Stories of my Ancestors

I never met any of my great grandparents, all have passed before I was born but these were the little things I did hear about my great-grandparents while growing up.

Aki Majulan Datu Damidal @ Thomas, was born about 1869, and died on 16 February 1968 in Konouvan, Kg. Sugud, Penampang. He is buried at the Majulan Family Burial Ground in Ka'atang, Kg. Sugud Penampang Sabah, Malaysia.

Aki Majulan married Ludayan Bolitou, who was born about 1873, and died on 02 January 1938. She was a Chief *Bobohizan* or Kadazan Priestesses.

Aki Majulan inherited the entrepreneurship acumen of his father Aki Datu Damidal. He allowed the landless villagers to cultivate his land and shared the harvest. He was also very generous in lending padi to the needy and accepted payment in from of labour as it was not appropriate to accept money in exchange for padi in those days.

He was also well respected by the villagers for his fatherly approach and charitable values to the community. During the later part of his life, he converted to a Roman Catholic and adopted the name Thomas. He died due to old age on 16 February 1969 at the age of 99 years old at his resident in Konouvan village.

His house is still standing today, well maintained and occupied by his grandson Freddy Sipajol(my father). It was commonly called as the *hamin topuak* white house when it was newly built. This was not because it was painted in white colour (in fact, it was not even painted at the time), but it came from the glittering zinc roofing of the house. The roofing of houses at that time was all made from *atap rumbia* leaves of this palm. He was the first one to have built a house with zinc roofing in *Kampung Sugud* Sugud village.

My great-great-grandparents the earliest name that I know from my root is Aki Datu Damidal. He was born around the year 1820 in Kampung Sugud Penampang Sugud village, and died on 11 October 1927 at the grand old age of 107. (Perhaps, his contemporaries were *Menteri Babu of Terawi, Datu Batani of Ramayah and Dato Banting of Tuavon.) His tombstone in Ka'tang, Kampung Sugud carries an inscription that he passed away on 11 October 1927 at age of 107 years.

At this time around, life in Sabah was kind of primitive and there were no proper roads, no electricity, no pipe water and no automobiles as a mean of transportation. If one had to go some way, the most popular from of transportation is by foot. Well, perhaps some ware using horses, buffaloes and maybe a little bit of sampans. Our younger generations would also be shocked to learn that our great ancestors were involved in headhunting activities.

Aki Datu Damidal was appointed as Chieftain or Datu by the Sultan of Brunei that ruled over Sabah in those days and was responsible for the collection of revenuewang kepala as well as the imposition of law and order in the villages starting from the tributary of the Ramaya-Putatan River, and all the way to Kampung Sugud and surrounding villages. Most of the inhabitants of these places were farmers and to prosper in those days, one had to toil the land wisely. Aki Datu Damidal encouraged the people to open land for planting rice, grazing land for buffaloes and to rear pigs and chickens. His vision to bring improvements and development in these villages was also highly respected. Through his intelligence and bravery, he managed to stop the inter-tribal war between the uphill taga'as and the lower land tangarah tribes.

In the olden days, Christianity does not exist in these villages. Everybody was pagans and mostly possesses super natural strength.

Aki was known to possessed great physical strength that helped to protect his village from the raids of other tribes from the uphill people who come to take heads from the lowland people. Aki realized the great suffering and the loss of lives as a result of the inter-tribal warfare and so negotiated for a Peace Treaty between the uphill and lowland people. Resulting from the Peace Treaty which Aki Datu Damidal successfully brokered, the practice of Head Hunting around the area finally came to end. Somewhere at a hill overlooking the Sugud plains, there is still the remnant of an old site where an Oath Stone was planted by the warring tribes to mark their end of enmity or hostility and the cutting of each other head. Thus, a new era of peace and friendship came amongst the surrounding areas.

According to Odu Zineh Majulan and the late Gundohing Aloysius Jitain Hoinsung, Aki Datu Damidal's real name was Dulinggou, the son of Aki Dunup and todu-odu Joihun. However, since we have insufficient information to support this, I will only use Aki Datu Damidal as his name and not Aki Datu Dulinggou Dunup.