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Rungus Customary Dance and Music

When we got back to Bavanggazo (which means Big River in Rungus language), guests had arrived and we were told that there was to be dinner and a cultural performance that evening. The folks at the longhouse hurried off to prepare for their performance. After dinner, the women and men dressed in their traditional wear, performed the mongigol samundai ritual dance. The women resplendent in their beaded wear and headwear moved in slow short steps, behind the man who had his arms outstretched. The traditional instruments playing in the background accompanies their movement.

As we settled down after the performance, one of the older ladies picked up her nose flute and started playing a soothing tune. She was then accompanied by one of Adrian’s uncles who played a 2 string lute called the timpalan. The duo played a quiet tune and when they ended she explained why her interest in the instrument. In the old days, playing musical instruments was one of the ways to communicate especially when wooing girls. The boy would play a tune not unlike the one we listened to earlier and the girl would reply with her nose flute to agree to meet. These instruments are only now known to the older generation and will die out with them eventually as none of the younger generation has interest in carrying on the traditions.

Rungus Traditional Wear

The next day as we were just sitting around chatting, I noticed the kapok or cotton tree nearby. One of the women pointed out that they still use the cotton from these trees to spun cotton threads for their traditional wear.

There were a few pieces of the Tapi', a Tube-skirt falling below the knees and normally worn during festival or ceremonies. The floating weft motifs in the horizontal bands comprise of different motifs such as the fern, vegetable seeds, a drunken woman and a pattern derived from the body of the black bird.

This skirt takes roughly 1 month to produce from preparing the raw cotton for spinning into threads and dyeing to weaving. It costs some RM200/- . The tight bodice is called the Banat and the cloth is also woven from raw cotton collected from trees around the village.

The men wear  the adu’; a Long-sleeved handwoven shirt with geometric motifs with the Soval sarabulu’;  Baggy trousers with wide waistline and rinangkit decorated seams. Plain trousers, without rinangkit are called masap or souval tanaru'. A waitband called Hokos is made of red,green and yellow  cotton strips sewn together. The different tribes in old days also traded wares amongst each other. Perhaps the presence of other tribal influence in the Rungus traditional attire could be attributed to this. For example, the Sigal a headdress worn by the Rungus men are produced by the Binadan women. The Mogah or the sarong made from mogah cloth are woven by Iranun weavers. This particular piece is worn during the Mogigal ritual dance.

The Rungus people must be one of the friendliest people around. They are a gem and being a city girl, it is such a refreshing outlook of having immediate friends without having to make a lot of effort. Although Bavanggazo is only a showcase of a Rungus longhouse but the hospitality and warmth of Angkung’s family and relatives are very real indeed. I felt completely at ease and they shared their stories, their food and their laughter with me without inhibitions. Before leaving, i was given a local puzzle as a parting gift from the family which was totally unexpected. The hand puzzle is a tradition used whereby the suitor for a girl's hand in marriage must solve within the length of time the future father-in-law takes to smoke his cigarrette. If the suitor succeeds in solving the puzzle, he gets to marry the girl. These puzzles called inuogdazang were used to test the suitor's problem solving skills and success correlated with his future capabilities in bringing up a family well enough to please the father-in-law.

Bavanggazo is a show house but there is life here and there is livelihood and there is heart. The ladies and men who have taken to living and working at Bavanggazo treat this their home and home is where the heart is…

 

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