The Murut Traditional Costume for Women

Murut women from Ulu Tomani, Tenom


The Murut costume for women is a short, black, sleeveless blouse and a long, black skirt decorated with colorful beads.

Pinongkolo

Traditional costume of women comprising a blouse and a long wrap-skirt of black cotton, and decorated with beadwork. The decorated blouse is called babaru linantian and the wrap-skirt tapi’ linantian.

Pipirot

Belts of silver coins (pipirot linggit) and various type of beads. Most popular being the aki' nampalur, kotos, bungkas, aki’ and olod.

Salupai

A headdress of several rows beads. When there are many strings, there are shaped into a round skullcap. The salupai functions as a support for the sinikot.

Sinikot

A set of three hairpins, with the sinikot tataun in the middle and two sinikot surai on both side of the hairbun. The larger sinikot tataun has the longest strings of tiny beads floating downwards to the middle of the back.

Rarangkol

Necklaces of various types of beads usually in certain order according to the length: bungkas, kotos, aki’ pangungupu’, bulul and olod, etc.

Holong

A pair of bracelets. If made from shell (probably the shell of the giant sea calm), they are called holong silou.

Source :
An Introduction To The Traditional Costumes of Sabah edited by Rita Lasimbang & Stella Moo-Tan, Published by Natural History Publications (Borneo) Sdn. Bhd in association with Department of Sabah Musuem, 1997.