The Kadazandusun word of the Tagahas dialect, Tolungan, meant the deep river pool formed when two rivers merged.
Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve was named as such because of the apealing beauty of the tolungan, the merge-point of the Babagon River and the Moyog River in Kampung Babagon itself. It was applied for from the then Colonial Government way back in the 1950s when Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil was then the newly appointed Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon, and, at that time, other Kampungs nearby. An application for something so big as that Reserve, in those days, might have taken so many years to finalise especially when ground survey had to be manually laboured by the Lands and Surveys Department surveyors coming from some 22 kilometers away in Kota Kinabalu.. If the time taken to realise the applied for Reserve had extended over to the present Government era, post Independence time, for it was thought it did, then it was quite understandable.
The Factors That Prompted Such Application
In the 1950s, the limited grassy river plains in Kampung Babagon and other kampungs around were flourishing as they were seldom grazed. There were no buffaloes around the area. The people from Kampung Penampang and other kampungs around Kampung Penampang, further down river, therefore used to send their buffaloes to Kampung Babagon to graze soon after the padi planting season. That time was around the month of July. They would seek for their buffaloes and herd them back home to their kampungs just before the padi harvesting season, around the month of December. Comparatively to situations nowadays, at that time, everything was peaceful and there were no cases heard of people involved in buffaloes stealing. The Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon at that time, KK Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil, had instructed the locals to refrain from fencing up any riverbank plains for any fencing would become buffaloes’ traps in times of big floods. Such sending up of buffaloes and collecting them down later, was the yearly habitual practices of the padi farmers from further down the Petagas River. They referred to the places in Kampung Babagon as the “sarayo” or “saazo” (upstream) while they were from the “bugus” (downstream). The idea to formally apply for a piece of land from the Government for the purpose of buffaloes grazing ground was collectively conceptualised. The then Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon at that time, the now aged Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil, became the central player in realising the applied for area.
Heat-hot Ordeal
The actual sending of buffoloes from downstream to the upstream Kampung Babagon took the whole day. One would ride the tired and slow-moving buffalo as it was guided along its path. As experienced, a trip of around 10 kilometers on a tired buffalo’s back was a dreary heat-hot ordeal. “I could not imagine how my class-teacher, at that time, could tolerate the trip. Someone said that he was like a football perched on the back of his buffalo”, Ju once said. Such was the good example of how obedient a son was of his father. He was asked to send the family’s buffalo upstream at that time. Ju was also asked to send his family’s buffalo upstream at the same time. They therefore went together. When they came to a stream, they rested for some refreshments. They were more interested to rest the buffaloes rather than their riders. But whatever it was for, it was a good break. Ju’s teacher asked him as to why the stream was full of stones, boulders. He was the teacher and Ju was the Primary Five pupil! Ju answered, “Because the stream water had washed away the loose soil exposing the hard-to-move boulders.” He said that it was a good answer.
At that time KK Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil was relatively a new Ketua Kampung. He used to visit the District Officer frequently regarding matters related to the realisation of the applied for grazing reserve, styled name, Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve. It was popularly called and referred to as, “The Grazing Reserve”. The Trustees of the Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve were the Penampang District Officer, the Native District Chief (Kadazandusun) and all the Ketua Kampungs of the Kampungs which used to send buffaloes from downstream to upstream Kampung Babagon, including the Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon itself.
Old Man Gilo
To the people in Kampung Babagon, the elderly ones, the ones who knew, they all thanked Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil for the existence of the Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve. In the middle of the Reserve land, there was a big durian and a bambangan tree. Old man, Gilo, when he was still alive, used to collect some durians and some bambangan and send them to Kampung Babagon for KK Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil. The residents of Kampung Babagon and the other Kampungs around did not know the early history of the Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve. They just took it for granted that they had a big plot of a nearly-free-for-all piece of land. The total area of the Reserve was around 300 acres but some area had been execised out to augment the area of the Babagon Agriculture Station. The Ketua Kampung of the Kampungs utilising the use of the Reserve for economic and agricultural activities, especially the present Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon, should take the initiative to further find out details about the Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve. A copy of the Land Title could be obtained and all its conditions familiarised with. Depending on the outcome of the Ketua Kampung’s search a land utilisation committee could be set up to economically manage and plan the development of the hundreds of acres. The present Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon’s plan to apply to degazette the Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve should be immediately abandoned. The existence of the Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve as a communual agricultural and farmland of the people of the surrounding kampungs had become an envy of other community leaders from other areas in Sabah. It had been cited by other community leaders as the result of the far-sightedness of the Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon at that time, Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil. An otai Tan Sri from the Interior Residency once said so.
