The Lotud people are an indigenous ethnic group residing in Sabah, eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo. They reside mainly in the Tuaran district (including the Tamparuli and Kiulu sub-districts) and also a portion of this tribe's population also reside in the village of Kampung Sukoli located in the Telipok suburban township of Kota Kinabalu city, all located in the West Coast Division of Sabah. Their population was estimated at 5,000 in the year 1985 but now believed to be more than 20,000. They are a sub-ethnic group of the Dusunic group, now also known as Kadazan-Dusun.
Nowadays, most of this ethnic group's population has been Christianized by adhering to denominations such as Roman Catholicism (in Tuaran district proper as well as the suburban township of Telipok in Kota Kinabalu city) and Seventh-Day Adventism (mostly those residing in Tamparuli and Kiulu sub-districts as well as in Telipok since the neighbouring town of Manggatal, both within the Kota Kinabalu city area has a Seventh-Day Adventist majority population among its native Dusun populace) with a large Muslim minority (both converts to the faith and Muslim by birth and ethnic descent alike) and some lesser extent to evangelical Christianity (Sidang Injil Borneo) as well as other denominations such as Anglicanism, True Jesuism and Lutheranism (Basel Christian Church of Malaysia), with a dwindling number are still animists. Less than 20 traditional priestesses are still alive, with no prospect of future replacement.
The Lotud ethnic group has their own spiritual world. In the Lotud spiritual world, their god Kinohoringan and his wife, Umsumundu, are widely believed to be the creators of the first humans and everything in the universe. The asug tantagas exists in the spiritual world of the Lotud ritual expert. She is sent to the spiritual world to persuade Hajin Sambawon. She is said to be the spiritual leader of Libabou (equivalent to Heaven), a place said to be located in the clouds. The role is specifically mandated by Kinohoringan and Umsumundu in overseeing human behavior in the invisible realm. If there is a violation of customary laws or natural rules of life that emphasize the balance between the visible and invisible worlds, the universe will become disordered. The role of the asug tantagas is to facilitate the release of trapped human spirits. In the Lotud spiritual world, the asug tantagas functions as the intermediary between the human world and the unseen world.
History
From the available written historical sources, the Tuaran area is likely to be among the oldest centers of civilization in Sabah due to its rich history and advanced civilization. The word tawaran in the Dusun language means "corn", while other Dusun dialects use the term luong for corn. The earliest record of the term "Tawaran" appears in the written records of the Persian explorer ibn Rustah who wrote a journal of his trip to Southeast Asia in 903 AD, in which he says that there is a famous trading city called "Tawaran". Tawaran (now Tuaran) in this year was controlled by Srivijaya in its attempt to control it, being the city that produced the best camphor in the world.
Some sources suggest that Tawaran was conquered by a Tang Dynasty military unit during the reign of Emperor Dezong, in its attempt to control the city that produced the best camphor in the world. However, the colony of the Chinese military unit was expelled by the local government forces, before Tawaran was conquered again, this time by Srivijaya forces, during the reign of Maharaja Balaputra, before the Srivijaya forces also were finally removed from Tawaran.Nicholl, R. (1979). "Camphor in Northern Borneo." Borneo Research Bulletin, 11(2). Available at: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/CAMPHOR+IN+NORTHERN+BORNEO%3A+REMINISCENCES+OF+SOME+TWENTIETH+CENTURY+BRUNEI+DUSUNS%3A+With+a+synoptic+aside+on+Robert+Nicholl.-a0676635687
On the oldest map of northern Borneo drawn by Petrus Plancius in 1594 AD, the Kota Kinabalu or Tuaran area is labelled "Canciraö". This city or settlement was under the auspices of the Sultanate of Brunei during the reign of Sultan Bolkiah or Sultan Muhammad Hasan. Indeed, Tawaran was most likely the best camphor-producing city in the world at that time. The Dusun people collected camphor from the forest and traded it in the city of Tawaran. At this time, there were no Bajau people in the Tuaran area, the coast of Tuaran was inhabited by Kadazan-Dusun people, who had a maritime culture, as evidenced by the name of the city Tawaran that was recorded as early as 903 AD. According to historical records, Bajau people, specifically the West Coast Bajau, migrated from Johor to the coast of Sabah around the 16th century. The Bajau people, or better known as Samah, settled in Mengkabong and the surrounding area, and they began to establish permanent settlements. The Bajau people have been mixing and trading with the Dusun people for hundreds of years.
Tawaran or Tuaran, as the oldest and most advanced Dusun civilizational hub in Sabah and one of the important trading centers in Asia at that time, has raised questions about the Nunuk Ragang legend. Lotud people claim that Nunuk Ragang is not the oldest Dusun settlement in Sabah. According to written and oral historical analyses, the Nunuk Ragang settlement only appeared around the 12th century, and was the last and largest centre of the Dusunic expansion. Several Dusun oral stories say the pattern of the Dusun migration was from the coast to the interior, indicating that the earliest Dusun settlements were not in the interior but the coastal areas, and that they initially had a maritime culture. Dalrymple, who explored the west coast of Sabah in 1762, said that coastal settlements such as Tuaran and Kimanis were still inhabited by Dusun pagans whom he called Ida'an (Dalrymple, 1793:552). Henry Keppel named the Dusun "Idaan the Voyager" (Keppel, 1847:194), where, according to Sir Hugh Low, they had extensive trade routes, reaching as far as Java and other places that were far away from Borneo (Low, 1852:2).
