Murut People: Highland Communities of North Kalimantan
The Murut people are Indigenous communities of northern Borneo, but “Murut” does not identify one settlement or one uniform community in North Kalimantan. It is a broad regional label used across borders and in different classifications. In Indonesia, related communities live in the interior and border districts of Nunukan and Malinau; the names people use for themselves and their languages can be more precise than the umbrella term.
For a reader trying to understand the region, the key is to treat identity, language and location as connected but not interchangeable. Lundayeh communities in Krayan and Malinau are one important part of this northern highland story, while other Murutic-speaking communities have distinct names and histories. North Kalimantan is not a single “Murut village” that can be reached as an attraction.
Who are the Murut people of North Kalimantan?
Murut is a collective ethnonym associated with Indigenous communities in the northern interior of Borneo, across what are now Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Lists that describe subgroups refer to a broad cross-border grouping; they should not be read as a settled count for Indonesia or as proof that every named community shares one identity.
On the Indonesian side, Nunukan and Malinau are useful places to orient the discussion. Nunukan includes the highland subdistrict of Krayan, while Malinau includes communities in and around the interior districts. These administrative names describe where places sit within Indonesia; they do not define a person’s ethnicity. Village, language and self-identification matter at a more local scale.
This distinction matters because older ethnographic and colonial classifications often grouped neighbouring peoples under broad names. A label can be useful for discussing language relationships or regional history, yet still flatten differences that residents recognise. When a person or community uses a specific name such as Lundayeh, that name should not be replaced casually with Murut simply because a reference work places them in a wider Murut grouping.
Why Lundayeh and Murut can refer to related people
Lundayeh is a particularly important name in North Kalimantan’s highlands. The community spans modern national borders, and related people are known by different names in different areas: Lundayeh or Lun Dayeh in parts of Indonesia and Sabah, Lun Bawang in Sarawak, and Murut Lun Bawang in Brunei. These names reflect local usage and administrative histories as well as kinship and cultural connections; they are not a licence to assume that every person prefers the same label.
The name itself is often explained through lun, meaning “person” or “people”, and dayeh, associated with the uplands. Spelling varies, including Lun Dayeh and Lun Dayah. Such explanations are useful orientation, but names are living forms of identity: the name used in one official classification may differ from the one a family uses in conversation. In writing about a specific place, keep the locally used form when it is known.
Language distribution helps make the geography concrete. Indonesian language mapping records Lundayeh in Long Bawan, Pa’ Lutut, Pa’ Raye and Pa’ Upan in Krayan Selatan, Nunukan Regency, and also in Tanjung Lapang, West Malinau, Malinau Regency. It distinguishes three local dialect areas, including Long Bawan, Tanjung Lapang and Pa’ Upan. That is a more useful description than saying vaguely that Lundayeh is spoken “in the interior”: the speech community crosses regency boundaries and contains local variation.
For more on that closely connected highland identity, see the guide to Lundayeh people in North Kalimantan. The distinction is not a contest over which label is correct. It is a reminder to follow the name appropriate to the community and context under discussion.
Several languages sit behind the broad regional label
Murut-related language classification is not a simple one-to-one map of ethnic groups. Work has covered Okolod and other varieties near the Indonesian border, while the wider area also includes languages such as Abai and Bulusu around Malinau. These classifications describe linguistic relationships; they do not automatically determine how speakers identify ethnically.
Even the word “Murut” can have a narrower meaning in one setting and a broader one in another. In Sabah it is commonly used for a major Indigenous grouping, while in writing about the southern borderlands it may include communities described elsewhere as Lun Bawang or Lundayeh. This is why a fixed list of subgroups can mislead. Some lists combine language, historical district labels and ethnic self-names, which are different kinds of evidence.
A practical way to read a name is to ask three separate questions: what community name is used on the ground, what language or variety is spoken, and what wider classification is being applied. A map may use the name of a language; a government form may use an ethnic category; a family may use its own name. These answers can overlap without being identical. If the questions are merged into one, people can be mislabelled and small language communities vanish inside a large category.
Language also changes with family life, schooling, work and movement between villages and towns. Indonesian is used across the province, and Malay varieties and neighbouring Indigenous languages are part of the wider multilingual setting. That does not mean a community language has vanished, nor does a language label tell you how often it is spoken at home today. Current fluency, transmission to children and preferred spelling need local evidence rather than inference from an old map.
