Cloth made of 'lamba' ,or bark-thread

The materials from which Dusun cloth is made are lamba , the fibre of a species of wild banana, cotton, or thread made from some kind of tree-bark. These may either be mixed — e,g, a cloth may have a warp of lamha and a woof of cotton or bark-thread — or used singly. When finished, the cloth is dyed with native indigo and is then ready for making up into the skirts, hoods or trousers or which it is chiefly intended. Cloth is not woven in the villages around Tuaran, but cloth-weaving is general in the Dusun villages of the Tempassuk, and also in the upland villages of the Tuaran district. Some very fine cloths are made by the Rungus  who live outside the Tempassuk district in the direction of Kudat; these have elaborate patterns in white on a black background and are sometimes further ornamented by the insertion of a few strands of red thread". — Ivor H. N. Evans

 When i was in Kota Belud ,an elder told me that  in the olden days they used to beat tree bark to flatten it to make clothes. Also, a manually operated weaving instrument was used ~ but alas, this art has lost and very few have practice the skills. For beauty sake, young girls had to have their teeth filed (which was not a pleasant experience) by their parents .