Accounts by Arab and Western scholars
The name Muja is used by Arab scholar al-Idrisi in his description of a kingdom or settlement on the west coast of Borneo in 1154 AD (Robert, 1983:40).Al‑Sharīf al‑Idrīsī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad (1154). Nuzhat al‑Mushtāq fī Ikhtirāq al‑Āfāq. Translated (French) by P. Amédée Jaubert, *Géographie d'Édrisi*, vol. II (Paris, 1840), VIe climat (Asie), section Asie du Sud‑Est (Bornéo). Available at Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/gographiededrisi02idri This kingdom was ruled by a dynasty called the Kamrun Dynasty, where one of its cities was called "Haranj" (possibly Tuaran). The city was said to be "a city of spices" that became famous at that time because the camphor produced in the city was the best in the world. According to al-Idrisi, the island of Haranj was famed for a deep precipice from which camphor was extracted, an allusion that scholars believe corresponds to Tuaran, or the forested foothills of Mount Kinabalu, long renowned as a major source of Borneo camphor. Al-Idrisi says:
There exists in the island of Haranj a great precipice, of which no man has been able to measure the depth. It is a remarkable feature.
The Kamrun Dynasty was founded by Raja Alaka Bhatara, a Dusun king who founded the kingdom around 690 AD. Around 800 AD, this kingdom allied with the Kingdom of Mayd in present-day Philippines, which was probably a colony of the Kingdom of Muja, or Poni (Robert, 1983:38). At this time, the Dusun people were still a single ethnic, not yet divided into various tribes as can be seen today. According to oral sources, the name of the Dusunic ethnic group in ancient times was "Kadayan" (Evans, 1953:11). Then, "Kadayan" and "Dusun" were possibly used interchangeably by the Bruneians and the British to refer to indigenous peoples on the west coast of Sabah, which later caused an identity crisis among the Kadazan-Dusun in the mid-1900s. The Dusunic ethnic group then split into many small tribes during the Nunuk Ragang period, moving out of Nunuk Ragang to other areas, forming their own tribes and controlling the areas where they settled. A legend says that the ruler who founded Nunuk Ragang was King Korungkud, some say King Gumarong, and there are also other sources that say King "Gomurun".
In al-Idrisi's notes, there are notes about the culture of Dusun communities at the time. According to al-Idrisi, during the rule of the Kingdom of Muja, the early society there still had a maritime culture. This historical record from al-Idrisi, which tells stories from the oral history of the Dusun in Sabah, says that the ancestors of the Dusun, in ancient times, had expertise in navigation and maritime culture. Among the famous oral stories is the story of Indai (possibly the location of the city of Haranj), a maritime settlement that established trading relations with Dusunic tribes from across the kingdom, for example, Bongawan. Similarly, the story of Nunuk Ragang tells of the voyage of the ancient Dusun from Brunei to Nunuk Ragang, with some of them migrating to the Philippines (Shim, 2007:18). The oral history of the Lotud Dusun community in Tuaran also says the same thing, that their ancestors were seafarers, but their maritime dominance was eventually replaced by the Bajau, Iranun and Suluk tribes who migrated to Mengkabong and Sulaman around the end of the 1700s. This is evidenced by the writings of Dalrymple, which were quoted by Dr. Leyden, saying that the Dusun continued maritime voyages reaching as far as Java up to the year 1762, then this maritime culture disappeared (Dr. Leyden, 1814:9). It was likely that the maritime culture died out in the early 1800s, evidenced by the writings of Logan, who said that the Dusun people sailed to Java in ancient times but no longer did when he came to Sabah in 1852 (Logan, 1852:1-2).
Apart from maritime culture, al-Idrisi also recorded the clothing culture of an ancient Dusun community. During the rule of the Kingdom of Muja, Dusun women were said to like to keep their hair long and wear head accessories, or susuga, and they also wore necklaces. As for men, they were divided into ranks according to the type of metal used for their neck ornaments (Ferrand, 1913:344). For the higher-ranking groups, they wore gold-plated or real-gold neck ornaments, while those in the lower ranks only wore necklaces made of copper. The culture of wearing necklaces in Sabah is only found among Dusun communities. Several Western writers have provided notes on the culture of wearing necklaces among Dusun men. St. John, who came to Sabah in 1851, and Frank Hatton, wrote the following:
...then came a band of Dusun men, led by a young leader, of strong build, with a tightly bound waist, with the appearance of a wise man...on his neck was a collar that was open at the side, which allowed him to open it easily.— St. John, 1863
The Dusun men of Toadilah all wore neck ornaments, bracelets and anklets made of copper, black cloth wrapped around their heads, tied with rattan dyed red.— Frank Hatton, 1882