3631 The is the band of the traditional dancers on the pier. At the right you can see the covered pot style bells. The drum is at the far end. Hanging from the pole on the left are three pot style and three tub style bells.
3637 Diana in front of the former Sabah Foundation. You can see that it leans to the right from this perspective and that’s after several years of work to straighten it.
3656 The Kota Kinabalu City Mosque, right on the bay.
3603 The first dance at the Monsopiad Cultural Village. The girls are so cute.
3722 This is the dress used in the third dance. I had such a hard time describing the headdress I thought I show you a picture. I told you the girls were cute!
11-5-2013 Supplemental Note: I’m a bit behind in my journal after two very busy days on Borneo and two days in a row in Manila. Our call at Yap Island has been cancelled because, once again, we are playing dodge the typhoon. A strong typhoon has formed just south of Yap and is headed directly for it. It’s supposed to be a category 4 (same strength as Hurricane Sandy) by the time it scores a direct hit on Yap and strengthen to a category 5, Super Typhoon, after leaving there. It’s proposed track is almost directly along the proposed course we would sail between Manila and Yap. Sailing this ship through a Cat 5 Typhoon is not really a good idea so we are sailing further west to pass on that side of the storm. Any swell and waves we get from it will be on our stern and moving with us so unless it gets really bad we won’t really feel it at all. Even if we did that when we arrived at Yap we’d find an island in disarray with disrupted services and blocked roads so the decision to divert is a wise one on both the safety and tourism levels. Unfortunately there’s no real alternative port nearby so we get an extra day at sea on the way to Rabaul. Since we already had three scheduled sea days before Yap and two after it, when you add in the day in Yap that’s 6 straight days at sea. I’m just as happy with that but it would have been nice to visit Yap.
Nov 1 – Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Malaysia is a new country for us so you’ll have to overlook my inclusion of some historical information. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy in Southeast Asia. It has thirteen states, three territories and a total area of 127,350 square miles. The South China Sea separates its two regions, the mainland Malaysia Peninsula and the place we’re stopping that shares the island of Borneo, which it shares with Indonesia and Brunei. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur. The population is 28 million, of which about 6 million live on Borneo.
The British Empire established the Straits Settlements here and eventually took control of the entire Malay Kingdom. The part of Malaysia on the mainland formed the Malayan Union in 1946 and became the Federation of Malaya in 1948. After gaining independence in 1957, it joined with Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore in 1963, and the new country was called Malaysia. In 1965, Singapore was expelled or withdrew from the federation, depending on whether a Malaysian or Singaporean is telling the story. . I believe the Singaporeans, since they were not mostly Islamic, didn’t like the way things were headed and since they had the resources go it alone, they decided to disassociate themselves from Malaysia. Singapore is more Chinese than Malay in my view. They like to say that Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia. On the alternative, one could observe that ‘one of the best economic records in Asia’ could be viewed as damning with faint praise because to be honest most economic records in Asia are not very good. If you take out Hong Kong, Brunei and Singapore, things are very bleak in this area. Sure China has a growing economy but most of the people there still life in substandard conditions by Western standards. If the US economy ever tanks it will take China down with it overnight. That’s just one of the reasons we don’t really have to worry that the Chinese will pull their money out of our financial system. At least in the foreseeable future.
The problem for Singapore was that the constitution declares Islam the state religion and while currently protecting freedom of religion we’ve seen how that can go when the radicals get into power.
The area that is now Sabah, where we’re visiting, came under British control as North Borneo when both the Sultan of Brunei and the Sultan of Sulu transferred their respective territorial rights of ownership, between 1877 and 1878. In 1842, Sarawak was ceded by the Sultan of Brunei to James Brooke, whose successors ruled as the White Rajahs over an independent kingdom until 1946, when it became a Crown colony.
During WWII, the Japanese army invaded and occupied Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore for over three years. During this time, ethnic tensions were raised and nationalism grew. Popular support for independence increased after Malaya was reconquered by Allied Forces. Post-war British plans to unite the administration of Malaya under a single crown colony called the Malayan Union met with strong opposition from the Malays, who opposed the weakening of the Malay rulers and the granting of citizenship to the ethnic Chinese (One more reason Singapore was not happy being Malaysian). To be honest the communists had an insurgency here until 1960 and they were mostly Chinese.
