The Lotud are an indigenous

Indigenous peoples of Oceania

The indigenous peoples of Oceania are those peoples identified as indigenous peoples, as per the modern global definition of the term.Many of the present-day Pacific Island nations in the Oceania region were originally populated by Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian peoples over the course of...

 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 mainly in the Tuaran

Tuaran

Tuaran is a town as well as a district located in West Coast Division, in the northwest of Sabah, East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Tuaran district has an area of 1,166 square kilometres and an estimated population of 94,100 in 2006. About half the population consists of ethnic Dusun, a third...

 District to as far as Kampung Sukoli, Telipok

Telipok

Telipok is a town located about 15 kilometres north of Kota Kinabalu, in Sabah, Malaysia. The town is within the administration of Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu and is a sub-district of the city. It is also part of the urban expanse of Kota Kinabalu or part of its metropolitan area...

 in the West Coast Division

West Coast Division

West Coast Division is an administrative division of Sabah, east Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. It occupies the northwest portion of Sabah. With an area of 7,588 square kilometres, it occupies 10.3% of Sabah's territory...

 of Sabah. Their population was estimated at 5,000 in the year 1985 but now believed to be more than 10,000. They are a sub-ethnic group of the Dusun

Dusun

Dusun is the collective name of a tribe or ethnic and linguistic group in the Malaysian state of Sabah of North Borneo. Due to similarities in culture and language with the Kadazan ethnic group, a new unified term called "Kadazan-Dusun" was created. Collectively, they form the largest ethnic group...

ic group, now also known as Kadazandusun.

The Dusunic language family is a branch under the Malayo-Polynesian

Malayo-Polynesian languages

The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...

 group of Languages, which is a 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...

 stock of languages (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...

 dtr). Most of the population has been converted to mostly Catholicism and some to evangelical Christianity, with a dwindling number are still animists. Less than 20 traditional priestesses are still alive, with no prospect of future replacement.