The Rumanau are an
indigenous ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
residing in
Sabah
Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indone ...
, eastern
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
on the island of
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...
. They are known as the Lobu in the
Keningau District near Lanas, and the Rumanau in the Masaum, Mangkawagu, Minusu areas of the Kinabatangan District along the
Kinabatangan River
The Kinabatangan River ( ms, Sungai Kinabatangan) is a river in Sandakan Division, in northeastern Sabah, Malaysia. It is the second longest river in Malaysia, with a length of from its headwaters in the mountains of southwest Sabah, to its ou ...
, in
Sandakan Division.
Their population was estimated at 2,800 in the year 1991. They are a sub-group of the
Kadazan-Dusun, although their language (
ISO 639-3
ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for i ...
ruu) belongs to the Paitanic branch of the
Austronesian language family.
Etymology
The Rumanau people derived their name from two words "ru" and "ranah". The word ru is equivalent to the English phrase "to be with" or "to work with", and ranah refers to "wet earth" or "muddy soil". Thus the named Rumanau people means people who work with muddy soil. Wet paddy cultivation is the only known occupation among Kadazan-Dusun which involves "working with muddy soil". The Rumanau were the first ethnic group migrating out from Nunuk Ragang to acquire the skill of wet paddy cultivation. The paddy cultivation phase in
Momolianism evolution had a big impact on the Rumanau people.
References
{{Asia-ethno-group-stub
Ethnic groups in Sabah
Indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia
Kadazan-Dusun people