Timogan genesis. J. & D. Headly
This short note by J. and D. Headly records a Timogan (Murut) flood and origin myth as narrated by the native chief Dualis, published in JMBRAS Vol. 21 (1948), pp. 148–149.
Summary
The Timogans are a section of the Muruts inhabiting the Tenom plain of North Borneo. The authors note that “Timug” means water in their language and that the Tenom plain shows clear indications of having once been a lake, lending thematic resonance to the flood narrative (p. 148).
The myth, as told by Dualis, recounts a great flood that drowned all Timogans except one young man who survived seven days on a tall coconut tree. A fairy spinster from the sky, having confirmed the flood’s aftermath, proposed marriage to him but was rejected due to her ugliness and skin disease. In her anger, she fashioned a clay image of herself, spat on it to give it life, and left it in Tenom. The youth, returning weeks later resigned to the prospect, married what he believed was the fairy, and all living Timogans are descended from their children (pp. 148–149). The authors close with the wry observation that the Timogans’ prevalence of skin disease is a legacy of the fairy’s original affliction.