At
one point, I have noticed that I was dreaming about the Mount Kinabalu mountain climb. However, I could even
make it until today.
Attractive as it is, without a myth, legend and Folk Tales, the name of Mt Kinabalu can’t be spread by leap and bound. A myth gives a religious explanation for something: how the world or a particular custom began. There is usually no attempt to fix the myth into a coherent chronology related to the present day, though myths or a cycle of myths may have their own internal chronology. The story is timeless in that the events are symbolic rather than just the way it happened.
A legend, on the other hand, is a story which is told as if it were a historical event, rather than as an explanation for something or a symbolic narrative. The legend may or may not be an elaborated version of a historical event.
Folk
tales tend to be transmitted orally, although they are transmitted from generation
to generation and their origin or author is unknown, they are more definitely
felt to be stories or fiction.
Undoubtedly,
there is little consensus on the most dramatic natural feature of Mount
Kinabalu in Sabah. It is the tallest mountain in South-East Asia which is
located in Kundasang. Mount Kinabalu is 4,095 metres (13,435 ft) above sea
level and about 96 km east of Kota Kinabalu which became UNESCO World Heritage
in 2000.
Although
Kinabalu's name is still a
mystery, but interestingly,
there are many folklores and fables that tell stories of how Kinabalu obtained
its name. The local Kadazan-Dusun people believe that the word is derived from
“Aki Nabalu”, which means “The revered place of the dead”.
The mysterious
Kadazan-Dusun tribe believes that spirits dwell on the mountain top. Among the
bare rocks of the summit grows a moss which early Kadazan-Dusun guides said
provided food for the spirits of their ancestor. Many of the mountain's early
explorers reported that their Kadazan-Dusun guides performed religious
ceremonies upon reaching the summit.
Sir Hugh Low wrote in his guide
carried an assortment of charms, pieces of wood, human teeth, and other
paraphernalia weighing three kilograms up to the summit and the slaughter of
one white chicken.
These
ceremonies were performed to appease the spirit of the mountain as well as the
ancestral spirits who lived there. Nowadays, a ceremony is conducted annually
by the Kinabalu Park's guides.
Seven chicken and eggs, as well as cigars, betel nuts, sirih leaves, lime and
rice are sacrificed, and later enjoyed by the guides.
On the
other hand, often than not, ancient mythology lies at the heart of
Kadazan-Dusun culture. A Kadazan-Dusun creation myth tells how the supreme
deities “Kinohiringan” and his
wife “Umunsumundu” made the
earth while “Kinohiringan”
created the sky and the clouds. But the clouds were smaller than the earth and
Kinohiringan was ashamed.
To save his pride, Umunsumundu reshaped the earth, making it smaller, and thus
created Mount Kinabalu, the mountain that we know today.
A
Kadazan-Dusun story tells of a giant king named Gayo Nakan - big eater who lived
at the base of the mountain. His people tired of his enormous appetite and were
had pressed to feed him. Hearing their complaints, the king told them to bury
him alive at the top of the mountain.
Bringing all their tools they labored in
vain, until the king uttered magic words and sank into the rock up to his
shoulders. He then told his people that, due to their lack of patience, drought
and famine would afflict them - but promised to help them in times of war.
Fearful and penitent, the people made their first sacrificial offerings at the
wishing pool below the summit and that was Gayo Nakan's grave.
In
another popular folklore, the name Kinabalu actually means “Cina Balu”, which
is “Chinese Widow”.
Legend
tells the story of a Chinese prince who ascends from the mountain in search of
a huge pearl guarded by a ferocious dragon. He married a Kadazan woman upon his
successful conquest, which he soon abandoned for return to China. His heart broken
wife wandered into the mountains to mourn whereby eventually she turned into
stone.
However, according to another version of the legend, a
Chinese prince was cast away to Borneo when his ship sank in the middle of the
South China Sea. He was subsequently rescued by the natives from a nearby
village. As he recovered, he was slowly accepted as one of the people of the
village.
Eventually, he fell in love and married with a
local. As the years went by, he started to feel homesick and asked permission
from his newly-founded family go back to China to visit his Emperor and Empress
of China parents. He promised to his wife that he would come back soonest to
take her and children to China. He was given a grand welcome by the Emperor of China;
however, the Emperor disagreed with him about taking his Bornean wife back to
China.
Unexpectedly, he was informed he was already
betrothed to a princess of a neighboring kingdom. He had no choice but to obey. His wife grew more and more anxious. Eventually, she
decided to wait for her husband's ship but couldn’t make it daily as the
village was situated far away. Instead, she climbed to the top of the highest
mountain near her village every morning in the hope that her husband would
someday return, she was back only at night to attend the children.
Years went days pass and at last taken their
toll on her health. Finally, she passed away at the top of the cold mountain
while waiting for her husband. The spirit of the Mount Kinabalu was extremely
touched by a wife’s unfailing love for her husband and out of admiration; it
turned her into a stone. Her face was made to face the South China Sea, for her
to wait forever for her husband's return.
The people in her hometown who heard this incident were
gravely touched too. Thus, they named the mountain "Kinabalu" in
remembrance of her.
To them, the mountain is a symbol of the
everlasting love and loyalty that should be taken as a good example by women.
Local legend among the people of Ranau, a district
in Sabah, has it that St. John’s Peak was the stone which her body turned to.
Mt. Kinabalu
