Taiwanese aborigines

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Taiwanese aborigines

General information

• Total population

2006: 458,000 _{(CIP 2006)}

2004: 454,600 _{(CIP 2004)}

• Homelands in Taiwan
  • Mountainous terrain running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island
  • Narrow eastern plains
  • Orchid Island (Lán Yǔ)
• Languages

14 living Formosan languages. Several of these are endangered or moribund.

Tribes

Recognized Ami Atayal Bunun Kavalan Paiwan Puyuma Rukai Saisiyat Sakizaya Tao Thao Tsou Truku

Unrecognized Babuza Basay Hoanya Ketagalan Luilang Pazeh/Kaxabu Popora Qauqaut Siraya Taokas Trobiawan

Gaoshan and Pingpu

• With rare exceptions, the living languages and recognized tribes are of the Gaoshan tribes, who reside in the first two of the three regions given above. The extinct languages and unrecognized tribes are generally of the Pingpu, who formerly resided in the western plains region. The Tao people (or Yami) reside on Orchid Island, are a recognized tribe and speak a living (albeit endangered) language.

Taiwanese Aborigines or Aboriginal peoples (Chinese: 原住民; pinyin: yuánzhùmín; Wade-Giles: yüan2-chu4-min2; Taiwanese Pe̍h-oē-jī: gôan-chū-bîn, literally "original inhabitants") are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Their ancestors are believed to have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han Chinese immigration began in the 1600s (Blust 1999). The Taiwanese Aborigines are closely related to the Austronesian peoples of the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The issue of an ethnic identity unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political identity of Taiwan. The total population of Aborigines on Taiwan is around 458,000 as of January 2006, (CIP 2006) which is approximately 2% of Taiwan's population.

For centuries the Formosan tribes experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of conquering peoples. As a result of these intercultural dynamics, as well as more dispassionate economic processes, many of these tribes have been linguistically and culturally assimilated. The result has been varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese Aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages), at least ten are extinct, another five are moribund (Zeitoun & Yu 2005:167) and several others are to some degree endangered. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists consider Taiwan as the original homeland of the Austronesian language family.

Today the indigenous peoples of Taiwan face economic and social barriers, including a high unemployment rate and substandard education. They have been actively seeking a higher degree of self-determination and economic development since the early 1980s. In 1996 the Council of Indigenous Peoples was promoted to a ministry-level rank within the Executive Yuan. A revival of ethnic pride has been expressed in many ways by aborigines, including incorporating elements of their culture into commercially successful pop music. Efforts are underway by indigenous communities to revive traditional cultural practices and preserve their languages. The aboriginal tribes have also become extensively involved in the tourism and eco-tourism industries.

[edit] Plains, Mountains and Tribal Definitions

For most of their recorded history, Taiwanese Aborigines have been defined by the agents of different colonial projects with a variety of colonial aims; Confucian, Christian, and Nationalist. Each colonial project defined the Aborigines based on the colonizer’s own cultural understandings of difference and similarity, behavior, location, appearance and prior contact with other groups of people (Harrell 1996:17-20).

The Han sailor, Chen Di, in his Record of the Eastern Seas (1603), identifies the indigenous people of Taiwan as simply (Dong Fan) 東番, or "Eastern Savage", while the Dutch referred to Taiwan’s original inhabitants as Indians or blacks, based on their prior colonial experience in what is currently Indonesia (Teng 2004:61-65).

As Qing rule expanded over wider groups of people, writers and gazetteers refined their descriptions from reflecting the Aborigines degree of acculturation, to a system designed to indicate which groups had submitted to Qing rule and which groups were still hostile. Qing literati used the term “raw barbarian 生番” to define those people who had not submitted to Qing rule, and “cooked barbarian 熟番” for those who had pledged their allegiance through their payment of a head tax. According to the standards adopted by the Qing Empire, "cooked" was synonymous with being Han, and a subject of the Empire. The prevailing idea was that anyone could become a civilized person by adopting Confucian social norms and this was a policy actively pursued by the Qianlong Emperor and successive regimes (Crossley 1999:281-295; Dikotter 1992:8-9).

As the Qing consolidated their power over the plains and struggled to enter the mountains in the late 19th century, the terms "Plains Barbarian" Pepo or Pingpu zu 平埔族 and "High Mountain barbarian" Gao shan zu 高山族 were used interchangeably with the terms "Raw" and "Cooked" (Teng 2004:125-127). During the 50 years of Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945), anthropologists from Japan maintained the binary classification, and in 1900, incorporated it into their own colonial project by recognizing nine tribes of Aborigines: Atayal, Bunun, Tsou, Saisiat, Paiwan, Puyuma, Ami and Peipo (Plains Aborigine), later the Yami and Thao were added (Harrison 2001:54-55).

During the early period of Kuomintang (KMT) rule, the tribal designations given by the Japanese were considered tainted by Japanese rule and the blanket term Shan Bao 山胞 “mountain compatriots” was substituted to reflect the place of Taiwan’s indigenous people in the Chinese Nationalist state (Harrison 2001:60). The KMT later adopted the earlier Japanese definitions with the exclusion of Peipo.

