The Batu Bajau Legend

Author: Fidelis Insing

The Extraordinarily Tall Man

A long time ago, there lived a very tall man in Solibog kampong in Tambunan. His name was Bajau, and he belonged to the Bajau tribe. His wife, Pangkug, was just as tall as he was.

Nobody today knows exactly how tall Bajau was, but stories about him tell us he was enormous. His feet were so wide that when he waded into the river, many people would follow him to collect all the dead fish that he crushed under his feet. The people benefited greatly from having such a tall neighbor. Whenever anyone needed fish, they would ask Bajau to lie down in the Pegalan river. Then they would come and collect all the fish left on the dry parts of the riverbed.

The Moving of the Stone

People respected Bajau even more after he did something amazing. He carried a huge stone to the place where he wanted to be buried. Many strong men tried to lift this stone, but none of them could move it. Then Bajau came, put the stone under his arm, and carried it to a place that is now called Batu Bajau (meaning Bajau Stone). Today, you can still see this enormous stone. For many people, it is proof that Bajau really lived many, many years ago. Without this stone, people would have forgotten about him long ago.

The stone stands about eight feet tall and is about two feet wide. It must be much longer because a lot of it is buried underground. This stone was very important to the people. They believed that evil spirits lived in or near the stone. If anyone disturbed these spirits, they would become sick. Long ago, these spirits were very mean to people who passed by. If you wore old clothes near the stone, you would get sick right away—and sometimes you might even die. People were so afraid that they would either wear brand new clothes when passing the stone, or they would take a different path to avoid it. They did all this to keep the spirits happy.

This narrative is part of Sabah Stories, a collection of traditional tales and indigenous folklore originally gathered and rendered into English by scholars attending Saint Francis Xavier High School in Keningau, Sabah, North Borneo, throughout 1968–1973. The text presented here has been entirely rewritten using contemporary language and phrasing whilst preserving all factual content, cultural terminology, place names, character designations, and the substantive narrative elements of the original source. This is not a reproduction of the original material.