Tuaran Adat; Some Customs of the Dusun of Tuaran West Coast Residency( North Borneo

These notes on some Tuaran Native Customs apply to the Tuaran Dusuns of the main Coastal plain, the”Suang Latud” (Latud people), a settled agricultural people who own valuable wet padi lands and many buffaloes and cattle. Their other wealth consists mostly in old jars and brass ware. From a Dustin standpoint they are on the whole a prosperous race. The customs described do not apply in detail to the neighbouring hill tribes, and there are variations between them and those of Putatan to the South and Tempasuk to the North. I am indebted in the first place to Pangeran Osman bin O.K.K. Pangeran Haji Omar, D.A.D.O. Tuaran, who prepared much of the groundwork with the help of the late O.T. Anggar, and secondly to O.T. Impas, who went through the whole with me in detail and supplied much further information. The chapter on Inheritance was discussed at a meeting of Latud Headmen, and they agreed that it gave a correct account of this important branch of their Adat. I have also availed myself of some details and illustrations from a report on Tuaran customs submitted by Mr. A.N.M. Garry, then Asst. D.O. Tuaran in 1918, in reply to a Secretariat enquiry. The notes do not pretend to be a complete statement of Tuaran Custom, and a careful collation with Native Court records may reveal various discrepancies. Adat is not like the Laws of the Medes and Persians, and Headmen may admit much in theory that they do not follow in practice, and in individual cases they may often be guided by local influence and more or less irrelevant considerations rather than by the traditions of strictly correct procedure.