The Kwijau or Kuijau are an indigenous

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....

 ethnic group

Ethnic group

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...

 residing in Sabah

Sabah

Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...

, eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

. They reside in the Interior Division

Interior Division

Interior Division is an administrative division of Sabah, east Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. It occupies the southwest portion of Sabah, bordering on Sarawak...

 within a 12-mile radius to the west and north of Keningau

Keningau

Keningau is a sprawling timber and agricultural town and district located in the Interior Division of Sabah, east Malaysia on the island of Borneo...

 town. Their population was estimated at 7,910 in the year 2000. They are considered a sub-group of the Kadazan-Dusun

Kadazan-Dusun

Kadazan-Dusun is the term assigned to the unification of the classification of two indigenous tribes in Sabah, Malaysia—the ethnic groups Kadazan and Dusun.- History :...

, as their language is on the Dusunic branch of the Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

 language family (ISO 639-3

ISO 639-3

ISO 639-3:2007, Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages. It extends the ISO 639-2...

 dkr). About 20% of the population has been converted to evangelical Christianity, the remainder are animist. They are known for performing the Magunatip, an east Malaysian dance very strongly influenced by the Philippine tinikling

Tinikling

The tinikling is one of the most popular and well-known of traditional Philippine dances. The tinikling is a pre-Spanish dance from the Philippines that involves two people beating, tapping, and sliding bamboo poles on the ground and against each other in coordination with one or more dancers who...

 .Performed by the young men and women, the dance involves jumping steps that maneuver the dancer's feet in and out, so as not to get their feet trapped by 2 moving bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

poles are held by another pair of dancers, who beat the poles together and over a shorter length of wood or bamboo, creating an interesting rhythm.