Intro l Handicraft l Musical Instruments l Song & Dance l Traditional Cuisine l Costumes  l Keamatan Festivals

Costumes

With more than 32 indigenous groups in Sabah, one can expect to see tribal dresses of various styles. Most of these have retained much of their original design and colour, unchanged over the ages.

Many of Sabah’s traditional dresses are made of black fabric, and one of the reasons for using such a sombre colour is that in the past, the people could only rely on a few types of vegetables and plants from which to extract dyes to colour the cloth.

They added colour to their dresses with silver and other accessories, beaded embroideries, elaborate needle stitch work, and gold trimmings, amongst others.

Traditional costumes very often include antique bead-necklaces and heavy belts, hand-embossed silver jewellery, and belts of old silver coins. Most of these accessories have been handed down from generation to generation, and they are not only valuable, but they represent priceless heirloom to the local families.

The best time to admire the colourful costumes of the many tribes of Sabah is in May, during the Pesta Ka’amatan, the Harvest Festival. In their every day lives, the people of Sabah nowadays don ordinary western costumes, and besides in the Kudat area it has become increasingly rare to find traditionally outfitted people.
 

Penampang Kadazan

The Penampang Kadazan traditional costume, with its gold trimmings (siling) on black velvet, is simple yet elegant. The ladies wear a sleeveless blouse (sinuangga) and a long sarong (tapi). The men wear a jacket and long trousers, equally from black velvet and with gold trimmings. While the costume of the Penampang men remains quite simple and with without too many accessories beside the skilfully folded sigal – the typical headgear, the ladies’ costumes are very elaborate.

Thirty or more gold buttons are sewn in a double row on the sinuangga. They are called ‚Batavi Buttons’, or ‚London Blown’ and in the olden days only the Bajau living on the island of Labuan knew how to make these particular gold buttons.
 

The costume is worn with the blouse tucked into the sarong. Then several rows of silver coin belts (himpogot) and up to three heavy belts made from individual brass rings (tangkong) complete the outfit. The belts are usually handed down from mother to daughter, and they are valuable heirloom

The himpogot is made from about 25 silver Straits Dollar coins of the early 20th century. A single belt of original coins nowadays will fetch at least RM 1,500 (US$ 390). For the Kadazan costume, usually three of these belts are worn.

The tangkong is a peculiar belt, and probably much older than the himpogot. It consists of innumerable brass rings of the size of large finger-rings. The rings are first individually shaped in wax, then coated in clay and fired in a high temperature oven. The wax flows out of the clay mould, in which later a single brass ring is cast. In the olden days, broken gongs were molten down to recover the brass for the tangkong. When the brass has cooled the clay mould is destroyed to retrieve the ring. Thus, every ring is individual in shape. Then they are strung on thin strips of rattan, around 50 to 70 pieces per tangkong, with one or two sea-shell rings called husau. The Kadazan believed that if an ill person drank the water in which the husau had been dipped the person would be cured.

Like the coin belts, three tangkong belts are worn with the costume. The tangkong is very heavy and rests on the hips of the wearer. Although it is nowadays rare to find antique tangkong for sale (they are cherished by their owners and still passed on from generation to generation), one can find recently made tangkong. Due to the labour intensive and slow manufacturing process, even a new set of three tangkong can still cost up to RM 6,000 (US$ 1,600).

The Kadazan women also wear gold jewellery such as bangles (golong), necklaces (hamai) earrings (simbong), rings (sinsing) and brooches (pawn).

It is also interesting to note that the dress of the Kadazan indicates the status and wealth of a wearer, and in the case of the ladies weather she is married or not. Traditionally, and unmarried Kadazan lady wears the sinuangga; the married women wear a short sleeved blouse called sinompukung. The long sleeved kihongon is worn by senior ladies and the Bobohizan, or ritual specialist.

Rungus

The Rungus of the Kudat district are known to have maintained a great deal of their ancient traditions. Even the traditional ladies' costume has much changed over the ages. Some of the women still wear costumes made from cloth processed from locally grown and hand-spun cotton (gapas - Gossypium herbaceum).

