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Rundum rebellion – a case study on how not to rule
Published on: Sunday, November 14, 2021
By: Kan Yaw Chong
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Rich colours of Murut culture by the river bank of Rundum River.
THE desired way to rule is to strengthen and inspire the ruled – being responsive to the expectations, needs and aspirations of the sea of ordinary folks.  

The sure conflict way is to weaken, demoralise and infuriate the ruled by just imposing the harsh codes and agendas of established powers and the interest behind them.  

That, in my humble opinion, is what happened in the Rundum Rebellion, in a nutshell. 

But rulers all over the world still wallow in weakening and demoralising power plays and tactics that infuriate people and sow the seeds of unimaginable tension and conflict. 

So it’s not easy to infuse lessons of disastrous history into the heads of people in power.    

It’s very hard to get it so that’s why people say “history repeats itself”.  

Just google a little, one finds rebellion literally litters human history.

Wikipedia listed thousands in history since 2730BC, some succeeded, many crushed!

So why do people revolt against established powers, to the point of knowingly charging into barrels of guns and get cut down literally by the hundreds of millions throughout history, in every country conceivable?    

The indignation-driven Rundum Rebellion was crushed April 17, 1915 – colonial police died, hundreds of Muruts killed, its warrior hero Ontoros Antonom and two confidantes executed on the spot.

This is a case study of, one may say, over-zealous imperial intrusion into the core of a deep ethnic culture hitting a breaking point and flared up into “a storm of tremendous violence”. 

So it is, unfortunately, a negative story on old Rundum.

But we want to turn negatives into positives and make it clear at the very outset that this Special Report is not intended to reignite past hostilities nor to immortalise guilt and blame.

Instead, the whole purpose of this series of reports is to help inject strength and inspiration into Rundum by leveraging on a famous chapter of its history to develop tourism that hopefully will add economic wellness to the isolated villagers.      

Lesson: Build understanding on causes of hostilities, forge peace & cultural beauty  

So today, we are peacemakers.

Through this report, we step on an old conflict to extol and build the beauty and virtue of peace and understanding by looking at the specific causes of this bloody rebellion. 

The facts of the rebellion will certainly shape opinions on wrongs and who might be at fault but those wrongs are bygones and it is not our purpose to resurrect them for a new round of hate.

For sure, there were harsh measures that weakened and demoralised the Rundum folks in the turn of the 20th century.

But probably no other indigenous tribe in Sabah can match the strength, colours and inspiration of traditional Murut costumes and cultural dance.   

Veteran trekker Tham Yau Kong and Rosli Tampisan, son of former headman, Tampisan Ambuh, precisely highlighted this new strength and inspiration when they organised a fully donned cultural troupe composed of youths from New Rundum to stage performances on August 5-7, 2021 at the site of the old Rundum Station identified in December 2019, with the help of a picture from Owen Rutter’s book. . 

“Yes, the history of the Rundum Rebellion is very strong but we don’t want to be obsessed with old sores. We want to highlight the tremendous cultural strength and heritage of Murut folks around the Rundum area,” said Tham, who is helping Rosli with practical tips to develop some tourism plans.      

So this report is about the Rundum Rebellion.           

But I am not a judge of its history, I am a student trying to learn some useful lessons from the causes.  

Breaking point and gist of the matter in Rundum

There are a lot of things people in power do to sow the seeds of common destruction – not always wilfully. 

People revolt when they reach a breaking point and reject the authority of the ruler.

So what was that breaking point in the Rundum rebellion? 

Reflecting on the current hostilities that are being ramped up all around us among the big powers who are essentially strangers to one another, I concluded that Rundum is not just a mere local historical interest. 

There is a universal lesson to step on to prevent indignation and hatred to get out of control when there is still time.      

The gist of the matter in Rundum seems to be a strange power imposing its codes on conviction of the primacy of its Charter, weakening and demoralising instead of strengthening and inspiring its indigenous subjects.    

So yes, the Rundum Rebellion is very much relevant to all established powers of our time. 

Any ruler who doesn’t understand expectations, needs and aspirations and work responsively to meet them, are also “strangers” to their own folks.    

In fact, some of the most disastrous rebellions in history were massacres of their own kinds.  

Beware imposive rule and use of force

So when we examine the causes, the Rundum Rebellion is extremely instructive for all who govern, be they Malaysian politicians, governments, up to America, UK, Japan, Russia, China, Australia, India, EU, Middle East, Latin Africa, Latin America etc.

Imposive rule by edict and force weaken and demoralise people and invite sure trouble. 

Two revealing articles on the root causes  

Two rare articles which I managed to google on the Rundum episode, say that.       

One is Wikipedia article entitled “All around rebellion”.

This report starts with the most important point: “The all-round rebellion (1900-1915) describes an conflict between the indigenous people of Sabah, Malaysia and the North Borneo Chartered, which ended on April 17, 1915 with the capture of their leader Ontoros Antonom.’

