to say riddles and traditional poems using the same kind of wordings whenever they were having a mitatabang (helping each other in the farm) session.

Originally I thought the beautiful voice belonged to a lady, but actually it belonged to a boy. As hubby and I read the comments left by viewers of the song, we realized that the singer lost his life to thalassemia last year. May his soul rest in peace. He might no longer be here in this world, but he left a beautiful legacy to the Dusuns. Sakril Sidik, rest in peace.

sogit- it's actually forgiveness

Baby dumping cases in Malaysia are on the rise again...my friend just commented that the society contributes to the problem- for being judgemental. She has a point. Instead of helping the young, lost and scared mothers, the society at large scorns, chastises and labels them 'sinful'.

Anyway, the friend said, among the indigenous society in Sabah, for example Dusun, you hardly ever hear of this phenomenon. An animated discussion of this leads us to the conclusion that sogit must be playing a role in preventing baby dumpings.

In the Dusun society, having babies out of wedlocks is wrong, and in the olden days could get a severe punishment of the mother being sent to the jungle to give birth alone. But if the mother returned to the village safely, she would only be asked to pay a sogit (normally in the form of an animal to be slaughtered, cooked and eaten by the villagers) to the villagers to appease the spirits, and to 'cool' the surrounding, and she would be accepted as one of them again.

The sogit practice continues on even now. The mothers are not severely punished anymore though. The mother is the guilty party until the sogit has been paid. While she is 'guilty', the villagers won't have any qualms of gossiping about her bad conducts. Once she has paid the sogit, the talks would gradually subside. There seems to be an unspoken consensus among the villagers to 'forgive and forget' the past 'sin'. (And that could be because most people believe that if you talk about something that has been settled, the 'heat' will go to you and you'll be the one getting the bad consequences.) But whatever the real reason is, sogit works to prevent further crime like baby dumping to be committed. In a way, it is forgiveness...

The kind-hearted sellers

If you go to any tamu (open market), you'd see all kind of sellers selling their products, ranging from fresh produce like vegies and fruits, to clothes and plasticwares. In Sabah, the vendors at most tamus are generally the same ones. The just move around from town to town according to the days that the town has set for its tamu. In Telipok, for instance, the tamu is on Thursday. In Ranau, it is on the 1st of every month. If one is a regular tamu-goer, chances are, one will get to know the vendors well. I know my mom used to be one of those people.

You could bargain in tamu. It's almost like a game, bargaining the price of a product with the seller. Well I know my mom and her younger sister, my youngest aunt, love to do that, to the extent of making me feel uncomfortable when I'm with them!

Anyway, there are a group of sellers in tamus that to me, are overly kind-hearted. Since I grow up going to a tamu with many Dusun sellers, my experience is mostly with the Dusun kind-hearted sellers. These are normally the aki (grandfather) and odu (grandmother) from kampungs who come all the way to the tamu to sell their farm produce. They'd sell you their things at very low prices, often adding a few more extras on your buys. And they would look at you apologisingly when they say the price, as if they are causing you a lot of trouble by naming such price.

I make it a point to try to discourage them from reducing their prices when I'm buying from them. I know it might be fun to bargain, but these elderly folks are often those in need of money. But because they are too 'nice' to others, they would never try to take advantage by setting a high price on their products. Somehow, I have a soft spot for elderly sellers...

Local Wisdom- how could I not believe this?

I'm still obsessed about the Dusuns' death rituals. One of my personal favourite is the rite of potongkiad "separation". The old folks say that the dead must be properly separated from their living relatives, or else someone will get sick, for the livings and the deads cannot mix. Or, if no one got sick, the dead won't feel that they have died and will continue to linger on. Will they?

Well this is another local wisdom that has been practised from generation to generation. To let go of yours when it is time to let go. The modern Dusuns sometimes forget to do this rite (and it is as simple as saying a few parting words), thinking that religion will take care of everything.

A few days ago my parents tried to dismantle my late grandfather's old hut. It was behind his usual place when he was alive. The hut was indeed special- he used it to store his favourite stuffs (mostly junks :-)) like the tools he used to momogorib "getting coconut sap" for bahar "a special drink that is believed to be medicinal, although often alcoholic". My dad used a chainsaw to cut off the four poles of the hut. He thought the hut would crumble and collapse after that but it didn't happen. They shook the hut hard, and still nothing happened. Finally an elderly neighbour came and begged my late grandfather to let go of it. Inspired by that, my mom too asked him to stop holding the hut. Guess what? Moments after that, the hut dismantled easily.

