The Dusun people or simply the Dusuns is the collective name of an Austronesian ethnic group indigenous to Sabah, Malaysia. They primarily live on the West Coast, in the Interior, and in the Sandakan and Tawau divisions, primarily in the districts of Ranau, Tambunan, Kota Kinabalu, Tuaran, Kota Marudu, Kota Belud, Beaufort, Kuala Penyu, Telupid, Keningau, and Beluran (Labuk-Sugut), as well as in the Federal Territory of Labuan.
The Dusuns form the largest collective ethnic group in the region with rich traditional heritage, distinct dress, language and customs based on different sub-groups, with an estimated 555,647 (mixed with the Kadazans) spread across the state, where they further jointly form the larger Kadazan-Dusuns. They have been internationally recognised as an indigenous group in the northern part of the island of Borneo since 2004 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Other similarly named, but unrelated groups are also found in neighbouring Brunei and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Dusun in Brunei have distinct traditional beliefs and customs compared to those in Sabah. Bruneian Dusuns share a common origin, language and identity with the Bisaya people of Brunei, northern Sarawak and southwestern Sabah. Despite these differences, both groups are part of the broader Dusunic language family. In Indonesia, the Barito Dusun groups, located throughout the Barito River system, are part of the Ot Danum Dayak people, rather than being related to the Dusuns of northern Borneo.
Etymology
The term "Dusun people" (), which carries the meaning "people of the orchards", was early coined by Bruneian Malays and Chinese overlords throughout the Sultanate of Brunei administration to refer to the agricultural populations of northern Borneo. Within the vocabulary of Dusunic languages, there is no "Dusun" word, and the indigenous ethnic groups referred to as Dusuns call themselves "tulun tindal" (landsman). Since most of the western coast of the northern part of Borneo was under the influence of Brunei, taxes called () (also referred to as the 'river tax' in the area southeast of northern Borneo) were collected from the Dusun people. Various descriptions of the Dusuns are available throughout the British surveys and administration, the first by Thomas Forrest in 1774. Another British navigator and explorer once described the Dusuns in 1884:
Following the establishment of the North Borneo Chartered Company (NBCC) and subsequently the state of North Borneo in 1881, the British administration categorised the linguistically similar twelve main and thirty-three sub-tribes collectively as "Dusuns". The Buludupih Sungei and Ida'an, who had converted to Islam early, had preferred to be called "Sungei" and "Ida'an", respectively, although they come from the same sub-tribes.
Ivor Hugh Norman Evans (1886–1957), a British anthropologist, ethnographer, and archaeologist who spent most of his working life in British Malaya and British Borneo, described the Dusuns as not a single tribe but an assemblage of tribes where the term "Orang Dusun" is not the name used by the indigenous to describe themselves; the people of each district or each assemblage of village communities employ a different term, but it is a name meaning "people of the orchards". "Orang" means "people", while "Dusun" carries the meaning of an orchard used by the Bruneian Malays to denote those inhabitants of the greater part of the interior of British North Borneo. Furthermore, a Dusun house is often situated within or surrounded by a variety of fruit trees like bambangan, breadfruit, cempedak, jackfruit, mango and tarap, including calamansi, bird's eye chilli and other Bornean native tree species, reflecting the deep connection to nature and agriculture. The Dusun term was popularised by the British administration as a unifying term among the various North Borneo sub-ethnics, who also borrowed the term from past Brunei administrations. The Rungus people were part of the Dusun sub-ethnic group but formed their own distinction.
Before 1960, most of the sub-ethnics of the Dusuns, including the Tangaah Kadazans, were known as Dusuns. In the population census conducted by the North Borneo authorities until 1960, the term "Dusun" was used to represent all the Dusun tribes and sub-tribes. The term "Kadazan" only began to appear in the population census conducted in Sabah in 1970 after the formation of the Malaysian federation since there had been a dispute over the use of the "Dusun" term among the Tangaah Dusun tribe of the Penampang and Papar districts, who resisted the use of "Dusun" to symbolise their sub-ethnicity due to previous issues throughout the British era, but with reconciliation and recognition of each other, the Dusuns in both districts are identified as Kadazan people. The "Dusun" terms used in present-day Sabah are different than the terms used in neighbouring Sarawak and Brunei. The Dusuns in Sabah name the sub-ethnics of themselves based on place names, river names, or tree names such as Bundu, Gana, Gonsomon, Kimaragang, Kumut, Liwan, and Tuhawon, where these names are also used as identity names and names for their dialects. In Brunei, the term "Dusun" is used to describe non-Muslims living along the Belait and Tutong rivers.
