End of May, the season of merry making for the Kadazandusun people of Sabah in celebrating the paddy harvest festival, or Kaamatan. Traditionally the festival originated from a complex spiritual ritual, involving invocation of the Bambarayon - or the spirit of the paddy - nowadays Kaamatan is simply synonymous with beauty peagent of ladies spotting huge bun hair, and one of the most legalising reason for bad karaoke singing and drinking stupor.
Being partly Dusun myself, I am quite ashamed to admit that I've not quite appreciated the festival (partly also because our rice-pot in the house is guarded by the spirit-of-the-purse rather than that of-the-field) but I was happy to acclaim participation in any festivals that gives off a day or two of Public Holiday, haha. This year, however, after having been initiated into the drinking and karaoke culture, I make it my personal mission to get myself (invited) to a siopon drinking session... diorang bilang kick bah, tu lah sya mau cuba tu...
There are actually a lot more ceremonies to Kaamatan than the one we are accustomed to... the one that gets celebrated the most is actually the final rite in the whole observation, namely the Humabot ceremony.
And what about the spirit of the ceremony? The one I know comes in 40% vv strength, enough to knock you off your sensibility and lose all inhibition in singing. Below are the pictorials of the siopon making processes, taken from a local website.
I'm quite glad that this wine making doesn't involve stomping of the poor rice with bare feet like what they'd do to make grape wine... imagine some kampung people flavouring your drinks... yucks!
The young wine takes some time to ripen. As seen in this pic, everybody's impatient to have a go at it... but it's unlucky to open up a fermenting jar before it's completely done...
There's no actual guarantee that the product will turn out well, so a little bit of improvisation will usually ensure the spirit of the harvest is well appreciated... even though it's not actually its harvest we're celebrating.
Guranggak's special tribute to the harvest-spirit of rye and wheat, feat. the harvest spirit of currant. Haha.
Pinjam gambar ko sekejap, Gur...
Being partly Dusun myself, I am quite ashamed to admit that I've not quite appreciated the festival (partly also because our rice-pot in the house is guarded by the spirit-of-the-purse rather than that of-the-field) but I was happy to acclaim participation in any festivals that gives off a day or two of Public Holiday, haha. This year, however, after having been initiated into the drinking and karaoke culture, I make it my personal mission to get myself (invited) to a siopon drinking session... diorang bilang kick bah, tu lah sya mau cuba tu...
There are actually a lot more ceremonies to Kaamatan than the one we are accustomed to... the one that gets celebrated the most is actually the final rite in the whole observation, namely the Humabot ceremony.
And what about the spirit of the ceremony? The one I know comes in 40% vv strength, enough to knock you off your sensibility and lose all inhibition in singing. Below are the pictorials of the siopon making processes, taken from a local website.
I'm quite glad that this wine making doesn't involve stomping of the poor rice with bare feet like what they'd do to make grape wine... imagine some kampung people flavouring your drinks... yucks!The young wine takes some time to ripen. As seen in this pic, everybody's impatient to have a go at it... but it's unlucky to open up a fermenting jar before it's completely done...
There's no actual guarantee that the product will turn out well, so a little bit of improvisation will usually ensure the spirit of the harvest is well appreciated... even though it's not actually its harvest we're celebrating.Guranggak's special tribute to the harvest-spirit of rye and wheat, feat. the harvest spirit of currant. Haha.
Pinjam gambar ko sekejap, Gur...
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