Native Reserve
The whole Reserve area had been opened up. It had been planted with cash crops, the like of pineapples, lemon grass, lengkuas plants and the like. Some parts of the near 300 acres Reserve Land had been planted with rubber trees while others had been planted with local fruit trees. They were semi-permanent plantation and by virtue of such semi-permanency of the vegetation planted, the defined land-areas could not be easily taken over by anyone else. Some areas which had been previously utilised for cash crops plantation and then abandoned, were taken over by others in later years. Some had opened up fishponds on suitable plots of the Reserve Land. It had been utilised for quite a lot of land-use except for its original plans, as a grazing ground for animals.
Grazing Reserve
An idea was therefore once posed to a few locals who had considerable areas planted with pineapples on the Reserve Land. It was suggested that the areas least suitable for any plantation of economic value be utilised for the rearing of mountain goats so as to fulfil, at least in parts, the original purpose of the Reserve Land, a Grazing Reserve. Those locals did not even weigh the suggestions. It was proposed to them because they were very industrious people and any worthwhile undertaking under their overview seldom fail. But, it was negatively shot down. “Cannot be done! Impossible!”, one of them responded. One would be at a lost to imagine as to what would be ‘impossible’, or as to what ‘could not be done’ for any positive thinkers would already be imagining seeing hundreds of mountain goats roaming the noomulok (repeatedly utilised) hill-slopes on hearing such vocalised imagination. Some other extra-positive thinkers might already be enjoying munching a bbq-ed mutton on hearing such posed thoughts.
Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil, the sole survivor from among his other fellow farmers and owners of buffaloes in the 50s, who dreamt of this Grasing Reserve as something beneficial to all the people years later, would certainly feel happy to know how the Reserve Land was used for other enonomic endevour. If the land was privately owned it would not have been opened up as how it had been quickly utilised. The locals put to practice the gists of the saying, “The early bird catches the early worms,” and “Siapa cepat dia dapat”. (Whoever was quick would surely get). Such efforts, the application for the Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve in 1950s, truly emphasised another result of some far-sightedness of that otai (old timer), ex-KK, then ex-KAN Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil.
Nothing further was heard about the, ill-advised and ill-motivated plans the current Kampung Babagon Ketua Kampung’s plan to degazette the Reserved Land! It was incidentally learnt later that what he had in mind, or what had been, perhaps, craftily advised to him, was that when the degazetting of the Reserved land had been approved, the once-gazetted Tolungan Native and Grasing Reserve area would then be opened for all to apply. Kampung Babagon itself, would then be applying a reasonably big area for Kampung Reserve, Graveyard Reserve and other Reserves which purposes would be thought of later. Little did he know that once the area had been legally freed of the magic gazette, anyone, or nearly everyone, had equal rights to send in a land application to own and alienate the opened-up land. There was no, nothing at all, to guarantee that Kampung Babagon, as a kampung, would get an inch, so to speak, of the land which was once their own domain. The land=RM-motivated advisors could have then applied for many land pieces under different names and alienate them all under the term of Country Lease. If that would have been then the outcome of the Ketua Kampung degazetting pride, then the wandering generalities, so to speak, the ordinary kampung people of Kampung Babagon and kampungs nearby, e.g. Kampung Tintap, Manansawong, Timpango, etc., would only do the act of, “gigit jari”.
The enactment, if ever the term Trustees was ever emplaced through an Act of Parliament, of ‘Trustees’ to which authorities over something were vested upon, was an excellent instrument. Whosoever had first thought of the ‘trustee’ idea deserved many congratulations. Coming to think of the truly-not-so-smart ‘degazatting idea’, it could never have gone through even if the Ketua Kampung had done the intricated processes single-handedly, or aided by his advisors, for the members of the Trustee vested with such authorities were quite many. Many of the other young Ketua Kampungs of kampungs further away from kampung Babagon did not even know that the institution which they were sitting on was, from earlier on, a member of the Trustee of the near-300 acres Tolungan Native and Grazing Reserve which existence they did not even know. By right, his kampung folks could also enjoy whatever benefits The Reserve Land could provide. There might even be positive thinkers from amongst the kampung youths of the bugus (down-stream) kampungs. They might even think of planting hundreds of acres of Gaharu Trees on a Co’operative Soceity basis. They might want to establish a proper Land Utilisation Committee. They might want to regulate land-use for housing. ‘Outsiders’ should be barred from making houses along the road shoulders which defined the upper boarders of the Reserve Land! Who were the ‘outsiders’? How were they considered as one? Thus, the need for a proper, fair and democratic kampung administration.
Reference:
Joe
Patience is a virtue
Possess it if you can
Seldom found in ladies
But never in men
Patience Strong
1960
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