The Kadazan, the indigenous people of Sabah, then North Borneo, a former British Crown Colony, with all its attributing tribes who spoke their different dialects of the Kadazandusunic language, formed the largest population, by race-ratio, of the land in the decade of the 1950s and many more years following. The Kadazan and the Dusun together were the most in number and in much later years, they merged their race-name together to give their language, especially, the name Kadazandusun. They are, as people, also referred to, nowadays, as Kadazandusun. Strategic family planning or the lack of it rendered them to lose their position as the densiest race in Sabah in much later years, especially nowadays! This could well be attributed to the effect of education in general.
In and around the years 1950s and years following, there was a great awakening for the thirst of education in general from amongst the Kadazandusun people in the District of Penampang. Such desire was evidently prompted by the availability of two schooling facilities provided for by the Catholic Missionary in a Kampung in the Penampang District. There were two schools, one for boys and another one for girls. The boys’ school was named St. Michael’s Primary School and the girls’ St. Joseph’s Convent Primary School. Those schools were established much earlier, in and around 1929, or thereabout, when the foreign missionaries came to the land. But, alas! not every child could go to those schools. Only school going children from the immediate vicinity of the schools were able to attend those schools. It was the distances from the other Kampungs to the location of those schools in Kampung Dabak, to be exact, which acted as one of the main deterrent factors of the children’s schooling. Children from other further away Kampungs, therefore, could not attend school. Although there were lodging facilities provided for by the Catholic Missionaries, a lodge with the Catholic priests or the Catholic nuns, there were only very limited places and they were reserved for the very far-away children, the out of the district ones. They also acted as general help of the priests and nuns during non-schooling time. The locals called or referred to the boys as “tanak misin” or mission boys and the girls as “tanak kombin” or convent girls.
Prohibiting Factors
Apart from the prohibiting distances from the children’s Kampungs to the schools, not all children could, in fact, go to school. Only parents who could afford to decently dress their children for school, who could financially afford and were willing to pay for school fees, and, who could afford the absence of their children from home for half a day everyday each week, except on Sundays, sent their children to school. In those days, as it was too with some families in even more recent times, the children were help-hand assets around the house. The general schooling desires were for their children’s abilities to read and write the Kadazandazan Language of the Tangaa’ dialect, in the first place and the other Kadazandusun dialects as well, and to function a bit in the third R, arithmetics. The general tendency of the Kadazandusun mentality at that time was that their daughters need not spend many years in school. It was considered sufficient schooling for them when they were able to read and write their own names. Many of the Kadazandusun people in the past were also of the near-global opinion that “the girls’ place was in the kitchen”.
In the boys’ or girls’ schools, when the pupils had mastered the basic reading techniques of their Kadazandusun language, the pupils were then further trained to read cohesive words of stories from the Catholic Bible of the Old Testament which had been translated into the Kadazandusun Language of the Tangaa’ dialect. The translations were bounded into presentable thick cover story books. It was a pride and a pleasure to own and keep one in those days! That was the main, if not, the only reading Kadazandusun text available to the pupils in those days. The medium of instruction in those primary schools was the English Language as the nuns and priests who started the schools as missionary vehicles for the spread of the Catholic Faith were Europeans, some, presumably British. It could still be visualized so vividly that the first page of the Primary One English Book contained sematics and thematic illustrations depicted by the following graphics:
A man A pan
A man and A pan
This is a man. This ia a pan.