Kota (Kota=City) Kinabalu is named after Mount Kinabalu, which is situated about 30 miles east-northeast of the city. Kinabalu is derived from the name Aki Nabalu meaning the "revered place of the dead." Aki means "ancestors" or "grandfather", and Nabalu is a name for the mountain in the Dusun language. Kota Kinabalu’s population of 452,058
In the late 1800s, the British North Borneo Company (BNBC) began to establish colonies throughout North Borneo. They had two choices for workers, pirates or headhunters. Neither was a particularly viable option so they imported Indians and Chinese for that purpose. After their settlement was destroyed several times by locals they moved it to the current site of Kota Kinabalu as it had a good natural harbor. This new administrative center was renamed Jesselton after Sir Charles Jessel, then Vice Chairman of colonial company.
Eventually, Jesselton became a major trading post of North Borneo, dealing in rubber, rattan, honey, and wax. There were frequent uprisings during those times and the British instituted anti-piracy programs in the area
Level ground is rare in the city and there is a strict limit to the height of buildings as the airport is only 4 miles away and the city is directly in the approach to the runways. Most of the business district is built on land reclaimed from the sea. The people of Kota Kinabalu mainly speak Malay, but with a distinct Sabahan accent.
We arrived in a cloudy but clearing day. There was a traditional dance group with band waiting for us on the pier. They didn’t play for our arrival but as soon as the ship was cleared and passengers started leaving the ship, they jumped into action.
The instruments they are playing are the same as those used in Brunei. I’m almost sure that all the indigenous peoples on the Island of Borneo use them. They have non-percussion instruments but I’ve never seen them used in music that accompanies dancing. The have those cast covered pot looking bells that set in a wooden frame to suspend them off the ground. They come in a set of eight so they can play a whole octave. They have a larger set of bells that look like washtubs that hang from a tall frame so they can be played standing up and so the larger ones to touch the ground. Accompanying all this is a drum about the size of a marching band’s tom-tom.
The women’s dresses make extensive use of beading in their headbands, necklaces, belts and as decorations on their dresses. The men wear a very narrow poncho like garment that is about as wide as their shoulders and a long loincloth that is only at the front and back. They currently wear very short shorts under that but that’s a concession to current modesty standards. The unique part of the men’s apparel is the headdress that includes some long, all are at least 3 feet long, some longer, feathers that extend upward from the front half of their hats. The ladies sometimes wear feathers at the back of their beaded headbands. The Dayak in Brunei wear the same headgear.
The tour we’re on today was provided by our travel agent, Cruise specialists, a nice perquisite. Our first stop of the day was at one of the few buildings anywhere that has a single column design. What that means is that it has a single column up the center of the building. Steel girders extend from the top of this column and the building is suspended on steel rods that extend downward from these girders. Sounds a bit odd and if that’s what you thought you’d be correct. Previously it was the headquarters of the Sabah Foundation and its chief executive had a large office on the top floor, great view and lots of prestige. However, an earthquake shook the building so badly that it wound up tilted. The executive refused to go back into his office and had a new building built for the foundation.
The building was closed for years while they brought in people to straighten it up again. It is back in use again as a research library but it is still not vertical. They call it the Leaning Tower of Sabah. I took a picture of Diana in front of it and you can see the tilt very clearly. Not quite the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but then it’s not hundreds of years old yet. Our bus parked at the end of the entrance boulevard so we could get some pictures of the building. The city has placed two orangutan statues, one male and one female, in the little plaza there. They have a place for you to put your head through and have a picture taken. Diana loves those things so a picture had to be taken.
Our next stop was at the Kota Kinabalu Mosque. It’s set in an ocean estuary but protected by sea walls from any wave action. The still water provided a nice reflection. The building was white, pale pink and pale yellow with blue domes. The largest dome has a pattern made with gold tiles. The four minarets are in yellow.
From the mosque, we drove about 8 miles out of town to the Monsopiad Cultural Village. The center is named after a warrior of the Kadazan people. He was a renowned fighter and was reputed to fight only the best warriors of the surrounding tribes. Instead of notches on their pistol grips, these warriors collected the skulls of their defeated foes. These headhunters did not practice the shrinking of heads but kept the skulls in a place of honor high in the rafters of their houses. The village was constructed in 1996 using only traditional materials and methods. Their culture was dying out and they wanted a place to memorialize this earlier era.