Despite changes in contemporary anthropology, and government on Taiwan, the two groups are still often distinguished as plains tribes and high mountain tribes. The divisions are not and have never been based strictly on geographical location. Among the so-called Gaoshan tribes are the Amis and Puyuma, who inhabit the plains of eastern Taiwan, and the Tao live on Orchid Island.^[1] The distinction continues to affect Taiwan's policies regarding indigenous peoples, and their ability to participate effectively in government (Saisiyat people 2006).

Modern anthropologists consider the Taiwanese Aborigines to be a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, although their origins are the matter of debate (Stainton 1999:27-42). From the earliest records from the Dutch arrival in 1624, they witnessed the Aborigines living in independent villages of varying size. Between these villages there was frequent trade, intermarriage, warfare and alliances against common enemies. Although there were frequent alliances, the villages were not united under a common polity, kingdom or "tribe" (Blusse 1999:37-45; Shepherd 1993:51-61).

Using ethnographic criteria, these villages have been classed by anthropologists into broad groupings that are still widely debated in academic circles. From the perspective of contemporary ethnology and linguistics, Taiwan's indigenous people can be divided into more than 20 tribes or ethnic groups (Tsuchida 1983:62; Li 1992:22-23). The Government Information Office officially lists 13 major groupings as "tribes". Based on the body of statistical and empirical data, it is widely acknowledged that these ethnolinguistic groups are not based on prior social entities, political groupings, or self-identified alliances in Qing Taiwan, but are the product of more recent taxonomies (Teng 2004:104-105).

[edit] Recognized peoples

Map of highland tribes according to traditional geographical distribution. Note alternate names: Taroko (Truku, Seediq); Yami (Tao).

The government on Taiwan officially recognizes 13 distinct tribes among the indigenous community based upon the qualifications drawn up by the Council of Indigenous Peoples (Ericsson 2004). This formal recognition confers certain legal benefits and rights upon a group, as well as providing them with the satisfaction of recovering their separate identity as a tribe. To gain this recognition, tribes must gather a number of signatures and a body of supportive evidence in order to successfully petition the Council of Indigenous Peoples.

After a group petitions for recognized status, the Council of Indigenous Peoples analyzes their "...language, history and the locations where they are residing now" (Chuang 2005) An important factor in a successful formal petition is tracing the genealogical roots of members of the group, which can be a very labor-intensive task (Lee 2003). Other historical documents or articles can be used as supportive evidence. One obstacle that faces many tribes petitioning for recognition is that the existence of a distinct tribal language is a very strong argument in a group's favor. However, the languages of many tribal groups are extinct, which weakens their case.

Among the plains Aboriginal groups that have petitioned for tribal status, only the Kavalan and Sakizaya have been officially recognized. The remaining eleven recognized tribes are traditionally regarded as mountain Aboriginals.

Other tribal groups or subgroups that have pressed for recovery of legal Aboriginal status include the Chimo (who have not formally petitioned the government, see Lee 2003) the Kakabu, Makatao, Pazeh, and Siraya (Kavalan become 2002). The act of petitioning for recognized status, however, does not always reflect any consensus view among scholars that the relevant group should in fact be categorized as a separate tribe.

There is discussion among both scholars and political groups regarding the best or most appropriate name to use for many of the tribes and their languages, as well as the proper romanization of that name. Commonly cited examples of this ambiguity include (Seediq/Sediq/Truku/Taroko) and (Tao/Yami).

Nine of the tribes were originally recognized prior to 1945 by the Japanese government (Ericsson 2004). The Thao, Kavalan, Truku and Sakizaya were recognized by Taiwan's government in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2007 respectively. A full list of the recognized tribes of Taiwan, as well as some of the more commonly cited unrecognized tribal groups, is as follows:

• Recognized: Ami, Atayal, Bunun, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiyat, Tao, Thao, Tsou, Truku, and Sakizaya.

• Unrecognized: Babuza, Basay, Hoanya, Ketagalan, Luilang, Pazeh/Kaxabu, Popora, Qauqaut, Siraya, Taokas, Trobiawan.

[edit] Assimilation and Acculturation

Archaeological, linguistic and anecdotal evidence suggests that Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have undergone regular and dynamic cultural shift to meet the pressures of contact with other societies and new technologies (Liu 2002:75-98). Beginning in the early 17th century, they faced broad cultural change as the island became incorporated into the wider global economy by a succession of competing colonial regimes from Europe and Asia (Shepherd 1993:1-10; Kang 2003:115-126).

In each successive regime, as the degree of colonization increased, the Aborigines of the plains found themselves in greater contact with outside cultures, resulting in an incremental process of acculturation and assimilation (Brown 2004:38-50). In some cases groups of Aborigines resisted colonial influence, and in other cases it was readily adopted by those who sought to benefit from aligning with the colonial powers. This alignment could be leveraged to achieve personal economic gain, collective power over neighboring villages or freedom from unfavorable societal customs and taboos involving marriage, age-grade and child birth (Shepherd 1995:58-63; Blusse & Everts 2000:77-78).

