Dusun is the collective name of an indigenous ethnic group to the Malaysian state of Sabah of North Borneo. Collectively, they form the largest ethnic group in Sabah. The Dusun people have been internationally recognised as indigenous to Borneo since 2004 as per the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The Kadazans are an ethnic group indigenous to the state of Sabah in Malaysia. They are found mainly in Penampang on the west coast of Sabah, the surrounding locales, and various locations in the interior.
A bomoh is a Malay shaman and traditional medicine practitioner. The term is used mainly in Malaysia and parts of Sumatra, whereas most Indonesians use the word dukun. It is often mistranslated into English as medicine man or witch doctor. In colloquial usage, the term bomoh is often interchangeable with another type of shaman or dukun, the pawang, but they generally serve different functions. The bomoh is primarily a healer, herbalist, geomancer, and sorcerer. The pawang on the other hand usually specialises in rituals involving weather, nature, animals, and a good harvest. Their roles do overlap however, and both claim to act as intermediaries for the spirits and gods.
The Ranau District is an administrative district in the Malaysian state of Sabah, part of the West Coast Division which includes the districts of Kota Belud, Kota Kinabalu, Papar, Penampang, Putatan, Ranau and Tuaran. The capital of the district is in Ranau Town. The landlocked district bordering the Sandakan Division to the east until it meets the Interior Division border. Ranau sits 108 km (67 mi) east of Kota Kinabalu and 227 km (141 mi) west of Sandakan. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the district was 94,092, an almost entirely Dusun ethnic community.
The Momogun Rungus are an Austronesian ethnic group indigenous to Sabah, Malaysia. They primarily live in northern Sabah especially in Kudat Peninsula, Kota Marudu, Pitas and Beluran. A sub-group of the Kadazan-Dusun, they have a distinct language, dress, architecture, customs, and oral literature from other Dusunic sub-groups. There are around 74,000 Rungus people in the state.
Kadazan-Dusun are the largest ethnic group in Sabah, Malaysia, an amalgamation of the closely related indigenous Kadazan and Dusun peoples. They are also known as Mamasok Sabah, meaning "indigenous people of Sabah". Kadazan-Dusun tradition holds that they are the descendants of Nunuk Ragang. Kadazan-Dusun is recognised as an indigenous nation of Borneo with documented heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since 2004. Kadazan-Dusun is part of bumiputera group in Malaysia and has special rights concerning land, rivers, education and maintaining their own customs.
There are many Malay ghost myths, remnants of old animist beliefs that have been shaped by Hindu-Buddhist cosmology and later Muslim influences, in the modern states of Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and among the Malay diaspora in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. The general word for ghost is hantu, of which there exist a wide variety. Some ghost concepts such as the female vampires pontianak and penanggal are shared throughout the region. While traditional belief does not consider all ghosts as necessarily evil, Malaysian popular culture tends to categorise them all as types of evil djinn.
Nunuk Ragang is a site traditionally considered as the location of the original home of the ancestors of the Kadazan-Dusun natives who inhabit most of northern Borneo. The site, nearby a village named Tampias, is located at the intersection of the left and right branches of the Liwagu River to the east of Ranau and Tambunan in Sabah. The two river branches joined up to flow into the Labuk river and drain out into the Sulu Sea. At the site, and under a giant banyan tree, a settlement referred to as Nunuk Ragang was founded. The giant banyan tree was said to be able to give shade to a longhouse sheltering 10 families in it. The legend about Nunuk Ragang had been passed down via oral traditions to the younger generations. No archaeological dig has been carried out to establish the veracity of the legend.
Tua Pek Kong is a Taoist deity in the pantheon of Peranakan folk religion practiced by ethnic Chinese in Malaysia, Singapore, and parts of Indonesia.
Na Tuk Gong are local guardian spirits worshipped by overseas Chinese communities in Malaysia, Singapore and parts of Indonesia, especially Sumatra. An alternate more generic name for the cult is Datuk Gong, uniting Dato or Datuk from the local Malay word for 'grandfather', which is also used as an honorific title, and Kong or Gong from Chinese, also an honorific title. According to Taoist tradition, a Na Tuk Kong's could hold the official title 拿督尊王. It is important to note that Datuk Keramat, Datuk Gong and Na Tuk Kong all refer to the same deity. For the sake of clarity, the term Datuk, which is universally used to describe the spirit in Malaysia, will be used.
Kaamatan or Pesta Kaamatan is a form of harvest festival celebrated on 30 and 31 of May annually in the state of Sabah and Federal Territory of Labuan in Malaysia. It is normally celebrated by the ethnic Kadazan-Dusuns, as well as by other related ethnic groups in the state, and lasts for the whole of the month of May, ending with a public holiday on a date selected by a priestess known as the bobohizan.
A dukun is an Indonesian term for shaman. Their societal role is that of a traditional healer, spirit medium, custom and tradition experts and on occasion sorcerers and masters of black magic. In common usage the dukun is often confused with another type of shaman, the pawang. It is often mistranslated into English as "witch doctor" or "medicine man". Many self-styled dukun in Indonesia are simply scammers and criminals, preying on people who were raised to believe in the supernatural.
The religious belief of the Datuk Keramat worship can be found in Malaysia, Singapore and along the Strait of Malacca. It is a fusion of Malaysian folk religion, Sufism, and Chinese folk religion in Southeast Asia.
A Bobohizan or Bobolian is a high priestess, a ritual specialist and a spirit medium in Kadazan-Dusun pagan rites. The office of Bobohizan or Bobolian, is also the chief preserver of Momolianism, i.e. the philosophy and way of life of the Kadazan-Dusun people.
Chinese folk religion plays a dynamic role in the lives of the overseas Chinese who have settled in the countries of this geographic region, particularly Burmese Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, Malaysian Chinese, Thai Chinese and Hoa. The Indonesian Chinese, by contrast, were forced to adopt en masse either Buddhism or Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s, abandoning traditional worship, due to Indonesia's religious policies which at the time forbade Chinese traditional religion or did not recognize it as a "religion" thus making it vulnerable to discrimination. Some Chinese Filipinos also still practice some Chinese traditional religions, besides Christianity of either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, of which some have also varyingly syncretized traditional Chinese religious practices with. Chinese folk religion, the ethnic religion of Han Chinese, "Shenism" was especially coined referring to its Southeast Asian expression; another Southeast Asian name for the religion is the Sanskrit expression Satya Dharma.
Momolianism is a belief system of the Kadazan-Dusun people of Sabah.
Sabah is the third most populous state in Malaysia, with a population of 3,418,785 according to the 2020 Malaysian census. It also has the highest non-citizen population, at 810,443. Although Malaysia is one of the least densely populated countries in Asia, Sabah is particularly sparsely populated. Most of the population is concentrated along coastal areas, with towns and urban centers seeing the most population growth.
The Penampang District is an administrative district in the Malaysian state of Sabah, part of the West Coast Division which includes the districts of Kota Belud, Kota Kinabalu, Papar, Penampang, Putatan, Ranau and Tuaran. The capital of the district is in Penampang Town.
Shamanism is a religious practice present in various cultures and religions around the world. Shamanism takes on many different forms, which vary greatly by region and culture and are shaped by the distinct histories of its practitioners.
