The People of the Hill & the Headhunters of the Past
Ahhhhhh…… the trampoline & bamboo-pole dancers from the East. The Muruts, like the Rungus, live in a longhouse with a communal lifestyle. One unique lifestyle of the tribe is the wooden trampoline (known locally as the lansaran) built within the longhouse. Come the big days, such as the Harvest Festival, groups of men and women will hop on to the wooden platform and dance the night away by bobbing up and down on the platform. Try it! It’s cool and fun and you wish you can have one in your house. The other noted facet of the Murut is the Bamboo-pole dance, where men & women do the foot-tappings inside the clapping bamboo-poles. Give it a whirl! And the doctors will be ever so happy to send you a bill for foot injury treatments.
The places that the Muruts live can be gathered from the meaning of the word Murut. Murut means People of the Hill. They are mostly scattered around the southeastern & interior parts of Sabah with some spilling over to the borders of Brunei, Sarawak and Kalimantan. Once upon a time they were also notorious for their intrepid headhunting bravery. This of course was in the past. These days they are a peace loving people with high ranking positions in government deaprtments. The picture below depicts a typical Murut longhouse. However, there have been disputes as to whether the depicted longhouse is a true replica of a Murut longhouse. I shall leave that to the experts to settle their contentions.
Murut Lansaran Longhouse