Ethnic shift was sometimes gradual, stemming from the removal of ethnic markers (such as bound feet, dietary customs and clothing) that had formerly delineated ethnic identification on Taiwan. The removal or replacement of these brought about an incremental transformation from "Fan" (barbarian) to "Han" (Brown 2004:155-164). The Japanese and KMT periods resulted in the assimilation process becoming more centralized (Harrison 2001:60-67), and had a greater impact on the Highlands groups. Government policies recast education, genealogical customs and other traditions toward ethnic assimilation. For example, by nationalizing one language, the colonizing force attaches economic and social advantages to the prestige language. As generations pass, use of the indigenous language often fades and disappears. Many of these commonplace forms of assimilation are still at work today. However, some tribes are seeking to recover their tribal identity (Hsieh 2006). One important political aspect of this pursuit is petitioning the government for official recognition as a separate and distinct tribe.

The complexity and scope of Aboriginal assimilation and acculturation on Taiwan has led to three general narratives of Taiwanese ethnic history. The oldest narrative holds that Han migration from Fujian and Guangdong in the 17th Century pushed the plains Aborigines into the mountains, where they became the highland tribes of today (Shepherd 1993). A relatively newer view asserts that through widespread intermarriage between Han and Aborigines between the 17th and 19th centuries, the Aborigines were completely sinicized (Lamley 1981:282; Meskill 1979:253-255). Finally, modern ethnographical and anthropological studies have shown a pattern of cultural shift mutually experienced by both Han and Plains Aborigines, resulting in a hybrid culture. Today people who comprise Taiwan’s ethnic Han demonstrate major cultural differences from Han elsewhere (Brown 1996;Brown 2004).

[edit] Surnames and Identity

Several factors militated in favor of the assimilation of the Plain tribes of aborigines.^[2] Taking a Han name was a necessary step in instilling Confucian values in the aborigines (Liu 2002:31-32). Confucian values were necessary to be recognized as a full person and to operate within the Confucian Qing state (Ebrey 1996:19-34), and a Han surname was a necessary prerequisite. Possession of a Han surname, then, could confer a broad range of significant economic and social benefits upon aborigines . In some cases, members of plains tribes adopted the Han surname Pan (潘) as a modification of their designated status as Fan (番: "barbarian"). ^[3] One family of Pazih became members of the local gentry (Pan 1996:440-462; Hong 1997:310-315) complete with a lineage to Fujian province. In other cases, plains aborigine families adopted common Han surnames, but traced their earliest ancestor to their locality in Taiwan.

In many cases, large groups of immigrant Han would unite under a common surname to form a brotherhood. Brotherhoods were used as a form of defense, as each sworn brother was bound by an oath of blood to assist a brother in need. The brotherhood groups would link their names to a family tree, in essence manufacturing a genealogy based on names rather than blood, and taking the place of the kinship organizations commonly found in China. The practice was so widespread that today's family books are largely unreliable (Hsu 1980:31-34;90-105; Ebrey 1996:19-34). Many plains aborigines joined the brotherhoods to gain protection from the collective as a type of insurance policy, and through these groups they took on a Han identity with a Han lineage.

The degree to which any one of these forces held sway over others is unclear. Preference for one explanation over another is sometimes predicated upon a given political viewpoint. The cumulative effect of these dynamics is that by the beginning of the twentieth century the Plains tribes were almost completely acculturated into the larger ethnic Han group, and had experienced nearly total language shift from their respective Formosan languages to Chinese.

[edit] History of the Aboriginal Peoples

Main article: History of Taiwan

The history of the Aboriginal tribes on Taiwan has often been dominated by the views and biases of foreign powers since the seventeenth century, although intertribal competition and conflict existed long before contact with non-Austronesian speakers. Beginning with the arrival of Dutch merchants in 1624, the traditional lands of the aborigines have been successively colonized by Dutch, Spanish, Han (from both the Ming and Qing dynasties), Japanese and Chinese (the Chinese Nationalist government, or Kuomintang) rulers. Each of these groups had an impact on the culture (and often the language) of the tribal groups they came into contact with. Much of the historical information regarding Taiwan's aborigines was collected by these regimes in the form of administrative reports and gazettes as part of a greater colonizing project. At times the foreign powers were accepted readily, as some tribes adopted foreign clothing styles and cultural practices (Harrison 2003), and engaged in cooperative trade in goods such as camphor, deer hides, sugar, tea and rice (Gold 1986:24-28). At numerous other times changes from the outside world were forcibly imposed.

Although each of Taiwan's successive colonizers participated in violent conflict and economic interaction with both the Plains and Mountain tribal groups, the impact on the groups changed over time. The Plains tribes had largely assimilated into contemporary Taiwanese culture by the beginning of the twentieth century, after decades of European and Han colonial rule. The Mountain tribes were not entirely governed by these colonizing forces until the latter half of the Japanese colonial era, though the highland groups played a significant role in shaping colonial policy.

