Historical

background of
Dusun
 Identification Of Dusun
• The Dusun live in northern Borneo and speak several regional dialects of a language belonging to the
Austronesian family. -The Dusun name for themselves, in the Penampang regional dialect, is "Tuhun
Ngaavi" (the people).

• Dusun commonly have recognized differences among themselves through the use of geographic
designations such as Tambunan, Penampang, Tempassuk and others and also on the basis of dominant
subsistence activity in rice agriculture, employing the descriptors tuhun id ranau (people of the wet rice
fields) or tuhun id sakid (people of the hill rice fields) to note a distinction between subsistence based on
irrigated rice and on swidden rice cultivation.

• The term "Dusun" has been used by Europeans, who, in the nineteenth century, adopted the colloquial
Malay language usage, orang dusun (people of the orchards) as a standard reference term.

• In the years following the inclusion (on 16 September 1963) of the former British colony of North Borneo
into the new nation of Malaysia as the state of Sabah, the Dusun people began to employ the term
"Kadazan" to refer to themselves and to distinguish their culture and society from other indigenous
populations in Sabah.
 Origins of Dusun
• The origin of the Dusun population is uncertain at present but existing archaeological and physical
anthropological evidence suggests that the Dusun are descendants of populations migrating into
northern Borneo in successive waves some time about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago or earlier.

• Thus, beginning after the seventh century b.c., Indian traders and travelers en route by boat to and
from south China stopped briefly along the western and northern Borneo coasts to replenish supplies
or seek shelter from severe South China Sea weather.

• These Indian travelers included various types of craftsmen and Brahman and Buddhist teachers and
priests. During the time of the Western Han Empire Chinese trade with India, with stops by ships
along the coasts of Borneo, expanded several times until a.d. 1430, and included the establishment
of some trading settlements, such as the one founded in a.d. 1375 at the mouth of the Kinabatangan
river in the eastern part of north Borneo by a Chinese trader (Wang Sen-ping).

• These contacts between northern Borneo native peoples and Chinese traders and travelers over
many centuries introduced a wide range of Chinese cultural forms to Bornean populations, and
brought them the techniques and tools of irrigated rice agriculture using the water buffalo as a
principal source of power in field preparation.
• Representatives of this kingdom made contact with people along the coasts of western and
northern Borneo. Then the powerful Hindu kingdom of Majapahit, located in Java, exercised state
power in the same coastal areas of Borneo beginning in the early fourteenth century a.d. Islamic
influences and cultural forms spread to the area as the state of Malacca, ruled by a Muslim
 prince, exerted its domination in the fifteenth century a.d.

• Regular and intensive contacts between Europeans and the coastal peoples of Borneo did not
begin until after the mid-nineteenth century a.d., as the British sought to establish protectorates to
maintain the safety of trade routes through the South China Sea.

• In northern Borneo, a private chartered company was established by British investors in 1881,
which ruled the area as a sovereign entity until 15 July 1946, when British North Borneo became
a British colony.

• British colonial rule continued for seventeen more years, until North Borneo became the state of
Sabah in Malaysia in September 1963.

• Thus the Dusun were in regular contact with British cultural and social forms for eighty-two years,
during which power, authority, and law were usually imposed unilaterally and with little regard for
Dusun tradition. These contacts brought Dusun to realize they were citizens of a Malaysian state,
and also brought them into regular contact with a new national language (Bahasa Melayu).