According to Aki Sapikit Kabindong of Ranau, the legendary Nunuk Ragang Tree was quite consistently told in stories to located at Sabah's heart centre and at pibuntulan (the confluence) of the Kogibangan (left) and Kawananan (right) rivers that merged to form the Liwogu (deep and calm) river that further feeds into the greater and mighty Labuk river before emptying into the Labuk Bay. However, over the years the river courses and point of confluences have been constantly changing and as such the Kadazandusun Cultural Association (KDCA) has decided the Nunuk Ragang Heritage Memorial monument to be sited off road to the right at Km 54 Ranau-Telupid-Sandakan Highway just after the main Liwogu Bridge.
Picture courtesy of Nikko San
Completed by KDCA on September 23, 1995, the Nunuk Ragang commemorative heritage building is uniquely conceptualized in the imagery of the legendary trunk of the giant Nunuk Ragang (ficus) tree. In 1996, the KDCA started to celebrate the Annual Nunuk Ragang Moginakan Festival in conjunction with the annual Anniversary Celebration of the installation of the current Huguan Siou (Paramount Leader) of the Kadazandusuns, Huguan Siou Tan Sri DSP Joseph Pairin Datuk Kitingan who was installed as Huguan Siou on July 1, 1984 at Kg Tuavon Penampang.
The Kadazandusuns accept that their major past has been lost in their own unwritten history. The current generation of Kadazandusun has only the tail-tale of their oral history on the legendary Nunuk Ragang civilization and Bobolian's (Priestesses') revelations of Kinoingan and Sumundu's (creator couple's ) divine intervention in the genesis of the Kadazandusuns, which form the foundation of the Kadazandusun traditional world views, cultural values, beliefs and justice system in the Adats.
Although vague being a legend, the entire Nunuk Ragang legendary civilization accounts from numerous Kadazandusun ethnic and speech communities throughout Sabah do confluence as formidable foundation of their belief that they belong to common ancestral origin long before written history. Legendary Nunuk Ragang civilization is thus still the main reference point for the current generation of Kadazandusuns in their desperate attempt to demystify their past origin, identity and destiny as a multi-ethnic community.
It is from Nunuk Ragang that the numerous Kadazandusuns ethnic communities first got their ethnic descriptive identities. Today, Sabah is Malaysia's most diversely populated state, wherein numerous ethnic labels are often arbitrary and confusing, defying simplistic demographic statistical enthnic classification. The constitution of the KDCA enumerates the Kadazandusuns to comprise some 40 sub-ethnic. Incidentally, Yours Truly belongs to the Liwan tribe, supposedly the largest of all the sub-tribes and traces of the Tangara tribe from my father's side . However, most of the definitive indigenous communities of Sabah have in recent times self-determined their generic identity as Kadazandusuns and has since then undergone a process of transformation and progressive unity in diversity under the KDCA, Sabah.
Sources: KDCA Nunuk Ragang Publication 2012
Research done by Dr (H) Ben Topin, a well-respected member of the KDCA.
Priestesses of a certain Kadazandusun sub-tribe 'blessing' the Huguan Siou
Kadazandusun maiden..
Bobolian or Priest
The Kadazandusun Paramount Leader, Huguan Siou Tan Sri DSP Joseph Pairin Datuk Kitingan (left) being greeted by members of the KDCA during the commemoration of his 28th year installation as Huguan Siou on the 8 July 2012.