[edit] Plains Aboriginals

The plains Aboriginals mainly lived in stationary village sites surrounded by defensive walls of bamboo. The village sites in southern Taiwan were more populated than other locations. Some villages supported a population of more than 1500 people, surrounded by smaller satellite villages (Kang 2003:111-117). Siraya villages were constructed of dwellings made of thatch and bamboo, raised 2 meters from the ground on stilts, with each household having a barn for livestock. A watchtower was located in the village to look out for headhunting parties from the highland tribes. The concept of property was often communal, with a series of conceptualized concentric rings around each village. The innermost ring was used for gardens and orchards that followed a fallowing cycle around the ring. The second ring was used to cultivate plants and natural fibers for the exclusive use of the tribe. The third ring was for exclusive hunting and deer fields for tribal use. The plains people hunted herds of spotted deer and muntjak as well as conducted light millet farming. Sugar and rice were grown as well, but mostly for use in preparing wine (Shepherd 1993:29-34).

a Plains Tribe Aborigine child and woman

Many of the plains peoples were matrilineal/matrilocal societies. Men married into a woman's family after a courtship period where the woman was free to reject as many men as she wished before marriage. In the age-grade communities, couples entered into marriage in their mid-30s when a man would no longer be required to perform military service or hunt heads on the battle field. In the matriarchal system of the Siraya, it was also necessary for couples to abstain from marriage until their mid-thirties, when the bride's father would be in his declining years and would not pose a challenge to the new male member of the household. It was not until the arrival of the Dutch Reform Church in the 17th Century, that the marriage and child birth taboos were abolished. There is some indication that many of the younger members of Sirayan society embraced the Dutch marriage customs as a means to circumvent the age-grade system in a push for greater village power (Shepherd 1995:61-65). Almost all indigenous peoples in Taiwan have traditionally had a custom of sexual division of labor. Women do the sewing, cooking and farming, while the men hunt and prepare to take heads. Women were also often found in the office of priestess or medium to the gods.

[edit] The European period

Main article: Taiwan under Dutch rule

During the European period (1623-1662) soldiers and traders representing the Dutch East India Company maintained a colony in southwestern Taiwan (1624-1662) near present-day Tainan. This established an Asian base for triangular trade between the company, the Qing Dynasty and Japan. The Spanish also maintained a colony in northern Taiwan (1626-1642) in present-day Keelung. However, Spanish influence wavered almost from the beginning, so that by the late 1630s they had already withdrawn most of their troops (Andrade 2005:296 2n). After they were driven out of Taiwan by a combined Dutch and Aboriginal force in 1642, the Spanish "had little effect on Taiwan's history" (Gold 1986:10–11). Dutch influence was far more significant: expanding to the southwest and north of the island, they set up a tax system and established schools and churches in many villages.

When the Dutch arrived in 1624 at Tayouan (Anping) Harbor, Siraya-speaking representatives from nearby Saccam village soon appeared at the Dutch stockade to barter and trade; an overture which was readily welcomed by the Dutch. The Sirayan villages were, however, divided into warring factions: the village of Sinckan (Sinshih) was at war with Mattau (Madou) and its ally Baccluan, while the village of Soulang maintained uneasy neutrality. In 1629 a Dutch expeditionary force searching for Han pirates was massacred by braves from Mattau, and the victory inspired other villages to rebel (Shepherd 1995:52-53). In 1635, with reinforcements having arrived from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia), the Dutch subjugated and burned Mattau. Since Mattau was the most powerful village in the area, the victory brought a spate of peace offerings from other nearby villages, many of which were outside the Siraya area. This was the beginning of Dutch consolidation over large parts of Taiwan, which was celebrated as "landdag" (Land Day), an annual gathering of village chiefs, which also brought an end to centuries of inter-village warfare (Blusse & Everts 2000:11-20). The new period of peace allowed the Dutch to construct schools and churches aimed to acculturate and convert the indigenous population (Campbell 1903:240; Shepherd 1995:66). Dutch schools taught a romanized script (Sinckan writing) which transcribed the Siraya language. This script maintained occasional use through the 18th century (Shepherd 1995:66-68). Today only fragments survive, in documents and stone stalae markers. The schools also served to maintain alliances and open aboriginal areas for Dutch enterprise and commerce.

The Dutch soon found trade in deerskins and venison to be a more lucrative endeavor (Shepherd 1993:451 19n), and the recruited plains Aborigines to procure the hides. The deer trade attracted the first Han traders to Aboriginal villages, but the demand for deer greatly diminished the deer stocks, and as early as 1642 there was a notable drop in deer herds. This drop had a heavy impact on Aboriginal society, forcing many Aborigines to take up farming to counter the economic impact of losing their most vital food source. Historical accounts note a significant drop in the prosperity of Aboriginal tribes due to the emergence of the deer trade in the East Asian market (Andrade 2005:303).

