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 mouse deer 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 stricking 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 visible 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 Tangit Kinajil, a forward-looking kampung leader, as the Ketua Kampung for the area. The appointment came with the condition that he would adopt Kampung Babagon as his new kampung. He possessed the natural qualities of a kampung leader hoped for by the Native Chief of the District. Gundohing Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil liked the place for he could envisage great potentials Kampung Babagon held for the future and where he could forsee himself to be a leading player as an agent of change. 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.