The Kadazandusun class text presented the first page illustrations, as such:
i Molotu om i Gusil
(Molotu and Gusil)
There was a school fee to pay to go to those schools. The school fee was One Dollar (in those days, the Malayan Dollar, the equivalent of One Ringgit nowadays) per pupil per month, but the Kadazandusun generalities were still finding it too much of a burden to pay. But, as it was commonly cited as an example nowadays, there were some financially capable individuals who were blessed with money but they were still unwilling to pay for their children’s school fees, thus depriving them of schooling in those days. Some of the rich parents who saw the importance of schooling for their children and who did send their children to schools in those trying days had left their children as well known members of the community in years following. One elderly gentleman, an otai in the 1950s, who had by now long passed on, referred to the writer as ‘a taciturn’ and ‘an introvert’, for he was very economical with speech and the dispense of viewpoints at any discussions and gatherings. This late gentleman’s knowledge of the seldom-used English words, ‘taciturn’ and ‘introvert’, confirmed the result of his early education and schooling. On the other hand, one schoolgirl, out of her own determinations to gain education in those days and had approached her school authorities for help, were lucky enough to gain favours from the Catholic foreign nuns. She was excused from the cash payments of her school fees and was only required to pay for it in the form of a few bundles of firewood per month. She must have been spirit-bestowed with some simple humility of feeling, free of self-consciousness, from carrying firewoods to school. From St. Michael’s Primary School, it was a common sight almost every morning of pupils sent home because their parents could not or would not pay for their school fees. The humilation was too great for some for often a time some of those pupils, especially the bigger and the older ones, would then not turn up for school anymore.
The Three Kadazandusun Educational Visionaries
During those early years of the decade, there was a concentrate of three Kadazandusun kampung leaders in the Penampang District. Although they were all from the same district they happened to nurse the folly of non-communication innocence with each other. Were they naturally and by nature too secretive of their own ideas? They all had the same vision; to put up a school of some sort, the like of the ones set up by the Penampang Catholic Missionaries, and teaching all the surrounding kampung children how to read and write in their own language, first and foremost. It was also unwise to heap blames on anyone of them as they were all separated by at least one day’s walk and further more they did not really know each other socially. Still, being Kampung leaders, they could have taken initiatives to know each other better.
Kampung Sugud was a good 10 kilometers walk to the nearest town in those days. One’s typical journey from Kampung Sugud to the District Office, the administrative centre of the Penampang District, would entail a strenuous walk through padi fields and riverine path for more than an hour, at least, and then an upstream riverboat paid ride. The total time taken for a to-and-fro trip would be one day. Comparatively speaking, the nowadays infrastructures enable one to reach Kampung Sugud in matters of minutes from the Administrative Secretariat, the location of the Administrative centre of the District, in those days. There is a sealed road leading to this said Kampung. Youngsters call Kampung Sugud, Kampung “so good” /sougud/.
Gundohing O.T. Lojimon, the officially appointed village chief and a natural kampung leader of Kampung Sugud at that time, saw to the harmonious accord of the villagers residing in his Kampung. He would give free advice to his villagers who would come forward to talk to him and he would pronounce impartial sogit to villagers’ misunderstandings. In those days the District Officer was naturally a British National since Sabah, North Borneo then, was a British Crown Colony. The District Officer and entourage would have to ask for permission, so to speak, from the Kampung O.T. (Orang Tua), a title name-reference nowadays changed to K.K. (Ketua Kampung), if ever an official Kampung visit was made. The late Gundohing O.T. or K.K. Lojimon built the first Kadazandusun Primary School in Kampung Sugud, a homogeneous Kadazandusun Kampung, in the Penampang District. One of the many still alive products of that school was a senior Malaysian school inspector retiree, a deserved title holder of the Kadazandusun term, Gundohing, for a respected elder, Gundohing Michael Majon!
Good Spirit-led Trip?
It was also at about the same time that a Primary School was dreamt of for Kampung Babagon. Kampung Babagon in the 1950s was a “no! no!” Kampung in all aspects, let alone in basic infrastructures! Situated east of the District Administrative centre, it could only be reached on foot along the ancient Japanese riverbank trails and buffaloes pathways. The still famous Crocker Range salt trail from the West Coast to the Interior Residency, in parts, passed by the perimeters of Kampung Babagon. The residents of Kampung Babagon were comparatively very few but the population of the cluster of all the other surrounding kampungs was considerably large. The other kampungs were Tampasak, Timpango, Tintap, Manansawong, Sangai-Sangai, Sosopon, Nounggon, Tolungan, Rugading, Ponombiran and Kibunut. Kampung Babagon was the more known Kampung of them all at that time and it therefore became the Kampung lodge of any visitors or passersby.
Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil who, together with many others in the entourage of the Penampang British District Officer, Mr. Pascho, and the Penampang District Native Chief, the late Mr. Tan Ping Hing, visited Kampung Babagon in the early 1950s. It was Mr. Tan Ping Hing’s insistence that Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil was included as a member of the entourage. The kampung was extremely peaceful and literally roamed by scores of games, typical jungle delights, the like of the barking and mousedeer and wild pigs. At that time, prohibiting laws or by-laws enacted of any kind pertaining to hunting and the killing of wildlife were unheard of! The rivers, too, were bloated and overflowing with many kinds of freshwater river fish. The polian and sinsilog were the popular choices. One striking illusion the river water played on many visitors was the depth of the river bed. The water was so clear that the river bed seemed visibly so shallow!
It was believed that the Penampang District Officer and the Penampang District Native Chief interviewed Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil for the post of a Ketua Kampung of Kampung Babagon while they were on that visit to Kampung Babagon itself. It became a popular topic of talk in much later times that the Native Chief himself attached his full recommendations for the appointment of Gundohing Emmanuel
K.K. Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil, therefore, in the course of adopting Kampung Babagon as his newly adopted Kampung had also expanded the social horizons and scope of life. He was therefore very much at home in Kampung Babagon as he would be when he went back to his original Kampung Koduntut. These two Kampungs was separated by a good one day’s adult walk.
The Kampung Babagon Experience
In the years that followed, he stumbled upon an opportunity to honestly explore and expound his vision to establish a school for deprived children, the possibility of introducing a Kadazandusun school of some sort, modeled from the situations prevailing in the Catholic Misssion Schools in Kampung Dabak, not too far away from the administrative centre of the Penampang District. According to his personal recount of a happening one evening a long time ago, he narrated, reading in parts, to the village folks a Christian bible story, Cain and Abel. His intention was simply to share with them a Christian story familiar to him. To aid his memory of the story he read some parts of the story from a Kadazandusun of the Tangaa’ dialect translated storybook. The elderly village folks indeed came closer to see what he was looking at from the book. They were amazed as to how he could vocalise minute black marks into cohesive stories in a language they could understand. Unbelievably strange but it was true, such was the bare simplicity and ignorance of the elderly village folks of Kampung Babagon as recently as around the early 1950s!
K.K. Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil explained to them that what he was doing was reading and such ability could be learnt by all people, especially the young ones if they went to school. He therefore seized the opportunity to convince them of the importance of building a school in Kampung Babagon for the benefits of their young children. They were all for it. They were hooked.
Undoubtedly, there must have been then a series of kampung-style meetings convened to crystalise the vision, to plan for actions to be taken and still to further convince the possible fence-sitters. Those meetings must have adjourned to an ancient version of the present-days aramatii of feasting and drinking where tapioca wine must have flowed down many a throat and sparsely-salted barbecued jungle delights were heaped for all to enjoy.
All the ordinary kampung folks must have engaged themselves in communicative dialogues, as such: “I have no money to contribute but I can, together with the others, contribute my time and energy to gather the necessary round timbers from the unchartered virgin jungle”. In those days kind donations from the rich and famous, so to speak, were unheard of. The act of donating money or materials was not popular and was seldom done or never at all done. The ones who proposed the communual work done, who mentally worked the plan, would normally get the blame. To lighten the blame burdens, the initiators would have to find ways out and normally the easy way out of such a jam would be to learn to become a good donor himself. It was totally impossible to collect financial donations from those who lacked financially!
