Dusun Subpan At Ulu Segama Lahad Datu

Many may not know that in Ulu Segama Lahad Datu Sabah Malaysia lives the minority Dusun etnic of the Subpan. There are not many of them and many had been assimilated with the other ethnic especially the Orang Sungei of Kinabatangan, even their language is not commonly spoken.

Kg Opak Ulu Segama is where many of the Dusun Subpan lives and here lies one of the oldest graves of the Dusun Subpan community at Bt Balos and Bt Tapadong along the banks of the Segama River. We have to reach these places by boat and by road as well as jungle tracks. They buried their dead in caves, for fear that the graves may be washed away by floods as well as the advice of their leader that he and his community be buried at Bt Balos.

Other communities like the Iban who had married the Subpan had to be buried at different caves and could not be mixed with the Subpan. The Subpan claimed to have been at Bt Balos for more than 700 years. but the history of Tapadong stated that Tapadong was once a district at Ulu Segama, but migration, disease and development had resulted in the ethnic migrating to other parts of the area.

Some of them are living close to the river banks of the Segama River in a place called Bt Balacon, names after one of their ancestor who was lost and hidden by the 'spirits' for three days.

Bt Balacon in Lahad Datu is located very close to the new Segama bridge and along the highway to Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu. The Subpan has their own language and music but they come under the broad category of the Dusunite community.''