Christine's Cuisine: Almond Butter Cookies

Christine's Cuisine: Almond Butter Cookies: "These may look like peanut butter cookies – but don’t be deceived – they are almond butter cookies. Essentially the same idea as a p..."

Christine's Cuisine: Almond Butter Cookies

Christine's Cuisine: Almond Butter Cookies: "These may look like peanut butter cookies – but don’t be deceived – they are almond butter cookies. Essentially the same idea as a p..."

Why do you think the rainbow is so colourful and yet you never want to know how it is exactly formed?

The Dusuns of North Borneo recognized the rainbow as the devil's bridge, that's all. Since it was the devil's bridge, no one should point it with a finger, for if anyone did that, the person's finger might become gangrened. But luckily there was an immediate remedy to it, i.e. poke the finger into the mouth like a lolypop sweets and then put the finger under the armpit. When I observed carefully the superstition, it was not that too bad and it wasn't a failure. There are lot of educational and moral value in each supersitition that my ancestors believed.

Scientifically, rainbow formation comes like this: It is formed when the sun's rays pass through the drops of water in the air are doubly refracted and the human eye sees the reflection in the form of a brilliant arch of prismatic colours which we call the RAINBOW. A rainbow is best seen when the rain is falling while the sun is shining." (quoted/partly paraphrased) from the book "Students' Companion," by Wilfred Best (1958):Collins:London and Glasgow.

How do you appreciate the nature?

You can appreciate things well by looking at them very closely. One day when you see a rainbow, what would you do or think about it? Have you ever wondered how the rainbow is scientifically formed or have you heard of the Dusuns' superstition about the rainbow?

The significance of lipupudsu among the Dusuns of North Borneo

A lipupudsu would look like a hardened soil or clay and they are seen to exist in several locations near village house premises. When I was a boy, I used to sit on a lipupudsu that existed very close to the ladder of our house in the village. A witcher used to tell me (us, the children) that a lipupudsu was formerly a tomb and so it shouldn't be demolished. If it was demolished the dead rotten body would be seen and that would be a very bad sight that would invite fear in the person who has seen it. My superstitious ancestors never knew that a lipupudsu was termites' architecture. A more fearful story ever told to me about the lipupudsu was that it was a sitting place of a nocturnal human-eating wolf. The wolf would produce a weird sound at night and if its sound was heard by the witcher (usually a woman), she would immediately caution everyone in the house not to lie to sleep on their back but should immediately turn to their side or chest. If anyone failed to obey, the wolf would come into the house and step on the chest of the person until the person die. When the person died, the wolf would take out the person's heart and eat it. I would think that without the lipupudsu the wolf might not have a resting place and so its sound would not be heard by anyone. Everyone should enjoy sleeping at night without fear. But my superstitious ancestors might have become sleepless at nights just because of fearing the sound of the wolf. They couldn't demolish the lipupudsu as well. If they could remove it, they would sleep peacefully at night.

My introduction to the term 'Lipupudsu'

Lipupudsu is an architectural product in an ancient and a modern society. It is a Dusun's (an ethnic that inhabits North Borneo) term for a termite's pillar. Termites were known to human as the human animal or master architects because they are indeed architects as proven in the above pic. This pic was taken from a book "The Words You Need" by B Rudzka, J Channell, Y Putseys, P Ostyn, Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1981. Finding lipupudsu in North Borneo is an adventurous but enjoyable task. I would ask my fellow North Borneans, "What do you think of the significance of lipupudsu to our ancestors?"