Respecting Kinabalu’s heritage spirits

Published on: Sunday, December 05, 2021

By: David Thien

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The priestesses performing a ritual to appease the spirits of Mount Kinabalu at Kampung Bantayan at the mountain’s foothills. (Pic: The Star)

A VIDEO presentation showing a British participant in the nude on top of Mount Kinabalu expressing her remorse outside was screened at the Sabah Cultural Board and Sabah Parks organised webinar entitled “People and the Mountain Relation”, recently.

The event, celebrated as “the relationship the people have with their sacred mountain”, was also in support of aspiring Unesco Kinabalu Geopark status application mooted since 2006 and is awaiting Unesco Global Geopark evaluation this year.

In the presentation, it was stated that: “Six months later, shamans from all over the world came to Sabah to perform healing ceremonies and rituals for Mount Kinabalu, the Sacred Mountain of Borneo”.

According to event moderator Andrew Ambrose aka Atama Katama, there is a relationship between sacred space and sacred time in religious heritage which has been recognised since 1983 at a world conference of indigenous people as their intangible cultural heritage.

The Tambunan native who spoke at the United Nations event as an Ambassador of the Dayak International Organisation, said there are 450 million indigenous people all around the world and 400 million are in Asia with 10 million on the island of Borneo.

From 2007 to 2018, stakeholders and local indigenous communities around the Kinabalu geopark site were consulted over the geopark proposal that is promoted as beneficial to them as guardians of their sacred mountain.

The Sabah Cabinet in March 2020, authorised Kinabalu Geopark as a National Geopark and supported its Unesco Global Geopark declaration submitted in November 2020.

A map of the Kinabalu Geopark.

Malaysia declared Kinabalu Geopark as one of its National Geopark on March 18, 2020 after it was evaluated for the status in 2019.

CEO of Sabah Tourism, Noredah Othman, said that Unesco World Heritage Site Mount Kinabalu since Dec 2000, and its related surroundings like Kundasang and its resorts, is a flagship tourism product of Sabah.

“Post-pandemic – where are we going? Rebuilding tourism is a priority, but the sector must become more sustainable and resilient in the future.”

If recognised as a Unesco Global Geopark, Mount Kinabalu will enhance its appeal and bring more modernity benefits to the community living around the geopark site.

Noredah was one of the speakers at the Sabah Cultural Board and Sabah Parks organised webinar entitled “People and the Mountain Relation”.

According to panellist Justinus Guntabid, Sabah Parks Assistant Director of the International Relation Division, “Mount Kinabalu is a sacred mountain to the Dusunic group of ethnics as their home of the departed. An annual ritual at the foothill of Mount Kinabalu is conducted for safe mountain climbing activities.”

Dr Benedict Topin, the Director of Socio-Cultural Heritage of KadazanDusun Cultural Association, appealed to the authorities to set up an educational information centre, native spiritual shrine or meditation centre at the park to conduct rites for the benefit of visitors.

He said: “In Momolianism, Mount Akinabalu (Aki means grandfather for grandfather mountain like Apo in Mount Apo in the Philippines) is considered as a living sacred temple for the Kadazandusun to communicate with its divinity care-taker couple Akinabalu and Odusinudu as well as to communicate with their Gimbarans or departed souls of their dead ancestors and relatives, as well as to communicate with the creator couple Kinoingan and sumundu and their daughter-saviour Ponompuan @ Huminodun themselves whenever they need divine interventions to help resolve their humanity and especially their spiritual problems.”

Panellist speakers Julius Relly Paner, the Unit Head of Investment Promotion, Tourism Office, Philippines and Miguelito Velasco Trocio, Tourism Officer of the Philippines, prefer to mention Mount Apo as “the sacred mountain of their forebears.”

As a dormant volcano, soaring to 2,900 meters, the mountain base is larger than the island of Singapore. To the natives whose fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers have made their homes on the mountain, Apo is a sacred summit – home to the gods known as Apo and Mandarangan.

Mount Apo has come to represent survival to the natives as it provides many of the basic necessities of life. The largest group of residents are the Bagobos and Manobos. The most famed of Apo’s wild creatures is the Philippine Eagle.