As the Dutch began subjugating Aboriginal villages in the south and west of Taiwan, increasing numbers of Han immigrants looked to exploit areas that were fertile and rich in game. The Dutch initially encouraged this, since the Han were skilled in agriculture and large-scale hunting. Increased contact let to several Han taking up residence in Siraya bachelor houses. The Dutch used Han agents to collect taxes, hunting license fees and other income. This set up a society in which "... many of the colonists were [Han Chinese] but the military and the administrative structures were Dutch" (Andrade 2005:298). Despite the social and economic cleavage between the ethnic groups, local alliances transcended ethnicity during the Dutch period, as demonstrated by the Kuo Huai-i Rebellion in 1652, when tensions between the Dutch and Han boiled over in a farmers’ revolt. The revolt was defeated by an alliance of 120 Dutch musketeers and 600 Aboriginal braves with the aid of Han loyalists (Shepherd 1993:90).

The Dutch period ended in 1662 when Ming loyalist forces of Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) drove out the Dutch and established the Zheng family kingdom on Taiwan. However, the impact of the Dutch was deeply ingrained in Aboriginal society. In the 19th and 20th century, European explorers wrote of being welcomed as kin by the aborigines who thought they were the Dutch, who had promised to return (Pickering 1898:116-118). The Zhengs brought 70,000 soldiers to Taiwan and immediately began clearing large tracts of land to support its forces. Despite the preoccupation with fighting the Qing, the Zheng family was concerned with aboriginal welfare on Taiwan. The Zhengs built alliances, collected taxes and erected Aboriginal schools, where Taiwan's Aborigines were first introduced to the Confucian Classics and Chinese writing (Shepherd 1993:92-103).

[edit] Qing rule

After the Qing government defeated the Ming loyalist forces maintained by the Cheng family in 1683, parts of Taiwan became increasingly integrated into the Qing Empire (Teng 2004:35-60). Qing forces ruled areas of Taiwan's highly populated western plain for nearly two centuries, until 1895. This era was characterized by a marked increase in the number of Han Chinese on Taiwan, continued social unrest, the piecemeal transfer (by various means) of large amounts of land from the aborigines to the Han, and the nearly complete acculturation of the western plains aborigines to Taiwanese Han customs.

During the Qing Dynasty’s two-century rule over Taiwan, the population of Han on the island increased dramatically. However, it is not clear to what extent this was due to an influx of Han settlers, who were predominantly displaced young men from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian province (Tsao 1999:331) or from a variety of other factors, including: frequent intermarriage between Han and Aborigines, the replacement of aboriginal marriage and abortion taboos, and the wide-spread adoption of the Han agricultural lifestyle due to the depletion of traditional game stocks, which may have led to increased birth rates and population growth. Moreover, the acculturation of aborigines in increased numbers may have intensified the perception of a swell in the number of Han.

The Qing government officially sanctioned controlled Han settlement, but sought to manage tensions between the various regional and ethnic groups. Therefore it often recognized the plains tribes' claims to deer fields and traditional territiory (Knapp 1980:55-68; Shepherd 1993:14-20). The Qing authorities hoped to turn the plains tribes into loyal subjects, and adopted the head and corvee taxes on the aborigines, which made the plains aborigines directly responsible for payment to the yamen. The attention paid by the Qing authorities to aboriginal land rights was part of a larger administrative goal to maintain a level of peace on the turbulent Taiwan frontier, which was often marred by ethnic and regional conflict.^[4] The frequency of rebellions, riots, and civil strife in Qing Dynasty Taiwan is often encapsulated in the saying “every three years an uprising; every five years a rebellion” (Kerr 1965:4). Aboriginal participation in a number of major revolts during the Qing era, including the Taokas-led Ta-Chia-hsi revolt of 1731-1732, ensured the plains tribes would remain an important factor in crafting Qing frontier policy until the end of Qing rule in 1895 (Shepherd 1993:128-129).

The struggle over land resources was one source of conflict. Large areas of the western plain were subject to large land rents called Huan Da Zu (番大租 -- literally, "Barbarian Big Rent"), a category which remained until the period of Japanese colonization. The large tracts of deer field, guaranteed by the Qing, were owned by the tribes and their individual members. The tribes would commonly offer Han farmers a permanent patent for use, while maintaining ownership (skeleton) of the subsoil (田骨), which was called "two lords to a field" (一田兩主). The plains tribes were often cheated out of land or pressured to sell at unfavorable rates. Some disaffected subgroups moved to central or eastern Taiwan, but most remained in their ancestral locations and acculturated or assimilated into Han society (Chen 1997).

