What a song does (re: "Koposionku")

Sometimes when you hear a certain song, you feel that it penetrates deep into your soul. Even if you don't understand the language of the song, it still touches your heart deeply. And when you understand the lyrics, the song is even more meaningful.

Fabian William's "Koposionku" is one such song. I don't speak music, but I feel that the music and lyrics of this song match very well. (And yes, I know this is the third entry on Fabian William that I've written but I just can't help it :). As my students put it, we have caught the Fabian Virus.) But seriously, "Koposionku" communicates pain and strength beautifully using gripping metaphors. By now, after listening to Fabian's 10 songs over and over again, I've started to see metaphors as his trademark. His, are uniquely Dusun, that can only be fully appreciated if you know the Dusun culture well. Here's my attempt to understand "Koposionku" (My apologies that my translation doesn't do justice to the beauty of his expression in Dusun):

Koposionku

Nokito, naratu om nababak
iso ginawo nosungkadan
nosindualan, natagakan
kagarasan di naramit
(What is seen is a heart: fallen, broken, pierced. Lost the strength it received)

Om au tumonob ilo tadau
nung au tumalib kotuongon
ilo gompoton au rumikot
nung gompion ginawo di nosuhat
(and the sun doesn't set, if the darkness doesn't pass, what is desired won't come, if [you] hold on to your broken heart]

kibito nimpusadan
suloko liud tumuka
igitai gamut kotumbayaan
om au noh orulun kumaa id sawa
[don't reject the tears [there's no exact translation for 'nimpusadan'], walk through the flood while holding on to [your] faith, so that [you] won't get washed away downstream]

Oposik, tumungag om mingkakat
mamanau miagal dilo wokon
kosindualan, koinggoritan
uludon, impohon tumindal
[[then you'd be] awake, get up and stand, walk like others do [with pride]. The pain, the suffering, arrange them and step on them to resurface [overcome your pain])

This song is also a bonus to my Kadazandusun class this semester. The verbs exemplify events that one doesn't have control over (accidental action- as we call it in my classroom). What better way to learn than through songs, I'd say.

Tanak Kampung

Remember the'carrot' and 'stick' thingy that people use to refer to motivation? Well, I learnt yesterday that 'the carrot' comes in many forms. One of them is this song Tanak kampung by Jimmy palikat:



The year 2 son refused to study for his test. I've tried bribing him with money the day before but it didn't work. Then I heard him trying really hard to sing this song- in Dusun. No doubt, to impress some friends in school. So I asked him whether he would like to revise his three subjects in exchanged of a printout of the song lyrics- in Dusun.

Wow, it worked like magic. He revised all three subjects excitedly, with hardly any complain (except for the sentence "Ayah membeli___ buah durian di pasar" to which he grudgingly said, "I knowlah the penjodoh bilangan is sebiji, but why do you need to put buah durian when you already know that durian is a fruit?).

So we got his lyrics printed out nicely...and we ended up the happy mom and son :)

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.