Towards the middle of 1950s a Kadazandusun Primary School in Kampung Babagon was completed and it started to take its first intake of pupils straight away. It was a co-educational school and the medium of instruction was Kadazandusun! Its first teachers were the now-aged and retired K.K. then Native Chief, Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil himself and one late Mr. Louis Majapul, a well-respected otai at that time. The first pupils of the newly put up Kadazandusun Primary School in Kampung Babagon were young and not so young boys and girls. They, no doubt, came to school multi attired and without shoes or slippers, not even the nowadays commonly available Japanese rubber slippers. They were taught to write and read the Kadazandusun of the Tangaa’ dialect. These two language functions come together hand in hand; one would not be able to write if one was not able to read! Naturally with the 1st language, communicative competence did preceed linguistic capabilities. The abilities to really explore the simple principles and functions of the 3rd R, arithmetics, were also taught to the pupils. It was hoped that the folly displayed in the following dialogues was once and for all eradicated.
A : (a person from Kampung Koduntut)
B : (a resident of Kampung Ponombiran)
A : Nonggoo tongoyon nu oi Aman?
(Where are you heading to Aman?
B : Muli’.
Going home.
A : Nonggoo tulion nu?
Where do you go home to?
B : Hilood Kampung Ponombiran.
In Kampung Ponombiran.
A : Songkuro sinodu’ o Kampung Ponombiran
mantad hiti’d Kampung Babagon? Piro batu?
How far is Kampung Ponombiran from Kampung
Babagon? How many miles?
B : Noilaan podii iri, do waatu nopo o tindalanon!
It’s quite impossible to say, for the pathways were
all covered with stones!
The main aspects of misunderstanding between the speakers were, the term batu which was the word equivalent for ‘miles’ - the unit count for distances and that the distance between two places could be measured by the count of ‘miles’ - batu, in Malay and watu in Kadazandusun of the Bunduliwan dialect!
The Kadazandusun school in Kampung Sugud and the Kadazandusun school in Kampung Babagon started their operation almost at the same time with the Kadazandusun Language as their medium of instruction. The English Language was also featured prominently on the lessons timetable since it was a popular hope of schooling that the ability to say, “yes”, “No” and “Thank you”, was the clear sign of education.
The Native Voluntary School in Puun Tunoh
The late Gundohing Josue Moinin, a senior teacher from the Catholic Mission School in Penampang at that time, resigned his teaching post to start a Kadazandusun school in Kampung Puun Tunoh during the first quarter of the 1950s. It was a selfless act of bringing a school nearer to the children. Like the situations in both Kampung Sugud and Kampung Babagon where the initiators erected the schools on their own land, the late Gundohing Josue Moinin also erected the Kadazandusun school in Kampung Puun Tunoh on his own beautiful land. He also became the first teacher of his school. That gentlemen could function very well in both spoken and written English. The medium of instruction of the Kadazandusun school in Kampung Puun Tunoh was in the Kadazandusun Language with strong lesson periods in English. It was therefore such a pity that all those first Kadazandusun schools did not survive their infancy periods. The Kadazandusun school in Kampung Babagon and in Kampung Sugud had strong emphasis on lesson periods in English. The general mentality of the Kadazandusun generalities in those days was that the ability to speak a little English was a clear sign of ones’ good education.
But, they all had special emphasis and lesson-periods on trying to muster the communicative and linguistic competence of their own language, the Kadazandusun Language, of the Tangaa’ dialect. Their teachers, though not trained to teach pupils, were all elderly otai and they were capable to temporarily perform their immediate tasks of teaching the teachable.
The Otai Teachers’ Teaching Strategies
The old timer teachers’ own teaching techniques, variations, adaptations and memories of the strategies employed by their own teachers in teaching them when they were still in school many many years ago, were put to use. They could have been right in their opinion that classroom teaching was a trial and error process.
The pimato (alphabets) of the Kadazandusun Language follow the Romans’. A few alphabets are not directly used, like, the ‘c’, ‘q’ and the’x’. They would still be used in context when words containing such pimato are borrowed or are Kadazandusunised.
