Ancient shell beads in North Borneo
Ivor H. N. Evans published this brief field note in 1951, drawing on nearly four decades of observation among the Dusun people of North Borneo to document a class of ancient shell beads found in the Tempasuk (Kota Belud) district. The article examines their physical characteristics, trade history, linguistic nomenclature, and the mythological origin narrative attached to them by the Dusun.
Summary
Evans reports that these beads—small, short cylinders of molluscan shell, approximately 5 mm in diameter, highly polished from long use, and sometimes stained with indigo dye from native-woven Dusun cloths—were known to him since his first visits in 1910–1911. Their molluscan composition was confirmed through microscopic examination of a sectioned bead at the Sedgwick Museum of Geology, Cambridge. The beads were evidently bored from either side, leaving holes that are expanded at the entrances. They were not found among the Bajau or Illanun coastal populations, who were comparatively recent arrivals and Malayan Muslims, suggesting a deeper indigenous association with the upland Dusun.
The trade history of the beads is sketched in some detail. In the 1910s, Chinese shopkeepers at Kota Belud purchased them from Dusun sellers and resold them to Iban traders from Sarawak, who carried them back to their own country where they commanded a ready market. By the time of writing, export had made the beads rarer and more expensive, though demand had declined and Iban trading visits had ceased. Evans situates the beads within a broader economy of goods-based exchange among the Dusun, where old brassware, gongs, and other antiquities functioned as currency alongside livestock and land.
The most substantial portion of the article concerns nomenclature and mythology. Evans traces the Dusun names for the beads—kinokogis at Kadamaian and kokogis elsewhere—to roots meaning “sand” (ogis/togis) and “clam” (kokogis), and argues that kinokogis likely means “there was in past time sand” or “there was in past time a clam.” He records a creation legend, transmitted through three generations of a Dusun family at Kadamaian, in which the male deity Kinorohingan scattered sand from the sky during a rundukan (seance), and the beads fell from the loosened hair of the women conducting the ritual. A related celestial origin is attributed to a black-and-white spotted glass bead (minorok-worok), which Kinorohingan took from the water above and which, when present in a house, protects it against fire.
Key Findings
- The beads are small short cylinders of molluscan shell, approximately 5 mm in diameter, bored from either side with expanded holes, and confirmed as molluscan by microscopic sectioning at the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge (p. 170).
- In the 1910s, the price at Kota Belud was approximately $1 (local currency) for two loops, measured over the fork of the thumb to the elbow; by 1950 prices had risen due to export (p. 169).
- The Kadamaian term kinokogis is etymologically linked to ogis (sand) and kokogis (clam, Malay lokan), with the prefix kina- indicating past time, paralleling kinomulok (rice-wine) and Kinorohingan (the deity) (pp. 170–171).
- The origin legend, sourced from Gansiau of Kadamaian via his mother and grandmother, describes Kinorohingan scattering sand from above during a rundukan, with beads falling from the women’s hair (p. 171).
- A separate type, the minorok-worok (black bead spotted with white), is said to have been taken by Kinorohingan from the water above and to protect a house against fire when present within it (p. 171).
- Contemporary shell objects among the Dusun—bracelets of Tridacna sp. or Trochus niloticus made by Bajau men, shell toggles on knife cords, and shell rings on rattan girdles—are of recent origin and distinct from the ancient beads (p. 171).
Conclusion
Evans presents the ancient shell beads as a material culture artifact whose significance lies less in any single interpretive claim than in the convergence of physical evidence, linguistic analysis, and oral tradition. The etymological connection between the bead names and the words for “sand” and “clam,” combined with the creation narrative attributing the beads to a divine scattering of sand, suggests a coherent indigenous cosmology in which the beads are understood as celestial in origin and of considerable ritual and economic value.
Context
- The article is grounded in Evans’s personal fieldwork among the Dusun of North Borneo spanning from 1910 to the late 1940s, supplemented by laboratory analysis at Cambridge and correspondence with other scholars (e.g., Professor Hutton on house horns).
- The piece is embedded within a longer contribution on Dusun house horns and is followed by a separate note on an ancient jade carving, reflecting the informal, multi-topic format common in MBRAS publications of this period.