Murut people

The Murut people or simply the Muruts is the collective name of an Austronesian ethnic group indigenous to Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia as well as North Kalimantan in Indonesia and Temburong District in Brunei. Within Sabah, they primarily live in the Interior Division, primarily in the districts of Nabawan (formerly Pensiangan), Tenom, Keningau, Sipitang and Beaufort and some are also found in the Sandakan and Tawau divisions, namely in the Tongod, Kinabatangan as well as Tawau districts. Within Sarawak, the Muruts are found within Lawas district in Limbang division, as well as in the Federal Territory of Labuan. Within North Kalimantan, the Muruts reside within both the Nunukan and Malinau regencies. The Murut ethnic term between both Sabah and Sarawak carries different meanings based on its respective administration classification, where different categorisations are also present in both Indonesia and Brunei. They constitute an indigenous ethnic community comprising 29 distinct sub-ethnic groups dwelling within the northern inland territories of Borneo. Originally pagan-animist, a majority of them have converted to Protestantism, while the remainder either adhere to other branches of Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholicism) or to Islam, or else remain with their traditional religion. The Muruts in Sabah are generally referred to as "Northern Muruts", while in Brunei, Sarawak, and North Kalimantan, the Muruts consist of "Southern Muruts". Characterised by their rich cultural diversity, the Murutic languages form a linguistic family encompassing approximately half a dozen closely intertwined Austronesian languages. Murut populations exhibit dispersion in Malaysia's Sabah and the northern part of Sarawak as well as Labuan, in the country of Brunei and the Indonesian North Kalimantan province. Furthermore, the Murut people have close connections with the Tidung, who historically inhabited Borneo's east coast region that underwent processes of Islamisation and Malayisation.