The alphabets were put on a chart in their natural order and the pupils were made to vocalise after their teachers each letter of the alphabets. They were made to overlearn the alphabets when they were encouraged to loudly call out each letter in a normal tone, in stacato and in a sing-song way. In fact, there was a special Penampang tune to sing the alphabets to aid hinge them to the long-term memory! Since the Kadazandusun Language was, or rather still is, basically a syllabic language another strategy and teaching technique employed were the putting up of all the possible syllables onto charts. The pupils would then be made to over-learn their combinations in shapes and sounds, true to the old and often thought-of out-dated language learning maxim, “Language learning is overlearning, anything less is of no use”.
a e i o u
a ba ca da fa ga ha ja ka la ma na pa qa ra sa ta va wa xa ya za
e be ce de fe ge he je ke le me ne pe qe re se te ve we xe ye ze
i bi ci di fi gi hi ji ki li mi ni pi qi ri si ti vi wi xi yi zi
o bo co do fo go ho jo ko lo mono po qo ro so to vo wo xo yo zo
u bu cu du fu gu hu ju ku lu mu nu pu qu ru su tu vu wu xu yu zu
In the Kadazandusun Language, especially in the Tangaa’ dialect, the use of the /e/ sound was represented by the /i/ sound. Some of the other dialects of the Kadazandusun Language, for example, the Tagahas dialect, sometimes used the sound /e/ in speech especially.
For example:
(Tangaa’ dialect) : Saavi (a type of river fish)
(Tagahas dialect) : Sarawi
or
Sarae
Another overlearning techniques employed was the use of the following strategic combinations of possible sound-combinations found in the Kadazandusun Language.
Ang (eng) ing ong ung Ung ong ing (eng) ang
Bang (beng) bing bong bung Bung bong bing (beng) bang
Cang (ceng) cing cong cung Cung cong cing (ceng) cang
Dang (deng) ding dong dung Dung dong ding (deng) dang
Fang (feng) fing fong fung Fung fong fing (feng) fang
Gang (geng) ging gong gung Gung gong ging (geng) gang
Hang (heng) hing hong hung Hung hong hing (heng) hang
Jang (jeng) jing jong jung Jung jong jing (jeng) jang
Kang (keng) king kong kung Kung kong king (keng) kang
Lang (leng) ling long lung Lung long ling (leng) lang
Mang (meng) ming mong mung Mung mong ming (meng) mang
Nang (neng) ning nong nung Nung nong ning (neng) nang
Pang (peng) ping pong pung Pung pong ping (peng) pang
Rang (reng) reng rong rung Rung rong ring (reng) rang
Sang (seng) sing song sung Sung song sing (seng) sang
Tang (teng) ting tong tung Tung tong ting (teng) tang
Vang (veng) ving vong vung Vung vong ving (veng) vang
Wang (weng) wing wong wung Wung wong wing (weng) wang
Yang (yeng) ying yong yung Yung yong ying (yeng) yang
Zang (zeng) zing zong zung Zung zong zing (zeng) zang
The combination of pimato + e + pimato (alphabet + e + alphabet), the like in the second column of first set and fourth column of the second set, was not taught to the pupils in those three first-ever Kadazandusun Primary Schools established in the world, as such combinations did not occur in the Kadazandusun of the Tangaa’ dialect. They were only put onto the chart to complete the big combinations picture. They were also included in the chart so as to emphasise and show the aspects of linguistic learning exclusion. When the pupils were made to chant those combinations, there were many sing-song ways employed. They were also made to say or chant each line forward and backward as fast as they could and in competitions among themselves. Such were the small language learning enjoyments experienced by the Kadazandusun Language learners in the Kadazandusun primary schools a long long time ago!
Alas! Those intended first-ever Kadazandusun Primary Schools did not last very long in the hands and managements of the Kadazandusun initiators and simple Kampung friends. The initiators lacked the necessary legal minds, the argumentative capabilities and reasonings in registering their own brand of schools as Private Kadazandusun Primary Schools. They were asked to duly register their schools and, ofcourse, together with their proper registrations as primary schools, as a proper public learning institutions, there came scores of other departmental rules and regulations which had to be adhered and complied to by the school managements. At that time, only the Government, the Missionaries or a properly elected and a financially capable School Management Board with community backing were the thought-of authorities capable to manage schools. The three schools put up by the natives themselves did not even have a proper school management board each or collectively.