Background history and origin
There are various theories on the origin of the Dusuns tribe, with several historians associating the tribe with the origin of Mongoloid stock. British Major Colin Metcalfe Dallas Enríquez, through its publication in 1927, associated the Dusuns with Burmese Kachin and Vietnamese indigenous people living in Annam (the Montagnard). He described:
The vast majority of Dusuns live in the hills and upland valleys and have a reputation for peacefulness, hospitality, hard work, frugality, drinking and aversion to violence. The Dusuns at one time made up the most important tribe of North Borneo and once made up almost 40% of the region ethnic groups; divided into more than 30 sub-ethnic groups, or dialect groups, or tribes, each speaking a slightly different dialect of the Dusunic and Paitanic family languages, although they are mostly mutually understandable among each other. The classification of northern Borneo indigenous people who lived in the geographical zone between the coast and mountainous interior as Dusuns was maintained as the basis for administrative purposes.
The arrival of Christian missionaries in the 1880s brought to the Dusuns and Dayaks of Borneo the ability to read, write and converse in the English language. The missionaries were aware that their knowledge in Dusunic languages was also a key factor in the propagation of Christianity among the indigenous. With improved literacy and religious education, this subsequently stimulated the indigenous to get involved in community development, with the first Dusun tribes who were first exposed to this modernisation being the Tangaa or Tangara (present-day Kadazans), who dwelt between the Papar, Membakut, Putatan and Penampang coastal plains close to British administration areas. The first attempt among the Dusun tribes to translate the Bible was by the Tangaah Dusun followed with the creation of "Tangaa Dusun Dictionary", also referred to as the "z" dialect where the Tangaah are presently known as the Kadazan ethnic group. Throughout the British administration, most Dusuns have converted to mainstream religions such as Christianity (both Roman Catholic and Protestant) and some to Sunni Islam, although animism is still being practised by a minority of Dusuns.
The Dusuns used to trade with the coastal people by bringing their agricultural and forest produce such as rice and amber "damar" (dipterocarpaceae) to exchange for salt, salted fish and other products. The Dusuns have a special term to describe this type of trading activity, which they call "mongimbadi" (going to market). Before the establishment of railroad and road networks connecting the interior with the coastal regions of Sabah, the area within the present Tambunan-Penampang road was the trading route used by the Bundu-Liwan Dusuns to cross the Crocker Range, where the present road was largely constructed based on the original trading route used by the Dusuns on their "mongimbadi". In their traditional occupation as North Borneo agricultural ethnic groups and chief-rice producers, they use various methods of farming and fishing, including using the juice called "tuba" derived from the roots of the "surinit" plant to momentarily stun fish in rivers.
The Dusuns are represented through their respective sub-ethnic associations, which are further jointly united through the primary Dusun ethnic association. Prior to the formation of the federation of Malaysia, the Dusuns together with the Muruts stipulated various condition through the 20-point agreement for the North Borneo Crown to be part of the federation, constitute several terms from the indigenous Dusuns and Muruts for the federal government to guaranteed their rights within the federation for them to continuously living in peaceful and their rights be respected and honoured by the federal government by maintaining freedom of religion with no state religion for North Borneo, all lands in the territory should be under the North Borneo government, and the federal need to regard and respecting traditional indigenous values, to ensure continuous peace and loyalty from the indigenous community.
Following the formation of the Malaysian federation, the Dusuns started to be represented through the United Sabah Dusun Association (USDA) in 1967. The USDA was later jointly merged with the Kadazan Cultural Association (KCA) to form the Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association (KDCA) in 1989 with headquarters at the KDCA Compound of Penampang District. In present days, most of the younger Dusun generation are modernised and well-integrated into the larger framework of Malaysian society, taking up various occupations as government servants and employees in the private sector, with some also becoming business owners. Many have completed tertiary education both locally and overseas, with many Dusuns also pursuing their studies at Western countries' tertiary educational institutes. With increasing modernisation and globalisation, the modern Dusun community also struggles to keep the traditional values of their community, such as the customs, taboos and languages, since many of the modern Dusun generations, comfortable living a modern life with modern technologies, have become increasingly unaware of their ethnic identities. In pursuing the indigenous languages of the Dusuns to remain in place like the major community languages of West Malaysia within the federation, the indigenous community also faced tension with Malay ethno-nationalism, which has the central place in Malaysia's state nationalist project.
Folk beliefs The Dusuns have an oral history passed down through generations that their origin is tied to the legendary site of Nunuk Ragang, a giant red banyan tree where their ancestors are said to have first settled in what is northern Borneo. Based on the beliefs of the original traditional Animist-Pagan religion of the Dusuns known as Momolianism, as mentioned under the Kadazan-Dusun Genesis, the origin of the Kadazan-Dusun through the Nunuk Ragang was firstly through Kinoingan and Suminundu, the creators who also have a daughter named Huminodun, which later became the roots of the annual harvest festival celebration of Kaamatan celebrated by both the Dusuns and Kadazans.
Genetic studies