Introduction
Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another or to cloth using a needle and thread. Most beadwork takes the form of jewelry or other personal adornment, but beads are also used in wall hangings and sculpture. Beadwork techniques are broadly divided into loom and off-loom weaving, stringing, bead embroidery, bead crochet, and bead knitting. Most cultures have employed beads for personal adornment. Archaeological records show that people made and used beads as long as 5000 years ago. Beads have also been used for religious purposes, as good luck talismans, and as curative agents.
Beads and Beadwork of the Rungus of Sabah
By Bucklee Bell
The Rungus tribal or cultural group comprising approximately 40,000 people live in the northeast corner of Sabah state, East Malaysia (on the island of North Borneo). Their income comes mostly from rice, coconut, rubber and other agricultural products. They live on a peninsula in the foothills leading up to Mt. Kinabalu the highest mountain in South East Asia at 4,090 m (13,292 feet).
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The Rungus have a traditional way of making and wearing their bead adornments and each piece has a name.
The pinakol consists of a pair of flat beaded bandoleer-type belts worn crossed over the chest and back. This beadwork and its designs easily distinguish the Rungus from the other ethnic groups of Sabah. The beadwork often tells a story and this one in particular tells of a man going spear-hunting for a riverine creature.
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Reproduced from http://www.thebeadsite.com/rungus.htm
Malaysian Stamps Honoring Beads
The beads come from the two parts of Malaysia that are on the island of Borneo: Sarawak and Sabah.
| The stamps were printed so that a block of four would include
four different designs. Stamp collectors call this sort of issue a se
tenant, French for "joined together."
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A Pinakol - Beaded "bandoleers" worn by Rungus of north Sabah. These may be made of seed beads (as illustrated on the stamp), or strings of older beads incorporating long carnelians or glass imitations thereof. 
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| Marik Empang (misspelled on the stamp): bead collars worn by Iban women of Sarawak. In the Iban language marik is beads, empang is a circle, as when people hold hands in a round dance or "bead roundelay."
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This is simply marked manik kaca, Malay for "glass bead" (it should have been in the plural).
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| Orot: hip girdle worn by the Rungus of north Sabah, often attached to a silver belt, made of beadwork or looped strings of beads. The stamp gives the misleading impression that the thing is circular.
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Reproduced from http://www.thebeadsite.com/BP-STMP2.htm