The three Kadazandusun intended Private Primary Schools
They were therefore, so to speak, shot down before they had even taken off the ground! The three Kadazandusun intended private primary, schools did not last very long. In a matter of a few years they were fully taken over by the Government. The deciding factors of the orderly takeover by the Government and in the ever-willing handover by the initiators and his kampung groups were thought to be related to the lack of financial resources. The institution of the District Office helped a lot in seeing into the proper registration of the schools with the Education Department. The initiators were compensiated in that their lands on which the schools were built was valued according to the valuation of undeveloped areas. The school building maintenance and the teachers’ salaries, both entailed a large amount of money. This was one of the many instances in the develeopment of the Kadazandusun Private Primary School which demonstrated the lack of unity of the Kadazandusun race. Instead of rallying to support a thought-of common cause, many would voice out envious opinions, the like of, “Let’s see what would happen next! I bet the school would die a natural death!” Some even tried to make false reports, stating that the initiators collected money from the public to build a school. They failed to understand that the kampung people themselves were the ones who built the schools. The schools were put up with the self-help sense of, “all for one and one for all” spirit!
The Chinese communities also established their own brand of schools, private schools, at almost around the same stretch of time. They had the brain, money and sustaining will to see that what they started small could last, and could last it did until today!
The Kadazandusun Initiators
If the three Kadazandusun kampung leaders, the late K.K. Lojimon, of Kampung Sugud, the now aged exNative Chief and ex-K.K., Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil, of Kampung Babagon and the late Gundohing Josue Moinin, of Puun Tunoh, happened to have pursued such dreams and exerted as such selfless efforts during the post Independence Era, as of the present days, their effort might have been fully recognised and appreciated by the Government. They could have been bestowed the awards of the PGDK decorations which naturally could have brought them the Datukship title. They had established some exemplary work which benefited quite a large section of the communities. They had not only established primary schools but they had built them on their own lands! But, to the many people who had obtained some benefits from the efforts they had done, they were and are Datuk indeed in their memories and hearts. Ex-Native Chief and ex-K.K., Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil, who would be celebrating his 91st birthday in 2008, was awarded the ADK (Ahli Darjah Kinabalu), the second highest honour, being PDK the highest honour, at the time when the award was made in the 60s, and, the BSK (Bintang Setia Kinabalu), a lowly 5th in rank honour, obtained in recent times. The second highest honour nowadays is the PGDK which carries the Datukship title.
The Teaching of the Kadazandusun Language for the first time in 1995, in the present school setup, as claimed and advocated by a number of community and political leaders nowadays, is not completely true. It has once been taught for a few years in a real presentday-like classroom setting way back in 1950s. The Catholic Missionary Schools, St. Michael’s Primary and St. Joseph’s Primary, followed the Native Voluntary Schools in Kampung Babagon, Kampung Sugud and Kampung Puun Tunoh, first started to teach the Kadazandusun Language of the Tangaa’ dialect. For others to say that the first Kadazandusun school was put up somewhere near the northern town of Sabah only in 2006/2007 is not even a half-truth. But if claims were not challenged, for why challenge claims if it did not bring any harm to anybody, then they would eventually be considered true and by their own accord would establish themselves as the truth and be readily accepted by everyone as the only truth.
It has been long regretted that the Kadazandusun people are not united. Unity, the lack of it in all aspects, is feared the curse of the race! Even if a Kadazandusun was highly educated, as long as a Kadazandusun person, he would engineer a device to knock in and “shorten” down another Kadazandusun person so that he himself could be seen towering above him. Such was and perhaps, still is, the Kadazandusun prevalent hard-to-change mentality. How long still would it be before such a mentality is completely eradicated? Soibu toun po mantad baino?
Ju Tangit
Kampung Tintap
Penampang.
29 February, 2008.
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