Plain aborigines of Kanatsui in Taipei area (1897)

[edit] Migration to Highlands

One popular narrative holds that all of the Gaoshan tribes were originally plains tribes which fled to the mountains under pressure from Han encroachment. This strong version of the "migration" theory has been largely discounted by contemporary research as the Gaoshan people demonstrate a physiology, material cultures and customs that have been adapted for life at higher elevations. Linguistic, archaeological, and anecdotal evidence also suggests there has been island-wide migration of indigenous peoples for over 3000 years. ^[5]

Small sub-groups of Plains aborigines may have occasionally fled to the mountains,foothills or eastern plain to escape hostile groups of Han or other Aborigines (see Tsuchida & Yamada 1991:1-10; Li 2001). The "displacement scenario" is more likely rooted in the older customs of many plains groups to withdraw into the foothills during headhunting season or when threatened by a neighboring village as observed by the Dutch during their punitive campaign of Mattou in 1636 when the bulk of the village retreated to Tevoraan (Blusse & Everts 2000:11-12; Shepherd 1993:1-6; Shepherd 1995:66-72). The "displacement scenario" may also stem from the inland migrations of plains aborigine subgroups who were displaced by either Han or other plains aborigines and chose to move to the Iilan plain in 1804, the Puli basin in 1823 and another Puli migration in 1875. Each migration consisted of a number of families and totaled hundreds of people, not entire tribes (Shepherd 1993:391-395; Pan 2002:36-37). There is also anecdotal evidence that some Plains aborigines escaping to the mountains were sometimes captured and killed by highlands tribes (see the Atayal narrative "Headhunting" in the Formosan Language Archive). However, as Shepherd (1993) explained in detail, documented evidence shows that the majority of plains people remained on the plains, intermarried immigrants from Fujian, and adopted a Han identity, where they remain today.

[edit] Highland tribes

Bunun mother and child in sling in Lona Village, Taiwan.

Chinese Imperial and European societies had little contact with Taiwan's highland aborigines until European and American explorers and missionaries began seeking out the mountain tribes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The lack of data primarily the result of the Qing quarantine on the area east of the border that ran along the eastern edge of the western plain. Han contact with the mountain tribes was usually in the vocation of camphor extraction, a chemical derived from camphor trees used in herbal medicine and mothballs. Headhunting parties would often seek out unprotected Han forest workers, which, combined with traditional Han concepts of Taiwan, helped fuel the popular Qing era image of the "violent" aborigine. Plains aborigines were often employed as interpreters to help trade goods between Han merchants and highlands aborigines. The aborigines traded cloth, pelts and meat for iron and matchlock rifles. Iron was a necessary material for the fabrication of hunting knives, long, curved sabers generally used as a forest tool, and notorious for decapitating enemies.

[edit] Headhunting

See also: Wu Feng Legend

The highland tribes were renowned for their skill in headhunting, which was a symbol of bravery and valor. Almost every tribe except the Yami (Tao) practiced headhunting. Often the heads were invited to join the tribe as members to watch over the tribe and keep them safe. The inhabitants of Taiwan accepted the rules of headhunting as a calculated risk of tribal life. The heads were boiled and left to dry, often hanging from trees or head shelves. A party returning with a head was cause for celebration and rejoicing as it would bring good luck. The Bunun people would often take prisoners and inscribe prayers or messages to their dead on arrows, then shoot their prisoner with the hope their prayers would be carried to the dead. Han settlers were often the victims of headhunting raids as they were considered by the aborigines to be liars and enemies. A headhunting raid would often strike in the field or by catching a house on fire and decapitating the inhabitants as they fled the house. It was also customary to raise the victim's children as full members of the tribe. The last groups to practice headhunting were the Paiwan, Bunun, and Atayal groups (Montgomery-McGovern 1922). Japanese rule ended the practice by 1930, but some elder Taiwanese can recall the practice (see the Atayal narrative "Headhunting" in the Formosan Language Archive).

An Atayal tribal woman with tattoo on her face as a symbol of maturity, which was a tradition for both males and females. The custom was prohibited during the Japanese rule.

[edit] Japanese Rule

Main article: Taiwan under Japanese rule.

When the Treaty of Shimonoseki was finalized on April 17, 1895, Taiwan was ceded by the Qing Empire to Japan, which sought to transform Taiwan into the supplying end of an extremely unequal flow of assets (Gold 1986:36). Taiwan’s incorporation into the Japanese political orbit brought Taiwanese aborigines into contact with a new colonial structure, determined to define and locate indigenous people within the framework of a new, multi-ethnic empire (Kleeman 2003:19). The means of accomplishing this goal took three main forms: anthropological study of the natives of Taiwan, attempts to reshape the aborigines in the mould of the Japanese, and military suppression.

Japan’s sentiment regarding indigenous peoples was crafted around the memory of the Mudan Incident, when, in 1871, a group of shipwrecked Okinawan fishermen were massacred by a Paiwan group from the village of Mudan in southern Taiwan. The resulting Japanese policy, published twenty years before the onset of their rule on Taiwan, cast Taiwanese aborigines as, "vicious, violent and cruel" and concluded, "this is a pitfall of the world; we must get rid of them all" (Kleeman 2003:20-21). Japanese campaigns to gain aboriginal submission were often brutal, as evidenced in the desire of Japan’s first Governor General, Kabayama Sukenori, to "...conquer the barbarians" (Kleeman 2003:20). In the Wushe Incident, for example, a Seediq group was decimated by artillery and supplanted by the Taroko (Truku) tribe, which had sustained periods of bombardment from naval ships and airplanes dropping mustard gas. A quarantine was placed around the mountain areas enforced by armed guard stations and electrified fence until the distant villages could be relocated closer to administrative control (Takekoshi 1907:210-219).

