IRANUN: NOTA DARI JAUH.

NOTA:

PAPARAN berikut adalah artikal yang dikirim melalui e-mail oleh seorang sahabat dari jauh-London. Dia banyak membuat kajian mengenai Iranun dan masyarakat "sekitar" Iranun. Sekadar untuk dikongsi dengan rakan-rakan. Ikuti paparan tersebut seperti berikut:-

TUBAU or DASTAR

“..... The women, especially from Kota Belud, make beautiful embroidered panels sewn into their long black wrap-skirt. Traditional headgear worn by almost every indigenous group known as kain dastar is one of their specialty. The Binadan (from Kudat) is well known for their kain pis, a richly embroidered one-meter piece of two-facing cloth”.

"Satu ciri pakaian tradisi masyarakat asli yang sangat ketara ialah penggunaan tanjak yang dibuat daripada sekeping kain dastar berukuran tiga kaki persegi yang ditenun oleh suku kaum Iranun di Kota Belud. Apabila ia dilipat dan diikat, kain hiasan kepala atau siga ini dipakai oleh kebanyakan kaum asli Sabah.."

FROM:...
WARISAN SABAH, Pengenalan Ringkas Sejarah dan Warisan Sabah. Muzium Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 1992

According to the Sabah tourist magazine (August 2003, Vol 30, p. 18), “One of the indigenous groups in Sabah, the Irranun people are one of the sub-group of the Bajau community. The tribe is believed to have migrated to Mindanao and returned back to Sabah in the 18th century… The Irranuns embraced Islam while they were in Mindanao in the years 1475-1515.” They quote the source of their information as being from the Sabah Society Journal 5: 77-82, 1970 and Sabah Museum Department: History/Epigraphy Department, 1995.

During the colonial days, the Iranun and Bajau in the Kota Belud district were lumped together and considered at times as the same people. They were both Muslim groups and although they spoke an entirely different language, still the British rulers would just lump them all together. “Today many citizens of Iranun heritage have the label ‘Bajau’ on their identity card.” (Pugh-Kitingan and Pandikar Mulia 1996) During the 1960’s a Banjar by birth who registered as a Bajau, Sintam Keruak whose name was changed to Tun Mohd Said Keruak, refused to register the Iranun people as Iranun and instead listed them as Bajau saying there were no Iranun in Sabah. (Iranun interview #23; email 09/12/06; personal communication 09/06) This happened during the time Tun Mustapha was the chief minister in Sabah.

In the past it was not unusual for Iranun men to claim to be Bajau when they mixed with the wider society who may know the name Bajau but not Iranun, or who still insists on calling them ‘Ilanun’ with its negative connotation. However, according to some of the old people, in the very early days, the Iranun and Bajau did not intermarry. In fact according to their oral tradition, before the colonial days, in early years, the Iranun have always been from the ruler tribes and some considered the Bajau or Sama people below them. Until today, the Iranun have various ‘strata’, rankings, which show up when it is time for a person to marry. (see marriage section below) Today these two groups do intermarry, however, earlier many of the Iranun did not tend to live in mixed villages. There are some Iranun villages where the majority of people are still only Iranun, with a very distinctive language.

There have been and continue to various things that make the Iranun feel their identity is threatened. The “Bajaus of the East” are widely advertised for tourism and people will go to Kota Belud to the ‘Tamu’ on Sunday to see these “Bajau” all dressed up on ponies. This “Bajau Horsemen” was started by Datuk Golkan Hasbollah whose mother was Iranun and father Bajau (email 2006). He is Bajau native chief for Kota Belud. Although as Masrin Hassin, an Iranun leader and Kota Belud Iranun native chief pointed out, (personal conversation), the Bajau in other areas of the country do now own horses, so why is it only the Bajau in our area use horses?

He conjectures that they took the Iranun practices and made it their own. Dr. Pugh-Kitingan[1] also in a public meeting at Wisma Muis, September, 2006, confirmed this along with pointing out many other cultural practices or items that originally were Iranun. She mentioned it appears that the Iranun were the ones supplying various musical objects to the interior indigenous communities.

Tan Sri Pandikar (2003) tells of an incident when he was a university student and he attended an exhibition of traditional handicrafts and costumes. He states he was shocked to see his horse saddle made by his uncle that he had given to his art teacher in college with the label of “This is a traditional Bajau saddle” and at the same exhibition to see a tubau, traditional head wear, listed as woven by the Kadazandusun. An interesting thing happened one day while we were in an Iranun village. There was a newspaper picture of a line-up of the ‘cowboys’. One of the men pointed out to us that the majority of these ‘Bajau cowboys’ were Iranun and named each one along with the village he came from. A couple we even recognized ourselves.

Pugh Kitingan and Pandikar Mulia (1996) states “The historical importance of Iranun influence, particularly among the other west coastal communities, cannot be underestimated. It can be clearly seen in the composition and decoration of many traditional costumes, house construction, music and musical instrumental ensembles, “Bajau horsemen”, dispersal of textiles, certain linguistic terms and so on”. The Iranun sakadaremetan a kulintangan is related to the kolintang ensemble the Maranao people in Mindanao use. When reading about traditional Maranao culture we can also see the similarity with the Sabah Iranun. They both still do backloom weaving, tapestry weaving and woodcarving.

[1] Jacueline Pugh-Kitingan earned a PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Queensland, is Associate Professor and KadazanDusun Chair at the University of Sabah, Malaysia

Dear Kibin,

You will see even the locals, some Iranun themselves too, can't even spell their own name. "Irranun" phonetically would have to be pronounced "Ir- ran - un", but it is pronounced I-ran-un. The Iranun need to rise up from their lethargy and their pretention to be Malay - to who those in WMalaysia will say - no way they are not us - we are the true Malay because of our ancestors etc.. Govt says 'you are Malay based on Malay language, culture & religion', however, that is all politics -- when it comes to other areas, to identity then no, the groups are thrown back.

Seriously from what one can see/study, the Iranun traditionally had an extremely rich culture and they are the ones who have had great influence on the other groups. Why do you think it's the Iranun woven head gear that all these groups wear, using different ways of lipat them, for their own ceremonial occasions? Obviously since it's already used in ceremonial occasions as long as the older generation of Bajau and Dusun can remember, it's been around a LONG time. Today, even at the committee meeting Rita was saying to me the Bajau are weaving -- well, we know they learned it from the Iranun -- and unless the Iranun are willing to stand up and point out traditionally they are the ones who had this beautiful skill/craft, then again the Iranun children, the next generation are POOR, poor -- having nothing -- and is it any wonder they are ashamed to admit who they are? The Iranun, though a smaller group, have had influence on these larger groups.