Monsopiad lived about 300 years ago so all 42 skulls he collected are at least that old. His descendants care for them in the traditional way. They are highly revered. The village was developed directly across the small road from his house, which has been preserved.
We were greeted at the village entrance by the dance troupe and musicians associated with the village. They gave us beaded necklaces and escorted us through the village to the replica of the community center, a large open-sided structure with a platform at one end. When we were all seated, some music started and I had a little trouble finding the band. They were in a balcony over the back of the stage under the roof’s gable. It was dark under the roof but there was light coming from behind them from the sky outside so it was difficult to see them. I turned on my flash and was able to get a picture of them but I could never see then. They are playing the same sort of percussion instruments we saw at the pier.
Our emcee was the village’s curator. She told us a little about the Kadazan people, their history and culture, before introducing the dancers. The dance troupe performed the traditional dances of four people groups including their own. Each had its own distinctive dress although most had several features in common. The ladies headdresses had the widest variation. In the first dance, it was basically a floral array across the back of their heads. The second was a conical, straw hat much like the iconic Vietnamese hat but with a steeper slope and a tassel of feathers at the point. In the third dance, the headgear was in two parts, flowers at the back of the head and a flat gold sheet cut in a candelabra shape that’s hard to describe. In the fourth dance, they wore the beaded headband with the feather at the back, complimented by the same flowers they wore in the third dance. In the last dance, they wore the same beaded outfits they greeted us wearing because that was the dance of the Kadazan people, their tribe.
The fourth dance was the most elaborate in that the men wore costumes indicative of their status in the group. One was dressed as a warrior and the other as a bobohizan, their equivalent of a shaman. His hat has feathers at all four corners of the top and the beak of a toucan at the very center of the front. The warrior’s only had the very tall feathers across the front rim of the hat. The bobohizan was armed with a sword and the warrior with a blowgun. Their blowguns are about 6 feet long, same as the Dayak’s, but have a spear point attached at the far end like the bayonet of a rifle. Fire your dart and then get up close and personal. Not quite a unique as the spear pointed canoe paddles of the Marquesas Islands but close. At the end, only the two men were still on the stage and were obviously doing a hunting related dance. After which the warrior gave a blowgun demonstration by breaking some balloons tied to the backdrop of the platform. He invited two guests to try the blowgun, wound up being Bill and Tom, our CSI escorts.
The last dance they performed was very much like the Filipino bamboo stick dance where they clap the long bamboo rods together while the dancers step into and out of harm’s way while dancing. The main difference is that in the Filipino versions I’ve seen the tap the bamboo rods twice before sliding them together. The Kadazan just smack theirs down against the cross bar and then slap them together cutting the open time available to step between them about in half. Ouch! One other difference was that they had four poles in action, which alternately creates two places to step when they are both open and only one place to step in the center when they clack together as both sets clack in unison.
First three ladies danced in unison and the dance did not differ much from the Filipino version except that they could dance across the sticks in four steps, into the first open set, in-between the sets when they both closed, into the second set when they reopened and out of the array when the closed again. They facilitated the crossover step needed to take four side steps in the same direction by spinning to bring the up foot to the side they were traveling.
The warrior took his turn solo and the pace of the clacking got a bit faster. He stayed inside the array for a long time without taking a step outside the poles. He moved laterally and spun at the same time, pretty impressive. Then the bobohizan took the stage. At this point, the clacking really picked up speed. Unfazed by the slapping bamboo he spun, hopped and skipped his way across the array. We were duly impressed and he got a really nice ovation. We thought that was it but he was not quite done. Once again the pace of the clacking picked up. It was now difficult to hear the pauses between the clashes of the bamboo rods. The pace of his dance was frenetic, but what choice did he have. He repeated the first dance step for step and emerged from the front side in a kneeling position arms extended to the strongest applause of the day.
