A curious word from North Borneo
I.H.N. Evans reports on an unusual Dusun term for “female” found at Kadamaian, a village near Kota Belud in North Borneo, and considers possible explanations for its origin (p. 180).
Summary
The ordinary Dusun word for “female” across nearly all dialects is tonduk (or a variant), but at Kadamaian the term used is kigonob, meaning “skirted” or “the skirted ones,” derived from gonob (the dark blue skirt worn by Dusun women) with the prefix ki equivalent to Malay ber. The word is applied to both women and animals, producing the striking phrase “a skirted dog” (p. 180).
Evans considers two possible explanations: that the term arose from slang, or that the ordinary word for woman was once placed under taboo and a periphrasis substituted. He supports the latter hypothesis by citing well-documented Dusun taboo practices surrounding in-laws’ names, in which speakers substitute alternative words to avoid forbidden terms (p. 180–181). However, enquiries with the Kadamaian headman Takar and the elder Gansiau, who consulted his blind mother (a priestess), yielded no specific account of why the word differs at that village; the answer given was simply that it had always been so (p. 181).