Festival

For the Pesta Kalimaran, it is an annual state-level celebration for Murut in Sabah. It is celebrated during April and it will be held at the Murut Cultural Village in Tenom. The aim of celebrating this event is to honor the richness of the Murut culture heritage and promote socio-cultural activities, so that the sub-ethnic groups of Murut will get a chance to showcase their special customs such as their traditional handicrafts, artifacts and food, and display them during the event. Apart from this, there will be fun activities and games such as the Kalimaran concert, Kalimaran Queen competition, singing competition and also handicraft exhibition. Tagol and Timugon (two of the murut sub-ethnic groups) will also perform their mock wedding.

Malaysian celebrate numerous types of festivals including Hari Raya Puasa, Chinese New Year and Deepavali and the concept where the “open house” celebration during these religious festivals is unique. For instance, the Chinese traditional dishes that served at the open house are mainly niangao (pudding), rougan (dried meat), taro cakes (fried vegetable taro) and yee sang (raw fish salad) while the Murut have Umbus (tapioca leaves), Lamu Binulu (bamboo rice), Linopod (rice wrapped in leaves) and Umbud Imbalua (vegetables) as their traditional dishes.