Now what would one call this? Coincidence? Not me. I'd call that the work of local wisdom. For all I know, because my family members do not practice much of the old traditions anymore, the soul of my late grandfather might still be lingering around. Maybe waiting for proper parting words from everyone...or because he just likes doing that. Remembering that he used to be a person that is most cheerful and humorous when he was alive, I'd say his soul must have chosen to linger around :-). He sure enjoys it.

'Djin' on my father's orchard

One of the best things about going back to kampung is hearing stories from the folks. These stories vary in nature-sad, happy, humourous depending on the storyteller's mood. The story of this week is about how my father's orchard has got a djin residing on it. Of course no one in my family knew about it until a fruit buyer came all the way from Semporna to Ranau (about 5 hours drive away) to buy langsats from my father last fruit season.

The person said that something followed him back to his place. Upon consulting a knowledgeable man, he was told that it was a djin from the orchard. A good one. The djin supposedly stays on the land and looks after the land. His dwelling place? The bamboo plants that are abundant there.

Now that is something interesting to know. Most especially when the land was recently trespassed on (rather, somebody decided to reroute the river from being on the land's boundary to exactly in the middle of the land) and when my father brought the case to the court, he won the case before the trial. My folks, being the believers that they are, naturally credited the victory to God with...maybe...some help from the djin, as in Dusun, we have supernatural creatures of equal nature, the rogons. Rogons could be bad or good, depending on how you deal with them. Respect them, and they will do you favours. Offend them and they'll cause you harm. In this era of modern religions, some people reject them totally, while some accomodate them and accept their role as 'the helper', maybe just like angels or slightly of lower level.

No matter what, the story is indeed enlightening. I'm impressed to know that my father's land has a wonderful resident of different makeup then us :-)

rice-wine making revisited

There's so much rice at home now that I feel guilty about it. Mom keeps sending us more. Not knowing what to do about it, I finally forced myself to give rice-wine making a go again. I cajoled two of my brothers to join in my 'project' and to my delight, they agreed without much convincing.

To start off, I had to call my mom for advice on the dos and donts. It has been years since my last go on it and I didn't want to go wrong. Mom said I have to try making just a few cups first to see if my sasadan "rice sprinkled with yeast" still makes good rice wine. I have to cook some rice, pound some yeast (home made by mom naturally), let the rice cool, sprinkle yeast on it then put it in an airtight container. To make sure it is really airtight, I should tighten the lid with plastic food wrap.

So I cooked 10 cups of rice to be our trial. Since there are some red rice that my kids do not really favour, I decided to use them for variety. I scrubbed my lazy-susan clean and scooped out the rice to cool. Then I divided it into three portions; the largest one for my youngest brother to sasad "sprinkle with yeast", the medium one for me and the smallest one for my other brother. The reasoning? Well, this youngest brother of mine often produces tasty rice wine. Mine is towards bitter tasting but always with a lot of wine, and the other brother hardly ever made any. We are not allowed to do the yeast sprinkling at the same time for fear of spoiling the product. After one portion is done, it had to be put in the container, before continuing with the next portion. According to the Dusun's belief, different palms that touch the yeast produce rice-wine of different tastes.

There, we have done it. Two weeks later we would know the result of our rice-wine making attempt. Hoping that I still have the flair for that!

parai wagu "new rice"

The Dusuns have all kind of sacred beliefs when it comes to food especially rice. My mom sent us some parai wagu last weekend, having finally had the time to have some husked. She has started harvesting a month ago but as usual never had the time to enjoy her early harvest.

(Parai wagu smells really good and it is even more so for some types of rice. The texture is also different, more glutinous when cooked.)

The thing is, when a Dusun gives you some parai wagu, you are supposed to ask whether the harvest owner has already started cooking from that batch of harvest first. If not, you are supposed to wait until they have, before you can cook the rice yourself. Since I kept forgetting to call my mom to ask whether she has done that, I had to wait a few days before I could finally make sumptous porridge this morning. Normally after two days the harvest owner would have cooked from it. Unlike my mom-in-law who, everytime when giving us parai wagu, always tells us when can we start cooking the rice, my mom normally just assumes that we know when...

Failure to observe the belief will bring harms to the harvest owner. No one I know has ever experienced it, but supposedly it will cause significant reduction on the next cycle of harvest :-)

Harvest Season

At my area in Ranau, the Dusuns are now busy harvesting their crops. The season started some time at the end of February and will come to its end by May. Among the various Dusun localities in Sabah, there are various harvesting times. My area is one of those that ends the harvest time just in time to celebrate the kaamatan, the celebration of harvest; the thanksgiving to the rice spirit, Bambarayon.

