Mount Kinabalu circa 1920s: Kina balu? Aki Nabalu??

By Kumis Kumis

Painting Major Percee Sturdee

F Jones, lith. Published by Smith, Elder & Co

T Picken lith. Published by Smith, Elder & Co

In the old maps the mountain called Mount St Pierre, though in Mercator's, about 1595, was named Mount St. Pedro.

Old geographers believed that there was a mighty lake at its summit, this belief arose from natives stories, but was of course exploded when Kinabalu was ascended for the first time, and was probably due to their not understanding how otherwise continuous streams of water flow down the mountain's side.

Later, it was asserted that the lake existed south of the mountain, where it is shown in early maps. This was St John's view, for Kiau people assured him that they had been on trading expeditions to the villages upon its shores.

If the lake ever existed it was probably below Kinabalu to the South East, where the plain of Ranau is today.

Major Moulton, however, suggests that the lake may have existed where the Kadamaian River as the Upper Tempasuk is called flows at an altitude of 2500 ft along the Minitindok Gorge, through which it appears to have broken only recently.

Besides having a mythical lake the summit was, and is, believed to be guarded by a gigantic dragon 🐲, which was once the cause of many adventurous Chinese coming to an untimely end, a story gave rise to the derivation of the name "Kinabalu" as being the Malay and Dusun, "Kina" , meaning "Chinese" , and "balu" , "widow".

There are several objections to this etymology: -

Firstly, in the Malay language the adjective follows the substantive so that "Chinese Widow" would properly be "Balu Kina", the words transposed would mean "Chinaman's Widow."

Secondly, the name is of Native origin, and there is no apparent reason why a fate which overtook Chinese should have given rise to the name of a mountain revered by the Aborigines. It is more probable that, as so often happens, the Legends arose to explain the name.

Another suggested derivation is "Kina Bahru" or "New China", corrupted by the Chinese who have difficulty with their "r's" to Kinabalu, in reference to a former colony of Chinese in this region.

Against this again is the argument that "Kinabalu" is a native name.

A derivation favoured by Major Moulton is "Nabalu", the Dusun word meaning "resting place of the dead" .

In the British North Borneo Herald dated 1at September 1892, Mr RM Little suggested that the derivation was from the Dusun word "mangalo", the act of flight of the soul after death, which give colour to this derivation.

A theory which was originally suggested by Orang Kaya Hj Arsat, a chief deep in lore, is that the derivation was from three Dusun words, "Aki" , "Grandfather" , "Na" , a prefix denoting past time, and "balu" , "widowed" , "solitary" .

The prefix "Ki" is one that occurs constantly on the names of natives "rivers" , "gods" and "mountains", the "a" sometimes being dropped ellipsis, sometimes, as the case of "Kinaringan", the Dusun deity, being pronounced indiscriminately. "Na" is a prefix in the Dusun and Murut languages sometimes denoting a past participle.

So the word "Nabalu" in Dusun would mean "widowed", "without a partner" . For instance, if two pigeon are flying and one is brought down the survivor is said to be "balu", irrespective of sex. "Aki" is even used of stars by Dusuns, and the meaning almost amount to sacred. Now the most striking thing about the mountain is its splendid isolation and so name would come to mean the "Solitary Father".

Father Duxneuney, of the Roman Catholic Mission at Putatan, has put forward what was considered to be the most acceptable theory of all. He agrees that the word should be devided in three syllables, "Ki" "Na" "Balu", but points out that in Dusun the letters "l" and "h" are interchangeable and that the people call the mountain "Nabahu". When a Dusun dies, the corpse is laid out on the veranda of the house and a kind of small hut is built over it, covered with costly cloths. This is called "bahu", the house of the dead, the clothes themselves are also termed "bahu" and thus the word comes to get a meaning of pertaining to the dead.

The prefix "Ki" the father considers is an abbreviation of the Dusun word "kiwao", signifying it is, there is. "Na" denotes an action past but still existing and is used in conjunction with "Ki". So "Kinabalu" would mean, "there is a place or home pertaining to the dead."

In this connection it is interesting to note that Mr Von Donop, one of the early pioneers, spells the name of the mountain "Kinabahu" thoughout his diaries.

The derivation of the word "Kinabalu" will always be the subject of mild controversy and the writer crave everyone forgiveness for this digression.

From a painting by Major Percy Sturdee

Source:

1. Owen Rutter

2. Spencer St John