Highland settlement and farming need local context
North Borneo communities have long combined farming with other ways of obtaining food and materials, but no single farming pattern should be assigned to every group called Murut. Timugon Murut in Sabah, for example, grew hill rice, sago and cassava, and later took up wet-rice cultivation on river plains. That is one community’s experience in a particular setting, not a picture of every household in North Kalimantan.
In Krayan, Lundayeh identity is closely associated with highland settlement and rice-growing landscapes. The wider highland region is not the same as the lower river corridors around Malinau town. Differences in elevation, access to fields, waterways and neighbouring communities shape how people live and work. A reader moving between these areas should not expect one cultural landscape to continue unchanged from one regency to the next.
Shifting cultivation, where practised, is a rotation of fields and fallow rather than simply moving the village. The land is used in cycles, allowing a cultivated plot to rest before it is used again. This farming system is often mistaken for permanent relocation. Settlement location, cultivation rotation and seasonal movement are separate matters; a family can farm plots away from home without leaving the village.
Longhouses are part of the traditional picture for some Murut communities, but present-day homes and settlement forms differ. A visitor should not assume that a named community lives in a longhouse or stages traditional life for guests. In North Kalimantan, continuity is more often seen in language, family ties, farming knowledge or community events than in a building kept as a cultural display.
History is more than the headhunting label
Earlier portrayals of Murut communities often put warfare and headhunting at the front. Those practices belong to particular past contexts and should not stand as shorthand for a people today. The end of headhunting in Sabah came during British colonial rule, but that timeline applied to communities under that administration; it cannot be carried over uncritically to every Murut-related group across the borders of Borneo.
The practice is also not a complete account of social life. Agriculture, exchange between households, marriage ties, language, local authority and religious change all shaped community histories. When a page or conversation reduces the Murut to a sensational past, it obscures the ordinary work through which communities sustain themselves and adapt. The sounder question is how a particular community’s own history is told and what changed in that place.
Colonial boundaries later divided communities whose relationships pre-dated modern states. Today’s map places Krayan in Nunukan Regency and other communities in Malinau, while related populations live across the border in Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei. The border is significant for administration and movement, but it does not erase linguistic and family connections. Equally, shared connections do not mean that life, institutions or identities are identical on both sides.
What a visitor can and cannot infer from the map
A regional overview can help a traveller understand why North Kalimantan’s interior appears in writing about Murut and Lundayeh peoples. It cannot identify a particular home, arrange a community visit or establish that cultural activities are open to visitors. The available place names point to inhabited districts and villages, not a ticketed attraction with a standard itinerary.
Malinau town is a useful reference point for the regency, but it is not a stand-in for every interior community. Krayan’s villages are highland settlements in Nunukan Regency, and Tanjung Lapang is a village area in West Malinau where Lundayeh is spoken. These are distinct geographic places. A route for one should not be assumed to serve the other, and a general provincial map does not answer current transport or access questions.
For the regional overview, start with North Kalimantan, then use the Malinau guide for the regency’s town and interior context. The Nunukan guide provides the other administrative frame for Krayan. These pages help place the communities on the map; they should not be read as cultural permissions or introductions to private households.
If your interest is cultural rather than purely geographic, approach a community through an invitation or a locally arranged introduction, and ask what names people use for themselves before assuming a label. Photography, entry to family spaces and attendance at community events are matters for the people involved to decide. A respectful visit begins by recognising that ordinary homes and working landscapes are lived places, not exhibits.
Questions readers often ask about Murut identity
Are the Murut and Lundayeh the same people?
The terms overlap in some regional and linguistic classifications, and related communities use different names across Borneo. In North Kalimantan, Lundayeh is a specific and widely used identity; “Murut” can be a broader grouping. Use the name a particular community uses for itself when you know it.
Where are Lundayeh communities in North Kalimantan?
Language mapping records Lundayeh in several villages in Krayan Selatan, Nunukan Regency, and in Tanjung Lapang, West Malinau, Malinau Regency. Those locations show that the language is present across two regencies, not that every village in either regency is Lundayeh-speaking.
Is there one Murut language?
No single language label should be assumed to cover all people included under the Murut umbrella. The region contains multiple related languages and local varieties, and Lundayeh is identified separately in Indonesian language mapping. Ethnic labels and language classifications answer related but different questions.
Can travellers visit a Murut village as an attraction?
This regional identity guide does not identify a public attraction or an organised visitor programme. Communities are lived places, so a visit requires a genuine local invitation or arrangement and agreement about what is appropriate to see or photograph.
Related guides: tidung people, sungai kayan, lundayeh language, Kayan people of North Kalimantan.