In the lush landscapes of Sabah, Malaysian North Borneo, dwells the Kadazandusun community, the region’s largest indigenous group. Their cultural identity is deeply entwined with the natural world around them, with numerous legends explaining their relationship to the land, the forest, the rivers and sacred Mount Kinabalu. Among these stories is the legend of Huminodun, which goes something like this…

After making the land and shaping the people, the heavenly father Kinorohingan and the heavenly mother Suminundu sent their two children, Ponompulan the son and Ponompuan the daughter, to earth to live among their creations. Pononpulan was not too happy with this arrangement, so he started to cause trouble and strife, corrupting the minds of the people and leading them in his deviant ways.

When the heavenly couple descended to visit, they were horrified to see what had become of their world. First, they banished Ponompulan to the underworld. Then, to punish humans for following their son’s wicked ways, they sent down seven scourges, ending in a famine. Then they returned to heaven, taking their daughter Ponompuan with them.

But Ponompuan, upon seeing the people’s suffering, begged her parents to reconsider.

“Please forgive them,” she said. “They are good people, just easily led astray. Please let them live.”

Her parents refused to intervene. “There is nothing we can do,” they said. “Even if we were to remove the scrouges, they are now seedless. There is nothing for them to grow.”

“Then I shall sacrifice myself,” their daughter said. “Let me become their seeds.”

Eventually, she convinced them, and they carried her to a dry spring and laid her on the rocks. Weeping, they drove a knife through her heart. Her flesh became the rice, with her blood spilling out as the holy red rice. Her head became the coconut and her bones the tapioca. Her toes the ginger, her teeth the maize and her knees the yams.

The people could eat again and rejoiced.

Huminodun, as she was now known, was the sacrifice but also the spirit of the rice. From that day on, Kadazandusun padi farmers honour her spirit by tying off seven rice stalks onto a piece of bamboo set in the padi field. They remind us that every bite we eat is a bite of her body.

Her spirit also lives on in an annual pageant called Unduk Ngadau, meaning ‘shoots of the sun’ or ‘girl crowned by the sun’, held at the annual harvest festival in May. Each village and district chooses the young woman who most represents the spirit of Huminodun — grace, loyalty and adherence to the traditional ways. It culminates in the state level pageant, held at the Kadazandusun Cultural Association as part of the celebrations for the Kaamatan Harvest Festival.

In today’s world of supermarkets and online orders, the legend of Huminodun reminds us to appreciate both nature’s gifts and the human labour behind our food. As we eat, we might reflect, like the Kadazandusun, on the sacred connection between the land, those who tend it, and ourselves.

Want to know more about the Kaamatan Harvest Festival, which is celebrated this weekend? This commercial gives an insight into what it looks like (festive ads produced by Malaysian corporations are a genre of their own).

The Sabah Art Gallery has a Kaamatan-related exhibition until 8th June. Well worth a visit!

If you couldn’t make it to Sabah for this year’s Kaamatan celebrations, there are several film adaptations of this tale, including Huminodun from Siung Films.