The everyday costume of the Rungus is very simple. The women wear a sarong called sukulob tied over their breasts, and which falls down to the knees. The sarong is a simple black cloth with one thin band of needle stitch embroidery. However, more often they wear a hand woven and elaborately designed sarong called rinugading, with a matching top covering the breasts and shoulders called banat. Sometimes the rinugading has small bells sown to its hem, in which case the Rungus call the whole tinongkupan. Up to now, it is a simple outfit, but we must not forget the accessories, and the Rungus are particularly rich when it comes to the latter. The ladies would normally wear several strings of ancient bead-necklaces (tokol), a wide hip-belt made from fine coils of brass (orot), and brass arm and leg coils (saring and lungkaki). The saring are only really complete if there are broad kimo’ (shell) bracelets at each end. In the olden days the ladies also wore a wide brass coil around their neck, the ganggalung. The brass encasings do in no way deform the wearer, and they can be taken off any time. However, it takes a long time to put them on again, and they are not exactly light! Nowadays it is still common to find elder ladies wearing the saring, but lungkaki are extremely rare and the ganggalung has all but disappeared.

The Rungus are also well-known for their beadwork and the festive costume would not be completed with even more strands of beads, worn by both, men and women. Probably the most striking is the pinakol, a broad band of innumerable beads. Two pinakol are worn over diagonally over the shoulders. The patterns tell of ancient stories, and it takes much patience, sometimes an entire month, and skill to complete a set of pinakol, which usually sells around RM 150 on the markets.

A set of sandang is worn over the pinakol. The sandang consist of locally hand-made beads, and long bamboo or bone pieces. The end is finished off with a sulau (disk) of kimo’. The lady further wears a choker, the tinggot, and another necklace called the sulau after the large shell disk which it displays as centre piece. Another beaded string, the sisingal is tied around the forehead, and the hair is held together in a bun with a rampai, a head piece made from cloth, and the titimbok, a gaily coloured floral head piece.

The male festive costume of the Rungus is not less elaborate than the female costume, with pinakol and sandang, and a series of colourful home-woven sashes. To the traditional dance, the Rungus men wear an elaborate and heavy sarong produced by the Iranun people, the so-called mogah. But the men do not wear any brass coils. The elaborate outfit is completed with the sigal, a colourful kind of turban that is wound in an intricate way to form the characteristic headgear of the Rungus.

As elaborate as their festive and ceremonial costumes are, as simple is the daily wear of the men: a wide trouser held to the waist by the hooks, a three-coloured woven belt, is completed with a simple waist-coat type top, or a white, long-sleeved cotton shirt to protect the wearer from the sun during the work in the fields.

Papar Kadazan

The Papar Kadazan are not to be confused with the Kadazan of Penampang, and their dresses are quite different, too. One very interesting aspect of the female dress is that one can immediately tell by her siung (a conical hat), whether she is married or not. Feathers adorning the top of the siung indicate that the lady is still single. Flowers indicate a married women, and no decoration at all indicate a widow, a grand mother or any senior women.

The traditional dress of the Papar Kadazan is a black velvet long-sleeved blouse (siya) with gold lace and sequins stitched along the cuffs and neckline. Eight pairs of gold buttons (kubamban) line the front and an equal number of buttons are stitched on to the sleeves.

A white blouse is worn under the siya and three brooches are pinned on the front, one below the other. Originally, and elegant Papar Kadazan woman would have worn antique gold coin brooches (korusang).

The outfit is completed by the gonob, a black velvet, knee-length sarong (gonob) is worn, with an elaborately hand-stitched panel (rinangkit) running vertically and horizontally through it.

When this costume is worn, the wearer must don silver coin bangles (belilit) on each arm. Belts of silver dollar coins are worn and again, these belts tell the wearer's marital status -three for the unmarried, two for the married and one belt for a widow or any older woman.

Another smaller silver belt may be worn as an added accessory to show that the wearer’s family is wealthy. In the past, most maids and servants would wear the same outfit but minus silver belts. Instead, they wore a sensing, or a single brass coil to signify their household position.

The long-sleeved blouse and hat are only worn in the morning of festive days. In the afternoon, the blouse is replaced by one with capped sleeves, the hat is taken off and the black scarf with gold trimmings (soundung) is removed. The scarf may be draped over one shoulder. The gonob, belts and jewellery remain the same.
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Source: Sabah Tourism Board