Borneo Reflections: The Heritage Village

Sabah Fest 2010 is happening this month of May. From 1 May to today 9 May; the first 2 days had handicraft and food showcases with concerts and dances in the evenings, then from 3 May to 9 May, you could visit the Heritage Village at The Sabah State Museum; where you could visit the various ethnic houses, see the natives in their traditional costumes, and watch their dances.

If they build a pair of big wooden gates (instead of those small metal ones), this would be comparable to the one in Jurassic Park!

The entrance to The Heritage Village (Entry Fee RM10 - very reasonable).

The ubiquitous sumazau. This is the dance of the Kadazans, the most urbanised of the native races of Sabah.

The Rungus Longhouse. The Rungus are mainly in the Kudat Peninsula (Northern part of Sabah).

Rungus women with brass coils around their arms and legs. They sometimes have brass coils around their necks giving them a somewhat space alien look.

Each ethnic race has a type of metal gong set to provide the percussion rythmn for their traditional dance.

A nice couple (Murut), in the shaded doorway of one of the houses, was posing for a photographer. I was some 20 feet away. The program mode set the shutter speed at 1/6 th second, which was too slow to cope with their slight movements.

The man was wearing the Murut male traditional costume made of tree-bark.

I re-shot them using shutter priority (1/160 th second). The shot was under-exposed as they were in the shaded doorway of the house. But the magic of RAW and Photoshop Elements gave me a much sharper image (though a little grainy). But at least I got the shot fast (shoot first in RAW and process later).