Murut and Lundayeh Wedding

I asked the Lord for fine weather from Thursday to Sunday night and until today Monday afternoon the weather is great and sunny in Tambunan. I spent two days travelling into this interior village to conduct a marriage between two of my church members, the bridesgroom is from this interior village 5 hours’ drive from Kota Kinabalu. It takes another hour to traverse 21km from Kemabong, the nearest town but at 2.07pm on Saturday we arrived at the village cultural hall and ushered in for lunch. The guests mostly from KK and local villagers and relatives of the bridesgroom enjoyed lunch at 2.55pm, the announcement came for us to move across to the church where the marriage ceremony would take place. It was another 10 minutes’ walk and the church is located up the hill. With fine weather, a few guests managed to walk gingerly on brown soil without paved roads.

The church is in the process of completion and it was hot inside without fans let alone air condition in the 3pm sun. It started almost immediate as I arrived at 3.10pm and after a couple of praise songs I was asked to come forward to conduct the wedding ceremony. As the bridesgroom had gone back to the village a week before to prepare for the wedding, I had no face to face time with the couple beforehand (usually in KK we would have a short rehearsal a day or night before the ceremony). 

So the couple stood in front of me as I invited them to come forward and exchange their marriage vows and rings as a seal of love in holy matrimony. As celebrant, I took probably 15 minutes with the short sermon beforehand, in all I took a total 22 minutes, 7 minutes shorter than the wedding I conducted for my son and daugther-in-law almost 2 years ago. 

With the soaring heat I thought everyone was pleased with the brief ceremony but done solemnly in the sight of God and His people. At 4pm the church ceremony concluded and the taking photos took another 30 minutes before we walked down the hill at 4.30pm and slowly headed back to the cultural hall for the next event. 

The couple changed into their traditional costumes and they looked stunning in their Murut (man) and Lundayeh costumes (woman). They sat up the dais prepared for them and another 30 minutes of celebrations, cutting of the wedding cake, exchange of gifts between the bridal parties and as the pastor in charge I was also given a Lundayeh basket and a hat which tribal men normally wear. At 6.05pm I took leave and said goodbye to everyone nearby and a Ford Ranger that took us to the village also took back to Tenom. We arrived just before 8pm and checked in to a hotel at the town centre.