COSTUME AND DANCE

Generally, the trimmings and embroidery on the Kadazan costume are simple and dignified in comparison with other ethnic groups. The men’s jacket and trousers bear some Chinese influence. There are three different styles of blouses for the women. One is a blouse with short sleeves worn by young ladies. Another is a blouse with sleeves worn by middle-aged ladies for daily or casual use. The third one is worn by elderly women and female ritual specialists/priestesses during ceremonies.

Textile

Basic material:  Black commercial fabric: silk or velvet for ceremonial occasions, cotton (vernacular tuit) for daily wear.

Costume of Women

sinuangga'    Blouse with short sleeves and U-neck worn by younger women.  Sober embroidery along the opening for head and arms, and along the seams at the sides and along the middle of the back: red, yellow and cream cotton yarn. Main stitches: sinusuk bulus(chain stitch), tantop (flanel stitch). A flanel stitch technique is also used to make binuunsi', a narrow band of needle weaving in red and yellow looking somewhat like shoelace.

Betawi buttons are looped through a string on the inside. This way, the valuable buttons can be used for various blouses. Betawi buttons used to be fixed all the way up to the neck for ceremonial occasions and half way up from the lower end of the blouse for daily wear. Nowadays, this appears not to be differentiated. The buttons are tied together from the top down to the bottom of the blouse with a cotton thread.

The gold-plated silver Betawi buttons were a status symbol for the Kadazan Penampang. If one could afford a set of thirty buttons (sonsolobuan), one was considered a wealthy person.

sinompukung   

Blouse with 3/4 sleeves. No embroidery. Usually worn over the sinuangga' like a jacket when the wearer goes out of the house, such as to visit a friend.  Nowadays, the sinompukung is often embroidered and worn by older women as a blouse instead of as a jacket as in the olden days.

kihongon    

Blouse with long sleeves, worn by elderly women and female ritual specialists/priestesses or Bobohizan during ceremonies. The embroidery is similar to the one on the sinuangga'.

simis         

"Chemise"—a white cotton underblouse. Sometimes just a white kerchief is tucked into the U-neck.

tapi'       Long cylindrical wrap-skirt, formerly of plain black cotton. Nowadays often enlivened with siring: gold trimming, running over the hips, in front of the skirt, crossed by another band of trimming from the waist down.

Accessories:

himpogot    

Silver "dollar" belt. A maximum of three are used depending on personal wealth, one around the waist and the other two above and below the tangkong.

tangkong    

Hip-belt of approximately 84 embossed brass rings on rattan strings (hindavog). Three tangkong are worn together, alternately strung with red (hindagang), black (initom) and red rattan strings for unmarried girls and all black for married women. The string is always "bare" somewhere at the back to avoid asampon (lack of breathing space). Later in life the tangkong are stretched out for various reasons, one of which is so that it is easier to carry a back basket.

Titimbak         

Hairpin to decorate and fasten the hairbun.

Tiningkokos    

Brass or silver spiral bracelet.

Gohong         

Brass or silver bracelets.

THE DANCE

The Kadazans have also developed their own unique dance and music. Sumazau is the name of the dance between a male and female, performed by couples as well as groups of couples, which is usually accompanied by a symphony of handcrafted bronze gongs that are individually called 'tagung'. The sompoton is another musical instrument. A ceremonial ring of cloth sash is worn by both male and female. The Sumazau and gong accompaniment is typically performed during joyous ceremonies and occasions, the most common of which being wedding feasts.

The Kadazan have a musical heritage consisting of various types of tagung ensembles - ensembles composed of large hanging, suspended or held, bossed/knobbed gongs which act as drone without any accompanying melodic instrument. They also use kulintangan ensembles - ensembles with an horizontal-type melodic instrument.
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PLACE AND FOOD

The Kadazans are an ethnic group indigenous to the state of Sabah in Malaysia. They are found mainly at Penampang on the west coast of Sabah, the surrounding locales, and various locations in the interior. The Kadazan is the term being used referring to Dusun Tangara which most of them lived in town area. The term "Kadazan" first being used during Tun Fuad Stephens era.

THE FOOD
HINAVA AND BAMBANGAN

HINAVA

Hinava is one of the most popular of the traditional dishes of the Kadazan-Dusun, the largest ethnic group in Malaysia. It is a traditional salad of this culture made with pieces of raw fish mixed with lime juice, ginger, red onion, bird’s eye chili, bitter gourd and shallot. Preparation for this dish is fairly simple. The fish will not be cooked with a flame but with the lime juice instead, so all raw materials must be washed beforehand.

                                                                   BAMBANGAN
One of the dishes from Sabah that had the most unique flavour was Bambangan. In fact, this is not necessarily a dish, but a fruit, that grows on the trees in the forest. Bambangan is a type of wild mango with brown skin and a somewhat pungent smell. This is not literally eaten fresh as a fruit but made into a pickle or cooked with fish for a distinctive flavour

KADAZAN FESTIVAL AND WEDDING CEREMONY

The most important festival of the Kadazans is the Kaamatan or harvest festival, where the spirit of the paddy is honoured after a year's harvest. This takes place in May, and the two last days of the month are public holidays throughout Sabah. During the celebration, the most celebrated event is the crowning of the 'Unduk Ngadau', meaning harvest queen in Kadazan. Young women of Kadazan or Dusun descent from each district compete for this title. The beauty pageant is held to commemorate the spirit of 'Huminodun', a mythological character of unparalleled beauty said to have given her life in exchange for a bountiful harvest for her community.

When the family of the daughter shows that they are agreeable to a union, the parents of the young man pay them a second visit and the engagement is arranged. Both parties agree to the bride price, which customarily consists of 15 buffaloes, 10 ancient brass canons, 3 large, Chinese jars and one brass gong. The parents of the future bride will first ask for a higher price, and bargaining is expected. As a matter of fact, if the proposed dowry is accepted without negotiations, the family of the young man might be considered snob; and if there is too much bargaining, the family of the bride-to-be might start worrying about payment! When both parties agree on the nopung, they need to agree on the ‘terms of payment’, and it can be agreed that the dowry is paid in instalments over a certain period of time, or that some of the items are substituted with money. “Traditionally,” Dousia explains, “a buffalo was counted ten Ringgits, and a canon 15 Ringgits. But that was a long time ago,” he muses, “nowadays, ten Ringgits are at least 500! And while jars, buffaloes and canons can be substituted with money, at least two buffaloes must not be converted into cash money; they are needed for the wedding feast,” he added.

HISTORY

The designation is recognised as the result of a resolution of the 5th Kadazan Cultural Association (KCA) Delegates Conference held between 4 and 5 November 1989 (KCA was later renamed to KDCA - Kadazan-Dusun Cultural Association). During the conference, it was decided that this was the best alternative approach to resolve the "Kadazan" or "Dusun" identity crisis that had impeded the growth and development of the Kadazan-Dusun multi-ethnic community socio-culturally, economically and politically—ever since Kadazanism versus Dusunism sentiments were politicised in the early 1960s.

This was the basis that led to the United Sabah Dusun Association (USDA) and the Kadazandusun Cultural Association (KDCA) to resolve that the language to be taught in schools as the Pupils' Own Language (POL) shall be known as the Kadazandusun Language, based mainly on the Bundu-Liwan dialect and to be enriched by the other Kadazandusun dialects. In Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), a Kadazandusun Chair has been established to undertake deeper research into and documentation of the Kadazandusun's heritage and culture. The university also offers the Kadazandusun language as an elective language subject, and it is quite popular among foreign students.