It then delved into its root causes that built up over some 15 years:

“Although the actual rebellion began in February 1915 and reached its climax and end in April 1915, the roots of the all-round rebellion go back to 1900. The all-round rebellion follows the Mat Salleh rebellion almost seamlessly.”

A brief insight of Chartered companies’ help.

Chartered companies were answerable to their investors and shareholders back home, probably more than the colonised.

These were associations of merchants who band together for foreign trade.

Typically these companies were formed from the 16th century onwards by group of European investors to underwrite and profit from the exploration and colonisation of all sorts of continents.

But they were not just purely trade and commercial entities, they usually had the patronage of the State which issued the Charter, empowered with rights, privileges as well as duties and obligations.        

So, no accusation meant, the Charter granted by the Crown to the British North Borneo Chartered Company, came with not just privileges, it also imposed heavy obligations on not only financial self-sufficiency but also heavy duties of a government. 

So its rights included the power to enact laws specifically to govern and regulate North Borneo, to keep law-and- social order, set up courts, provision of roads, health service, education, land use and certainly fiscal powers etc.

All that happened in 1882. 

So it wasn’t just trade but use of a raft of powers very foreign to the locals was involved.

But by1888, the Charter was enhanced when North Borneo became a British Protectorate, meaning North Borneo became a State under British Government control.     

A Governor’s burdensome new taxes 

In what looks like over-zealous fiscal measures, it started imposing and enforcing a raft of ‘burdensome new taxes’ to raise company revenues.

These were some the root causes but not the only. 

“Ernest Woodford Birch, Governor of North Borneo since 1901, campaigned for the complete abolition of poll tax (flat rate levied on adults) in 1902 and established a new tax system based on production methods.’   

“The background was the goal to increase the tax revenue for the North Borneo Chartered Company.’

“The trade in jungle products – which played a prominent role among the natives- now required a licence.”

On top of the mandatory trading licence, land tax was introduced. 

“Indirect taxes such as licensing requirements for fishing boats and taxes on land ownership were introduced.

“Proclamation IX of 1902 was introduced as a legal provision (binding of course) for indigenous people to claim ownership of land. There was an annual fee of two Strait dollars to register each title, which ultimately amounted to land ownership tax.’ 

Edict of shifting cultivation provoked popular defiance 

Then came this first breaking point:

“What provoked direct popular opposition” was “a Resident’s suggestion for the Inner Area (Interior) of Borneo that land ownership should be limited to three acres of land per adult. Most of the chiefs of the regions around Tambunan, Keningau, Tenom, Rundum and Pensiangan refused to recognise the new regulation because it directly interfered with their tradition of shifting cultivation.”

But the North Borneo Company did not permit dissent. 

It responded to the resistance with “sentences and imprisonment”.

When that didn’t help, the Company played politics.     

“They appointed Haji Jamaluddin, a Muslim chief loyal to them (Society), as District Native Chief of Tenom (Ketua Anak Neger).”

The ‘main cause’ – forced labour to build mule tracks

Pony tracks sounds like a good idea in old North Borneo what about conscription or “forced labour” to get them done?

“In connection with the reorganisation of the land ownership regulations, the North Borneo Company began to cross the interior with a network of mule tracks to connect individual villages and to intensify trade. The Murut in particular were obliged to do forced labour.”

Forced labour was cited by Wikipedia as the “main cause” of the escalation in 1915. 

“The Muruts in particular were obliged to do forced labour,” Wikipedia noted.

But what particularly angered them was the edict that allegedly “forced every Murut couple who had two children, to give up one of them to forced labour”, according to one report. 

Further annoyances include the tax on ‘tapai’, a liquor produced by the natives, and the Ladang Ordinance on 1913 aimed at curbing the slash-and-burn economy to encourage the nomadic indigenous tribes to settle in the interior – trampling on cultural traditions which escalated the rejection of Company regulations, but even these were viewed as “minor triggers”. 

American academic on the backdrop to the Rundum Rebellion

So, what brought matter to a head that brought Murut Tagol tribe warrior Ontoros Antonom into the picture? 

Wikipedia didn’t provide a definitive answer but an American, Thomas Rhys Williams of Sacramental State College, did in his article entitled “The Form of a North Borneo Nativistic Behaviour”.

Williams noted actually how relatively small the Murut population was at the time – just 22,343 persons, concentrated in the southern portion of the North Borneo Interior Residency.

Judging from the contemporary material cultural items of porcelain wares, bronze gongs, beads, these were evidences that the Murut population had long been in contact with agents of the Chinese customary social environment, and even Hindu and Arabic material cultural appear also to have been diffused to the Murut. 

In contrast, he noted: “European contacts with the Murut peoples beginning in the 1850s (St. John 1858), were incidental to 1880 and sporadic through the initial 25 years of the administration of the North Borneo Chartered Company formed in 1882.” 

 “Until 1907-10 government officers travelling from Interior Residencies offices of Beaufort, Tenom and Keningau provided infrequent first hand contacts between European and Murut traditions,” Williams said, quoting historian Tregonning. 

