Dusun religion

2.5 Dusun religion

The Dusuns traditionally are animists. They believe in spirit beings which are the important forces in their universe and daily life. Any actions which could upset the spirit beings cannot be tolerated as a mistreatment of the divine powers may contribute to mishap, poor health and death. One of the divine spirits that the Dusun believe to have shaped the universe and directed the destiny of all its inhabitants is Derato, the main god in the Dusun cosmology. As the Dusuns are traditionally rice farmers, the Derato has the highest rank in importance in their life as the Dusuns believe it is Derato which provides them with a bountiful harvest year after year. According to one of the key informants, the Dusuns believe the rice seeds were brought down to earth by The Dusuns traditionally are animists. They believe in spirit beings which are the important forces in their universe and daily life. Any actions which could upset the spirit beings cannot be tolerated as a mistreatment of the divine powers may contribute to mishap, poor health and death. One of the divine spirits that the Dusun believe to have shaped the universe and directed the destiny of all its inhabitants is Derato, the main god in the Dusun cosmology. As the Dusuns are traditionally rice farmers, the Derato has the highest rank in importance in their life as the Dusuns believe it is Derato which provides them with a bountiful harvest year after year. According to one of the key informants, the Dusuns believe the rice seeds were brought down to earth by

However, the Dusuns cannot carry out the Temarok ceremony by themselves. Only a belian can take the role as the mediator between human beings and Derato. The belian is a female Dusun who possesses special knowledge about the supernatural world

which enables her to lead and conduct ritual and ceremonial acts of the Temarok. The belian is normally trained at a very young age where she is mentored by a senior belian and once she establishes her own spiritual identity, she will be allowed to conduct rituals and ceremonies on her own as a full-fledged belian (Kershaw 2000: 79).

The Temarok is not only a means to express the gratitude to Derato for the spiritual assistance in rice cultivation but it also acts as a healing medium for the ethnic group. As the Dusuns also believe that Derato has the divine strength to cure illnesses, they would seek healing from Derato, through the Temarok, for any illness that they may suffer, particularly the kind of illnesses that they believe have been caused by the offended spirit beings. This is where the belian would play a role as a mediator between the sick person, Derato and the offended supernatural powers, seeking for a peaceful end of the crisis and accordingly cure the illness (Kershaw 2000: 77-91).

Due to the relatively important roles played by the belian within the religious context of the Dusun community, the belian is perceived as a vital part of the community. However, as the Dusun community is patriarchal in nature, it is interesting to learn that the belians, who are normally mature-aged women, hold “the highest position in the Temarok political structure” (Pudarno 1988: 47). However, there is no particular answer as to why there was no male belians. The belianship fundamentally promotes egalitarian principles which accordingly suggest that there are no restrictive rules or customary taboos that disallow a Dusun male from becoming a belian (Kershaw 2000: 82). In fact, one of the key informants of this study mentions a male belian practicing the Temarok rituals back in the 1920s. It could be argued that there is most likely to be an unwritten law of division of labour in the Temarok rituals where men and women would play different roles, with men performing the role as musical accompaniment in the ritual and with women playing the role of a belian (Kershaw 2000: 16).

In addition to the above ritual practices, the Dusuns also believe that there are specific objects, animals and geographical locations which are ascribed with a spirit and divine power. These different beings must be treated with respect in order to avoid any actions that could offend the divine powers. For instance, the Dusuns place their fortune and destiny with omen birds as the former believe that the latter is the messenger of supernatural spirits. It is common for the Dusuns to briefly stop before stepping out of their houses if they hear the sound of an omen bird. To disregard the message sent by the omen bird is equivalent to undermining the power of the divine spirits and this may lead to bad luck and great misfortune, maybe even death (Bantong 1985: 108).

2.5.1 Loose adherence to Dusun religion

However, there have been many observable changes among the Dusuns, particularly among the younger generation of the ethnic group, where they have been increasingly pulled away from their ethnic religion. The dooming influence of the belian, however, is not because of the relation between gender and power within Temarok practices, but it is possibly due to the firm restrictions imposed on the belians. Accordingly to one of the key informants, the sacredness of the belian ‟s ritualistic knowledge and the Derato language means such special form of knowledge should not be put alongside secular knowledge, i.e. modern education. In other words, it is a taboo for a belian to attend school as this could be regarded as disrespecting the divine knowledge the belian has been conferred with.

However, such ritualistic taboo is not in line with the state policy where since the 1970s, the country has been putting forth efforts in promoting an equal access to school provision to all population. The eagerness of the Dusun parents to provide their children with the best education possible has inevitably pushed the Dusun religion to the sideline in the lives of the new generation of the Dusuns. In addition, with the passing of the Compulsory Education Act in 2007 which codifies nine years of compulsory education to children aged five to sixteen makes it even more difficult for the Dusun religion to survive. Any parents of compulsory school age children who fail to comply with the law are “liable to legal actions” (Zaim 2008: 1). Thus, the incompatibility of the Temarok ritual practices with secular form of knowledge is perhaps the main reason why it is extremely difficult nowadays to find a young Dusun who is willing to commit her time and life to learn the rituals and to master the craft of mediating humans and divine powers.

Moreover, with the Islamisation of the school system, educated Dusuns have been exposed to a different kind of religious belief from the one that is practiced by their parents. As a result, a considerable number of the Dusun Muslim converts involved in this study could only loosely acknowledge the Dusun religion and tradition before their conversion to Islam. Their interviews clearly illustrate the inadequate amount of knowledge on the Dusun religion they possess as many of them grappled with problems of explaining the essential functions of the Temarok ceremony to the researcher:

[E9.Muslim Dusun.I12]

Our family do not practice Temarok . I myself don‟t understand what Temarok is and I have never watched how it is done or performed before... [Trans.]

[E10.Muslim Dusun.I19]

I don‟t really know what the Temarok rituals are. I only witnessed the conduct of the rituals once when I was small and could no longer

recall what they actually look like. [Q: what about other Dusun adat?]

No, I don‟t know those either... [Trans.]

The evident lack of knowledge on the Dusun adat before conversion is also featured in the interview data of 18-year-old tertiary student who attended and completed religious school before her conversion in 2003. Talking about her experience during a funeral ceremony of her male relative, she was perplexed in the way the Dusuns carried out the funeral ceremony of the deceased:

[E11.Muslim Dusun.I16]

I was a little confused when I looked at my uncle [the deceased] and

he was dressed in his favourite attire. Isn‟t it that the deceased should only be dressed in white cotton cloth? ... [Trans.]

What caused the informant to be confused with what she observed is because she could only relate to the way the Muslims conduct a funeral ceremony. In the Islamic funeral, the deceased is wrapped in a white cotton shroud after the deceased is bathed and before the congregational funeral prayer can be performed. Whilst the Dusun funeral ceremony is carried out a more elaborate way where the body of the deceased is bathed and prepared in a way desired by the family. The family will choose the kind of dress, hairstyle and perfume which would be worn by the deceased.

Thus, in view of the incompatibility of the Dusun religion with secular learning, and also the increasing Islamic influence within the ethnic realm, it is understandable why the Dusun Muslim converts were not able to identify themselves closely with the Dusun religion before their conversion. In fact, for the younger converts, Islam is the only religion that they have ever been exposed to. For the older converts, and as will

be seen in Chapter 5, their growing knowledge about Islam led to an evaluation of the Dusun religion that inevitably caused them to question its viability and relevance. All in all, the discussion on what actually happened on the ground helps us to better understand how the contextual setting of the converts has had significant impacts on their conversion process, and accordingly influenced the characters of the stages involved in the process.