Sabah:
Introduction
In spite
of mistaken claims there are
only seven separate languages in Sabah, with the rest only
dialects deriving from the former,
these are: Dusun, Bajau, Irranun,
Murat, Sulak, Sungai, Kadazandusun.
Borneo, P.1
Researching traditional healing practices the past four
days, it seems when one
talks about the traditional medical specialist among the Malays, one
is referring to the bomoh
(people in the Kota
Kinabalu region rarely use the term
pawang or dukun). In the Peninsula Malaysia, however, the terms pawang
andbomohare used interchangeably. The former seems applied to
the shaman who is able
to communicate with the spirit
world and who conducts such ceremonies as opening
virgin land, propitiating the spirits of the
sea for the
fishermen, whereas the latter refers
to the specialist
who tends the sick and cures
illnesses. No such distinction between types of
healers exists in Kota
Kinabalu.
Borneo, P.2
The
past two days I concerned myself understanding more of the
methods of healing and the
benefit patients 'experienced'. Generally speaking one can stand at
a great distance and be awed
by how much
there is to know about
the Islamic world in the region
of Kota Kinabalu- such as when one dissects
the concepts of doa, zikir
(both zahir andbalin), petua, and 'special medicines'.
Each of these
represent a part of the curative
healing process dedicated to the
whole human as it is characterized
by religion, magic and rationalism,
and the transcultural
interrelationships between various traditional systems.
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