But according to Williams, what really angered and triggered Rundum Rebellion came when the North Borneo Chartered Company suddenly “stationed District Officers and armed police in Tomani in 1907 and Rundum in 1910, in the Central Murut area, in attempt to control headhunting (which nobody can now say it’s good) and gun running”.

“Restrictions imposed on such activities by edict and enforced by arms were applied also to other areas of Murut life; European codes pertaining to murder, theft, adultery, and drunkenness were used by District Officers in dealing with the Murut.

“Such activities resulted in an effort to kill Tomani District Officer in 1909. The (Tomani) attack failed but appears to have set in motions events leading to the success of Murut warrior Ontoros Antanom in rallying a force for an attack on the government post at Rundum in February 1915,” Williams said. 

Antanom stormed colonial 

forces with 700 warriors


Given his influence and appeal, Antonom managed to enlist 600-700 warriors from 62 villages in Keningau, Tenom, Pensiangan and Rundum to mount the attack directed against the colonial forces under NB Baboneu and CH Pearson, Wikipedia continued.

“The February 1915 attack was ‘a storm of tremendous violence,” the Wikipedia report noted. 

A description of the attack in the Murut Museum, Tenom, claims that ‘the British officers were totally shocked to see hundreds of Muruts flooded their administration building and attacked them.”  

“While the European officer (unnamed) escaped, the Dayak and Dusun Police were killed (meaning many?),” William reported.

“Twelve of Antonom’s men were killed and 20-30 wounded.”

Punitive British counter attack 

on Antanom’s huge fort


“Startled by the events, the British equipped a major punitive expedition under the command of Bunbury, the Resident of Tenom, against the Antonom’s (amazing) 80ft by 40ft fortress at Kg Sungei Selangit, near Pensiangan,” Wikipedia reported.           

“Antanom’s fort consists of seven under underground houses that are connected one to another. The surrounding hills are reinforced with Udang and sula (meaning long and pointed bamboo stakes) and lushly planted; a fence amid innumerable loopholes … The size of the fort was about 80x40ft,” says the Wikipedia report.

“The assault against Antonom’s fort began on April 14, 1915, but was not very successful,” Wikipedia noted.

“The British now shifted to cutting off water and food supplies.”

Antanom’s surrender and execution 

“On April 16, the Murut announced that they were considering surrender.’

‘On April 17, 1915, white flags were raised and Bunbury sent his interpreters, who came back with 800 Straits dollars, various goods and two riffles. They asked the Muruts that Antanom should surrender. Eventually Antanom and his two close confidants, Kalur and Ansakul, came out and were immediately handcuffed. After a brief interrogation, Bundary had Antonom executed on the spot,” the Wikipedia report says.

But the battle raged on.

“During the night, the battle raged on and the Muruts tried to escape from the fort. Their losses were considerable; around 350-400 were killed, and another 300 managed to escape.”

That’s how the episode of the Rundum Rebellion ended.             

Rare glimpse of Japanese exploits in Murut country ended in disastrous Japanese Death March!

But then sadly, history repeated itself.

As Thomas Rhys Williams put it: “On December 17, 1941 the Japanese invaded North Borneo with a force of 25,000 men.

“Main centres of the occupation were established in the Murut area at Tenom, Keningau and Pensiangan.

“For three years, large patrols of infantry regularly moved from these points through Murut territory, conscripting labour for construction of military airfields, women for army prostitution centres, commandeering rice and other foodstuffs, imposing head taxes, fines and punishing offenders,’ Williams asserted.

Small wonder in late 1943 when allied guerrilla agents parachuted into the area, they easily enlisted Muruts in a force for raids on Japanese patrols and outposts. 

‘Re-occupation of North Borneo by the Australian 9th Division led to heavy fighting through Tenom and Keningau,’ Williams noted.

‘The 6,000 Japanese stationed in Pensiangan were ordered to stack arms and march 150 miles (250km) to Beaufort.’

‘Australian Army records show some 400 Japanese reached Beaufort. The remainder were killed by Muruts along the line of March,’ William reported, quoting Tengoning 1958: 221!           

This is no doubt a very little known Death March this time involving the Japanese from Pensiangan to Beaufort, with a much greater death toll of 4,600 than in comparison to the 1,047 deaths on actual Sandakan-Ranau Death March story.

 

Buildings in Old Rundum Station in the early 1900s. 

Tham grooming the younger generations to develop Rundum’s historical and cultural tourism potential. At background is his son Kim Leng and Rosli Tampisan. 

Highlighting the strength and inspiration of Murut culture at the site of the old Rundum station which was stormed by hundreds of Murut warriors during the Rundum Rebellion, let by Ontorus  Antanom, which totally shocked the British officers. (Pic by Rosli Tampisan)

Statue of Ontoros Antanom in Kemabong township. 

A graphic on Antanom’s underground fort that got tunnels and houses in Pensiangan, which was attacked by British North Borneo forces 14-17 April 1915. 



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