The untold story of Muhambur the legendary giant :Chapter II: Harvest to starve.

It was mongomot (harvesting) season. Villagers need to gather all the paddies their have and process it into rice as soon as possible. Brewing rice weren’t an easy task, they must fill all the brewed rice into hundred of jars and must preserve the siopons at least 5 months before it fully mature. The idea was to use Siopon as a decoy to drunk the giant, when the giant fall asleep then the villagers shall bind the giant with a strong rope that was made from rattan. Finally the last jar was complete, each villagers were told to kept the jar at their own Sulap (granary) for 5 fully months.

It seems to be a heavy rain since their complete the last jar and continuously for a week. Daily activities were stopped, none were doing anything instead watching the endless dark cloud from the east, keep spreading the rains and soon there will be a flood.

After sometimes, the rain has stopped. Sun rises from the east and the sky was perfectly clear, bringing new hopes to the villagers. But it wasn’t a free deal, they have to pay for it, the flood has destroyed all the vegetation including dairy farm. These situations becoming more difficult as a previous harvest are getting low. Sulap should be full of paddy so it can supply food for a year instead making mass of siopon. But those days, no one can ever predict the weather and now they are facing with the real problems – starvation!

It took a week for the flood to fully flown away, food supply were limited forcing villagers to organize a group of hunters with selected young mans to hunts toward Mount Kinabalu. Many young men volunteered to join the hunting party but only 10 of them were selected, others were ordered to stay so they could protect the village from the giant’s threat and enemy from the south believes to be a head hunter from other tribes.

As the hunters left, villagers were told to ration all the food their have so they can survive until the hunters comes back.

Villagers were mitabang (cooperates) to replant vegetation that had been destroy during floods.  Rebuild the barn and repairing every damaged house.

And suddenly a young boy ran toward the busy villagers with a fish at his arm, the fish size was about in 12 inch longs and 2kg weight, it was big enough for a young boy to carrying it.

The boy shouts “I found fish! I found fish! One of the villagers replied “None of us here were gone fishing, can you see we all busy to save this village, how could you say you found a fish!

The boy shows the fish to them and says,” I saw lots of fishes compiled near the Maralamin Hill and it still fresh!” an old man grab the fish and watch carefully. Villagers start to wonder why the old man seems to be confused with the fish but they knew the old man is a wise man because he has more knowledge then the villagers.

It took a while before the old man explained. The fish were from the sea, someone with a boat could goes far from the shore to catch a fish like this and at least it took a day from Maralamin hill to nearby shore by walking distance. 

With curiosity, villagers decided to see for them self but they knew the danger ahead, the giant. So they brought weapons such parang (short sword), spear and sopuk (blowpipe). Not to attack the giant but to defend their self from any threats towards them.

sopuk or blowpipe the deadly weapon. silence and fast

As they reach at place mention. They saw plenty of fresh salt fishes were in nicely compiled. The villagers look at each others, wondering who put the salt fishes there. Everyone was quit and finally one of the villagers says “Does anyone have a mature siopon? If do, please bring back two jars siopon here!” Then a man running back to his sulap, he remembers last night there were some siopons that already mature and ready to drink. A moment later he came back with two siopon jars at his arms.

Villagers seem to understand what actually they must do. Without wasting any more time, they took the salt fish home and exchange it with the siopon jars as a gift. Not like any other night, dinner was served in seafood.

The next morning, they return to Maralamin Hill, along with two siopon jars and wish to know what happens to yesterday’s jars. Soon as they reached there, yesterday’s the jars were empty and more salt fishes were nicely complied then yesterday. So the villagers took the salt fishes and left the siopon jar as they done it before.

---------- To be continue -----next week update on Friday