POPULATION BASE AND PREVALENCE

When discussing behavioral phenomena such as forcible sexual relations, fornication, adultery, and homosexuality, it is critical to have some evidence on the size of the population base and the prevalence and incidence of such behavior in order to reach a sound judgement on the claims presented.

The time period we are primarily dealing with is that of our original field work, 1959-60, 1961-63. The Rungus are found on two peninsulas in the Kudat District of Sabah: the Kudat Peninsula and the Melabong Peninsula. As we were not able to visit the Rungus villages on the Melabong Peninsula at that time, we have excluded these from our analysis. They represent roughly 21% of the total Rungus population.

To determine the number of Rungus on the Kudat Peninsula we multiplied the number of men on the head tax rolls by a multiplier derived from our own sociological census of several villages. This produced a population of 4,545 Rungus in villages of pure Rungus ethnic identity and 4,063 in mixed villages.

The mixed villages lie on the boundaries of the Rungus territory and include members of the Nulu and Gonsomon ethnic groups who have moved in or married in. We do not know how many individuals in these mixed villages were at that time Rungus in their ethnic identity or belonged to these other two Dusunic groups. While the Gonsomon and Nulu have a distinct ethnic identity, their isoglots are completely mutually intelligible with each other and with the Rungus isoglot.12 Even so the accents of both Nulu and Gonsomon speakers are sufficiently different so that one can identify the ethnic group of an individual by his speech. Their customary laws, however, are almost identical with the customary law of the Rungus. Furthermore, Gonsomon and Nulu individuals identify themselves to outsiders as being Rungus. As a result, we feel confident that the results of our inquiries on the jural system and behavior from the headmen and other knowledgeable people in our village also applies to the mixed villages as well. This is substantiated by the fact my informants would also refer to cases that had occurred in these mixed villages. We are dealing with a small area in which gossip and news is readily exchanged, and members of our village had kin in many of the mixed villages. The Kudat Peninsula is roughly 32 miles long and has a width varying from 11 to 16 miles. The Rungus from both fully Rungus and mixed villages also met at the two weekly markets.

Therefore, we conclude that our data refers to a population base of approximately 8,500 individuals.

However, it is impossible to develop any prevalence or incidence rates of illicit sexual behaviors. These behaviors appear in village moots only when jural actions are taken. They are not recorded by the government. They form an oral corpus, which we drew upon and found no cases of forced intercourse. But this does not mean that the lack of cases of sexual aggression is because of the small size of the population involved. For we are dealing here with an accumulated cultural memory of events and jural cases, which at a minimum includes 50 to 75 years of group experience.