Abstract—Religion has a strong influence on the world view
of a society. It also affects the actions and practices of everyday
life. Therefore, changes in the religion also result in changes in
religious practice. This paper tries to see the impact of religious
change on headhunting (antaboh) in Tahol Murut community,
Ulu Tomani, Sabah, Malaysia. This is because, originally, these
people are holding on to faith-based ancestral spirits.
Headhunting (antaboh) that they practiced for a long time, is
based on traditional religion and belief which has existed for
many generations. However, having come into contact with the
Lun Bawang people who are Christians, they eventually were
drawn to accept Christianity as their religion beganning around
the 1950s. Thus, the effect of changes in religion in this
community is interesting to be discussed. At least we can assess
whether the view that religious change gives impact on the
culture of a community also applies to this community. The
Methodology used in this study is qualitative in nature involving
library research and interview key informants. The researcher
also had the opportunity to be with this community on a regular
basis from 2003 until today. The result of this study revealed
that religious change of Murut Tahol community give
significant effect to their headhunting practice.
Index Terms—Murut tahol, religious change, headhunting.
Abd Hakim Mohd Mokhtar is with the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jln.
UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia (e-mail:
abdhakimmy@yahoo.co.uk, abdhakim@ums.edu.my).
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Cite: Abd Hakim Mohad, " Spiritual Journey of Murut Tahol in Sabah and Its Effect to
Their Headhunting Practice," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 426-429, 2014.