Harvest Festival Series ~ KINABALU: Kina Balu, Aki Nabalu or Ki Nabalu

Sabah Parks where our Great Mount Kinabalu is standing to have it declared as a World Heritage Site. Naturally this exposes our beloved mountain to the whole wide world. And of course many writers would portray the mountain in their writing in various aspects especially on how the mountain got its name.

The mode of information provided depended so much on what they want the readers to know. Some would write according to legends handed down from their fore parents. Others would write ‘conveniently’ base on the name of the mountain itself. I too was not spared with tales, which I heard from my late grand mother. There were also stories told to us by our teachers in the early sixties, which I now realized to be a combination, so many different stories put together to make the story interesting.

One story that I believe was largely influenced by the Chinese was the theory that Kinabalu originated from two words ‘Kina’ and ‘Balu.’ Even older folks in my village was telling this same story when we were kids. It was said that an ancient Chinese seafarer once landed in Sabah and upon seeing the mountain set off to reach it from where he landed. The Local people call him Kina. It was said that in every mountain, there is a precious stone and it was for this reason that the adventurer wanted to climb the mountain. He resided in one of the villages at the foot of the mountain waiting for the right moment to begin his ascent to the mountain.
While at the village, he befriended a Dusun maiden and married her. He finally was able to scale the mountain, retrieve the precious stone and return to China promising his young bride that he would return for her. When he did not, the young bride thought he had died in the ocean and decided to scale the mountain to join his spirit. She too never came back. My grandma said that if I ever scaled the mountain to the top, I would see a rock resembling a women in a seated position facing east. “That” I remember her saying, “is the statue of the Chinese Widow.” Unfortunately, each time I am on top of the mountain, I always forget to look for that stone.

However, this story provided us with the theory that the mountain got its name from the word Kina Balu meaning Chinese Widow (or rather the Widow of the China Man).
The other and more widely written is the theory that Kinabalu got its name from the Kadazandusun word ‘Aki Nabalu’ meaning Grand Pa Nabalu. We have more or less generally accepted the belief that Nabalu means ‘place of the dead’. However, older people along the Kadamaian and Tuaran rivers told me that ‘Nabalu’ actually means ‘spirit of the dead.’

The Kadazandusuns who were perhaps more superstitious than any other tribe in Sabah have also inherited much of other Asians’ culture who are all brought up to be polite to anyone and anything. Anyone older than them is called uncle (Amai/Aman) or auntie (Inai/Inan) and those who are much older a grandpa (Aki) or grandma (odu) regardless of whether they are related or otherwise.

Similarly, their fear of the unseen world and unseen beings have got them to call anything fearsome as ‘aki’ or ‘odu.’ Living thing such as crocodile which is widely believed to be an incarnation of someone spirits is usually refered to a ‘odu’. Failing to do so will spiit which is residing in the crocodile.

A huge pampang (rock) may be said to be haunted and we are never to point our finger at them nor called them unnecessarily. So it’s no surprising if you were with a group of older folks and passing by a big rock that looks like its haunted and you suddenly hear somebody, silently but audibly say ‘Aki, potolibo po yahai.” (Grandpa, let us pass through.)

Thus, Aki Nabalu is one common way among Kadazandusun to call the Mountain and that’s how, probably, the mountain got its name. But is it? Lets look at it another way.
Sometime back, I read with interest an article that was written by someone whose name I can’t remember. When this particular writer make a connection with other names such as ‘Kinarut’ meaning ‘Chinese Road’ and ‘Kinabatangan’ meaning ‘Chinese River,’ he also attempted to make people believe that ‘Kinabalu’ indeed is ‘Chinese Widow.’

This arguments brings us to the Kadazandusun word ‘ki’ meaning ‘have’ or ‘exist.’ However, this word on its won can not be used in daily converation as it is only used to point to something that exist. On its own, this word is followed by ‘kivaa,’ ‘kiharo,’ or ‘kiwaro.’ When used with another word, we therefore have such words as ‘kivaig’ meaning have water, ‘kibangkad’ meaning have a shirt, ‘kiwatu’ meaning have stone and many more.

Mt Kinabalu: From the paddy fields view

Kiulu in the district of Tuaran got it name from a small river called ‘Kiulu.’ In the old days, travelers from up river usually stop at this river to have their lunch before continuing their journey. Firstly because the small river provided them with drinking water and secondly, growing on both sides of the riverbanks is a kind of bamboo locally known as ‘tulu.’ The same bamboo is used to make drinking glasses called ‘suki.’ There were no name for the river back then, and these travelers only refers to this stopping place as the river that have the ‘tulu’ or ‘Ki tulu’ and later it was just plain ‘Kiulu.’
Back to our mountain. Since ‘nabalu’ means ‘spirit’ or ‘spirit of the dead’ to most of the people who live around the mountain, naturally the mountain would be referred to a ‘ki nabalu’ meaning spirit exist or place that have spirit of the dead.

Sources: KDCA, written by © Lesaya Lopog Sorudim, http://kdca.org.my/archives/68
Photo courtesy: landscapephoto.info; lonelyplanet.com