Kalimaran Festival
13:45
Kalimaran Festival is a festival where the Murut people celebrate the richness of their culture and present most of their cultural aspects. But it is also being celebrated by people all over Sabah. It is similar to Kaamatan Festival celebrate by the Kadazan Dusun tribe and Ngawai Festival celebrate by the Iban tribe.
"The word Kalimaran refers to the craftsmanship activities of the Muruts people."
( Male Murut walk together during the Kalimaran Festival long time ago)
The words Kalimaran refers to the craftmanship activities of the Muruts which also derived from the words ralaa (which means young lady) and alimar (which means hardworking, strong-minded, diligent and trustworthy).
According to legend there was once a very hardworking, strong-minded, diligent and trustworthy young Murut lady called Ralaa. She had produced many handicrafts like the tikar, silaung, tikalis, buyung, lintoyog and onot. She produced all of them by using raw materials like bamboo, rattan and bamban. Ralaa then ended her kalimaran by weaving cloth, scarf by using thread which she produced from a timahan roots.
Unfortunately, her brother had sacrificed her for the benefit of their own people. She was sacrificed by Yolomor to get seeds for his cultivation farm.
Kalimaran Festival is celebrated in April every year. The festival highlight the diversity of the sub-ethnics of Murut groups such as Murut Tagol, Timugon, Kolor, Bookan, Gana and so on. It is usually being celebrated just within a village. However, the first state level Kalimaran Festival was on the forth and fifth of April 2003 after the construction of the Sabah Murut Cultural Centre located at Kampung Pulong finished. Since then it was officially held there. Moreover, you can see their traditional handicrafts and also traditions such the Murut traditional dance, their marriage ceremony and their folklore. Not only that you can also see the artifacts of the Murut people that are past down from generations, such as the jars, urns and the weaponry of the Murut. It is also a drink festival I presumed for the Murut people. They will drinks and eat local food, such as tapai or tuak ( a wine that was made of fermented rice). The tapai usually will be only be served in a special occasion such as kalimaran, weddings, to celebrate the death and others.
Every each of the Murut sub-ethnics have different slang and its languages, their clothes, their songs and also their type of instruments such as Murut Paluan is very famous for the song Tagunggu, Tagol (Lolondoi), Timugon (titikas), Binta (Barasik) and Sembakong (Magagung).
However, Kalimaran Festival is not as popular as Kaamatan Festival. You will be surprised that not many people in other parts of Sabah are not familiar with Kalimaran Festival. Due to this the government tried as hard as they could to advertise Kalimaran Festival to attract people all over Sabah and also the tourist.
(During the Kalimaran Festival a beauty pageant contest will be held. This was held in memory to the sacrificed of Ralaa. )
Murut folklore
The photograph beside tells the folklore of the man who turned into stone. The size of the stone was about the size of a soccer ball.
If you are interested in local native traditions, come and visit to Tenom during Kalimaran. It also incredible moment for those who love to take photos and it is a great photography opportunity.
0 Crawlers