The Swallowed Longhouse

Author: Frederick Yuntil Subal

The Cursed Swamp

Near the village of Patau in Tambunan, there is a swampy place where a large longhouse once stood. A single tree grows in the middle of this swamp. A long time ago, this tree bore many kinds of fruit—bananas, pomelos, and cucumbers. The people who lived nearby were afraid to go near this place because they believed evil spirits lived there.

The Feast and Forbidden Behaviour

One evening, there was a big celebration in the longhouse. Everyone ate and drank and had a wonderful time. People danced to the sound of gongs, enjoying themselves very much. But as they became tired and drunk, the fun changed into something strange.

Some people brought out pet monkeys, dogs, and cats. They made the animals dance to the rhythm of the gongs. Standing on their hind legs, the animals danced so funny that everyone laughed and laughed. The gongs stopped beating because the men could not play them while laughing so hard. Some people believed that evil spirits had taken control of the animals and were making them dance.

The Warning Vision

One man had fallen asleep by a window when he became drunk, so he missed all the foolishness. Suddenly, a voice woke him up. When he opened his eyes, he saw something terrifying against the dark sky—a huge demon with enormous eyes and ears. The demon's hands stretched out, shadowing the entire longhouse.

The demon did not speak, but the man understood something terrible—the longhouse was going to be destroyed. Shaking with fear, he jumped up and told everyone what he had seen. But nobody believed him. They called him crazy and kept on laughing and dancing. The man grabbed his wife and ran away as fast as he could.

Then it began to rain so hard that water flooded everywhere. The longhouse sank into the ground and disappeared under all the water.

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.