Following the dances, we moved to the village center where they have some demonstrations set up for us. The first was at a device that looked like a cradle you’d use for sawing logs and while there was a log setting in it, the implement lying across it was not a saw. Instead, there was a 6-foot long 1 x 12 setting flat atop the log with a handle attached at each end. The center 4 feet of the board has 24 rows of nails driven part way through the 1 x 12. Two people pull the board back and forth across the log to grind the wood into small, about rice sized, pieces. They are collected on a cloth placed under the log and periodically emptied into a basket. The resulting product is uses in cooking as a supplement to rice. I wish I could remember the name of the tree they ground up but I can’t.
From there it was on to the blowgun station where the tourists get to try their hand at balloon breaking. These blowguns shoot straighter than you’d think but I knew that from trying this before. From fifteen feet you just aim at the center of the balloon and give it a puff. Pop! Not really hard if you’ve got the lungpower.
The fire starting demonstration was different. They take a large diameter bamboo rod and cut it in half longitudinally. They take one side and shave off very thin slivers of bamboo, which they place under the overturned second side. They cut a very thin sit into the overturned bamboo half and make sure that some of the very fine shavings stick up through it. They take another piece of hardwood and rub it back and forth in the slit as though they were trying to cut the bamboo in half. After just a few seconds, it started to smoke and in a little bit longer he stopped rubbing and gently blows into the slit. When the smoke increased, he lifted the half bamboo rod off the smoking shavings and blew directly on them. As they ignited, he lay some small sticks he’d prepared across the top of the bundle of shavings and a nice fire was started. It’s about the fastest I’ve ever seen a fire started without a metal and flint. Impressive.
The last station in this area is all about rice wine they call tapai. They have three grades of it, fresh, distilled and aged. The fresh is almost sake in color and flavor. The method used to make it is much simpler than the Japanese way and the product is a little cloudy but has a distinct sake flavor. It’s about 5% alcohol.
If they put this product through their very simple stills, it gets clear and increased to about 40% alcohol. The taste changes to something very much like Italian grappa or any other fruit based distillate. My grandfather used to do the same thing with hard apple cider. Distilled it’s called applejack. If you run it through once, you get about the same thing as this rice product. If you run it through again, called double-distilled, you get something around 60% alcohol; but if you want a real kick, you triple-distill it and get to almost 80% alcohol. At that level it will do damage to the mucous membrane in your mouth and throat and you shouldn’t drink it straight. Medical alcohol is 99.5% pure ethyl alcohol and is definitely dangerous to drink without mixing. Hospital parties in the USAF were fueled by medical alcohol and grapefruit juice. You needed something tart to mask the flavor of the alcohol.
To make the ‘aged’ product they do the same thing the Russians do to age their vodka. The put bark and other plant material is it to soak for a while. This adds color and flavors to the mixture and it get quite smooth compared to the fresh distilled product.
Having been properly fortified by sampling all three types of tapai, we headed out of the village and across the street to the former home of Monsopiad the greatest of the Kadazan warriors. There are two small wooden decks leading up to the home’s front porch and main entrance. It’s not a large home but it has been turned into a memorial to Monsopiad and his way of life. The 42 skulls he collected from the surrounding tribes best warriors are still displayed in the traditional was, hanging from a pole suspended horizontally from a beam that spans the main room along the line of the roof’s gable. The skulls are interspersed with bunches of dried plant materials. There are rituals that must be performed regarding these skulls to keep everything in harmony. That’s the bobohizan’s job and descendants of Monsopiad have performed those duties for the last 300 years. It seemed very odd to be gazing up at the skulls of his 42 victims.
Displayed around the room were musical instruments, weapons and some black and white pictures of the Kadazan from the early 1900s. One display was very interesting. The glass case held a feathered headdress of impressive proportions. Much of the non-feathered surfaces were covered with beadwork and the entire thing was very colorful. Next to the case is a black and white picture of a man wearing the headdress. It’s as large as his head and chest put together. It must have been a spectacular sight out in the sunlight.
From the village we drove back to the ship. It’s late Friday afternoon and everyone is heading to the mosque for prayers. The traffic is terrible and the main reason is that all parking laws are apparently suspended anywhere near the mosque. Cars are parked along both curbs of the two-lane street leaving just enough room for our bus and other vehicles to drive down the center of the street. It’s very slow going but we finally did get to the pier.
The sail away was nice as the city is on the banks of the bay and you can see the college, the old foundation leaning tower, the mosque, the legislature and the museum as you sail out.
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