My parents still observe the harvest ritual, sumalud, albeit a modern version of it. In the olden days the crop owner(s) would have brought a chicken to the rice-field, chanted some thanksgiving and asking for a bounty harvest words, then took the chicken home, slaughtered it and feasted on it. Nowadays, they simply go to the rice-field, pray that the harvest season will be smooth and the crops bountiful, and have some kind of special dinner with family members at home.

At times I long to go to the rice-field, wearing a wide-brim hat (used to be the traditional sirung "cone-shape big hat"), long-sleeve shirt and boots for protection, and using langgaman "a special hand knife to harvest the rice stalk", cutting the rice stalks to fill my wakid "large basket". Maybe it's time that I go back and do that.

No "no"?

That's the Dusun society in general. You are discouraged to say "no". Maybe because the community is very close-knit. Saying no equates to refusing to lend a hand. Which is against the 'mogitatabang' (helping each other) spirit. Well at least that's how it was in the olden days. Or maybe because you are considered hurting other's feelings if you say no. The Dusuns do not like that...

Anyway, the new era demands you to be more assertive. And that includes being able to say "no". That is one of the hardest thing to learn. Somebody mentioned his struggle with learning to say 'no' the other day. He said it took him years to do that. But thankfully after he did it once, it got easier.

Hmm, same here actually. But for me that was 14 years ago, thankfully. And I didn't even realise that that is a Dusun trait, a remnant from the olden society. My supervisor said she had a problem with my work performance i.e I wasn't assertive. She asked me to work on that because the way she saw it, people were taking advantage of me. My, that was a shock to me. Didn't realise that non-assertiveness is a problem at the workplace. So I learnt, and changed, and said 'no', firstly with this most uncomfortable feeling like you are comitting a crime. I'm glad those were the days. Nowadays I can say 'no' when I have to. At least saying it has now become a choice, not something I have to do to please others.

The conversation on this topic makes me think that the Dusun people at large are still uncomfortable saying 'no'. I wonder if that would change soon or remain so for a long time yet...

No open dispute

In the Dusun society, open dispute is discouraged. People are supposed to be 'all smiles and no sour faces', something really hard to practice in this era. I, for example, have had to breach the Dusun's code of politeness when I had to write about my bitter experience dealing with a shipping company (in my other blog 'Blogging Life'). From a mere expression of dissapointment, it became a an open dispute when, instead of admitting their faults, the shipping company rep accused my husband of spreading lies and slandering them in the comment section of my blog. Worse, they sent an email to the Malaysian yahoo group, (to whom, earlier my husband shared our bitter experience with in an email, cc-ed to the company of course), deleting my husband from the mailing list but forgetting to delete me, telling everyone that what my husband said were all lies, and slander. That, of course led to an open dispute that this Dusun lady couldn't avoid. (if you are interested to know the story, do read my entry 'the shipment story' in Blogging Life).

Dispute is not good. Being Dusun, I naturally do not feel good about having to be in one. But life demands that we fight for justice. And I feel that that is what I'm doing.

In the Dusun society, I think the way we handle dispute is not very good. We talk about the people that we are having problems with to others, but in front of them, we are expected to put on a smiley face. From another perspective, that is considered 'badmouthing others'. Although considering the Dusun culture, I can't really blame the society for keeping on with the tradition. I remember once someone I know had to face an opponent over a major land dispute in a government office. The person could still shake hand with the opponent and said "hiti ko pama iya ddi" ("you are also here"), a polite greeting in Dusun :-). But most Dusuns are learning to cope with dispute more professionally now, myself included. It is better to bring an issue out in the open and find a settlement that satisfies oneself, rather than keeping it behind and talk bad about it to others.

It's hard on this Dusun lady here, but coping :)

Goroi

Somebody mentioned a very interesting piece of information about the Dusun's 'goroi'(large jar) today. She said that in one of the Dusun villages she visited, very old gorois are used as rice-wine containers, when once upon a time they were used for burial purposes. (Goroi, by the way is just one of the many types of jar that the Dusun people kept. I don't really know how many types are there, but the common ones are called the 'kakanan' (tajau in Malay). These are used for keeping rice wine).

Goroi, on the other hand, refers to the large type. Very large indeed that an adult body can be fitted in one(sitting down, naturally). Instead of coffins, gorois were what used to keep the deads then. They would be buried somewhere near the house of the family, as there were no burial plots back then.

This is where my knowledge of this stop. I wonder what would happen to the buried gorois. Perhaps they would remain buried until somebody from the next generations stumbled upon them and decided to keep them again (??).

Anyhow, the thought that somebody is keeping rice-wine in burial gorois (no matter that it was done long time ago), is a bit distasteful. I just hope it's not one of my foreparents that were kept in whatever gorois they now use for rice-wine making...