Beginning in the first year of Japanese rule, the colonial government embarked on a mission to study the aborigines so they could be classified, located and "civilized". The civilizing project, partially fueled by public demand in Japan to know more about the empire, would be used to benefit the Imperial government by consolidating administrative control over the entire island, opening up vast tracts of land for exploitation (Suenari 2006:1-8). To satisfy these needs, "the Japanese portrayed and cataloged Taiwan's indigenous peoples in a welter of statistical tables, magazine and newspaper articles, photograph albums for popular consumption" (Matsuda 2003:181). The Japanese based much of their information and terminology on prior Qing era narratives concerning degrees of "civilization" (Ka 1995:27-30).

Japanese ethnographer Ino Kanari was charged with the task of surveying the entire population of Taiwanese Aborigines, applying the first systematic study of Aborigines on Taiwan. Ino's research is best known for his formalization of eight tribes of Taiwanese aborigines: Atayal, Bunun, Saisiat, Tsou, Paiwan, Puyuma, Ami and Pepo (Plains tribes) (Suenari 2006:6-8; Blundell 2000:15-16). This is the direct antecedent of the taxonomy used today to distinguish tribes that are officially recognized by the government.

Tribal life under the Japanese changed rapidly as many of the traditional structures were replaced by a military power. Aborigines who wished to improve their status looked to education rather than headhunting as the new form of power. Those who learned to work with the Japanese and follow their customs would be better suited to lead villages. The Japanese encouraged Aborigines to maintain traditional costumes and selected customs that were not considered detrimental to society, but invested much time and money in efforts to eliminate traditions deemed unsavory by Japanese culture, including tattooing (Simon 2006). By the mid-1930’s as Japan’s empire was reaching its zenith, the colonial government began a political socialization program designed to enforce a Japanese customs, rituals and a loyal Japanese identity upon the aborigines. By the end of World War II, aborigines whose fathers had been killed in pacification campaigns were volunteering to die for the Emperor of Japan (Ching 2001:153-173). The Japanese colonial experience left an indelible mark many older aborigines who maintained an admiration for the Japanese long after their departure in 1945 (Mendel 1970:54-55).

[edit] Aborigines Under the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalists)

Main article: History of the Republic of China on Taiwan

Japanese rule of Taiwan ended in 1945, following the armistice with the allies on September 2 and the subsequent appropriation of the island by Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang, or KMT) on October 25. In 1949, on losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communist Party of China, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek led the Kuomintang in a retreat from Mainland China, withdrawing its government and 1.3 million refugees to Taiwan. The KMT installed an authoritarian form of government, and shortly thereafter inaugurated a number of political socialization programs aimed at nationalizing Taiwanese people as citizens of a Chinese nation and eradicating Japanese influence (Wilson 1970). The KMT pursued highly centralized political and cultural policies rooted in the party's decades-long history of fighting warlordism in China . The project was designed to create a strong national Chinese cultural identity (as defined by the state) at the expense of local cultures (Phillips & 2003 pp.47-48;140-141).

Taiwanese Aborigines first encountered the Nationalist government in 1946, when the Japanese village schools were replaced by schools of the KMT. Documents from the Education Office show an emphasis on Chinese language, history and citizenship — with a curriculum steeped in pro-KMT ideology. Some elements of the curriculum, such as the Wu Feng Legend, are currently considered offensive to aborigines (Gao 2001). Much of the burden of educating the aborigines was undertaken by unqualified teachers who could at best speak Mandarin and teach basic ideology (Harrison 2001:68-70). In 1951 a major political socialization campaign was launched to change the lifestyle of many aborigines, to adopt Han Chinese customs. A 1953 government report on mountain areas stated that its aims were chiefly to promote Mandarin in order to strengthen a national outlook and create good customs. This was included in the Shandi Pingdi Hua (山地平地化) policy to "make the mountains like the plains" (Harrison 2003:351). Critics of the KMT's program for a centralized national culture regard it as institutionalized ethnic discrimination, and point to the loss of several indigenous languages and a perpetuation of shame for being an aborigine ^[6] as the direct result of what has been referred to as Han chauvinism.

The pattern of intermarriage continued, as many KMT soldiers married aboriginal women who were from poorer areas and could be easily bought as wives (Harrison 2003:351). Modern studies show a high degree of genetic intermixing. Despite this, many contemporary Taiwanese are unwilling to entertain the idea of having an aboriginal heritage. In a 1994 study, it was found that 71% of the families surveyed would object to their daughter marrying an aboriginal man. For much of the KMT era, the official government policy on aboriginal identity had been a 1:1 ratio, leaving any intermarriage resulting in a Chinese child. Later the policy was adjusted to the ethnic status of the father determining the status of the child (Shih 1999).

Authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang ended gradually through a transition to democracy, which was marked by the lifting of martial law in 1987. Soon after, the KMT transitioned to being merely one party within a democratic system, though maintaining a high degree of power in aboriginal districts through an established system of patronage networks (Stainton 2006:400-410). Although the KMT continued to hold the reins of power for another decade under President Lee Teng-hui, they did so as an elected government rather than a ruling power that had supported many of the bills that had been promoted by aboriginal groups.

[edit] Plains Aborigines in the Political Opposition

During the period of political liberalization which preceded the end of martial law, academic interest in the plains aborigines surged as amateur and professional historians sought to rediscover Taiwan's past. The opposition tang wai activists seized upon the new image of the plains aborigines as a means to directly challenge the KMT's official narrative of Taiwan as a historical part of China, and the government's assertion that Taiwanese were "pure" Han Chinese (Hsiau 2000:170; Brown 2004:23-29). Many tang wai activists framed the plains aboriginal experience in the existing anti-colonialism/victimization Taiwanese nationalist narrative, which positioned the Hoklo speaking Taiwanese in the role of indigenous people and the victims of successive foreign rulers (Hsiau 2000:171-173; Edmondson 2002:32-42). By the late 1980's many Hoklo and Hakka speaking people began identifying themselves as plains aborigines, though any initial shift in ethnic consciousness from Hakka or Hoklo people was minor. Despite the politicized dramatization of the plains aborigines, their "rediscovery" as a matter of public discourse has had a lasting effect on the increased socio-political reconceptualization of Taiwan — emerging from the Chinese nationalist perspective into a wider acceptance of Taiwan as a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community (Hsiau 2000:171).

[edit] Contemporary Aborigines

Bunun dancer just before her performance in Lona, Taiwan.

The democratic era is a time of great change, both constructive and destructive, for the aborigines of Taiwan. Since the 1980s, increased political and public attention has been paid to the rights and social issues of the indigenous tribes of Taiwan. Aborigines have realized gains in both the political and economic spheres. Though progress is ongoing, there remains a number of still unrealized goals within the framework of the ROC: "although certainly more 'equal' than they were 20, or even 10, years ago, the indigenous inhabitants in Taiwan still remain on the lowest rungs of the legal and socioeconomic ladders" (Ericsson 2004). On the other hand, bright spots are not hard to find. A resurgence in ethnic pride has accompanied a cultural renaissance, exemplified by the increased popularity of aboriginal music and greater public interest in aboriginal culture (Gluck 2005).

[edit] Aboriginal Political Movement

The movement for indigenous cultural and political resurgence in Taiwan traces its roots to the ideals outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), in which the United Nations member states agreed to the principles of decolonization (Liu 2006). Although the Republic of China on Taiwan was a UN member and signatory to the original UN Charter, four decades of martial law capped political dissent in Taiwan. The political liberalization Taiwan experienced leading up to the official end of martial law on July 15, 1987, opened a new public arena for dissenting voices and political movements against the centralized policy of the KMT regime, which had controlled the discourse of culture and politics on Taiwan.

In December, 1984, the Taiwan Aboriginal People’s Movement was launched when a group of Aboriginal political activists, aided by the progressive Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), (Stainton 2002) established the Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines (ATA, or yuan chuan hui), which was later joined by the Association for Indigenous Rights to highlight the problems experienced by indigenous communities all over Taiwan, including: prostitution, economic disparity, land rights and official discrimination in the form of naming rights (Faure 2001:98-100). (Stainton 1999; Hsieh 2006).

In 1988, amid the ATA’s Return Our Land Movement, in which Aborigines demanded the agents of colonization return stolen lands to the original inhabitants, the ATA sent its first representative to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (Hsieh 2006:47-49). The ATA representative used the opportunity to lash out at both the ROC’s government the PRC’s representative. In the former case, the ATA took issue with the ROC's opposition to allowing Aborigines refer to themselves as yuan chu min (原住民). In the latter, the issue was the PRC's insistence that the Taiwanese delegation append Province of China to its title. Following the success in addressing the UN, the "Return Our Land" movement evolved into the Aboriginal Constitution Movement, in which the Aboriginal representatives demanded appropriate wording in the ROC Constitution to ensure indigenous Taiwanese, “dignity and justice” in the form of enhanced legal protection, government assistance to improve living standards in indigenous communities, and the right to identify themselves as “yuan chu min” (Stainton 1999:39). The KMT government initially opposed the term, due to its implication that other people on Taiwan, including the KMT sojourn government, were newcomers and not entitled to the island. The KMT preferred hsien chu min 先住民 First People, or tsao chu min 早住民, Early People to evoke a sense of general historical immigration to Taiwan (Stainton 1999:38-39).

To some degree the movement has been successful. Beginning in 1998, the official curriculum in Taiwan schools has been changed to contain more frequent and favorable mention of aborigines. The central government has taken steps to allow romanized spellings of aboriginal names on official documents, offsetting the long held policy of forcing a Chinese name on an aborigine. A relaxed policy on identification now allows a child to choose their official designation if they are born to mixed aboriginal/Han parents.

The present political leaders in the Aboriginal community, born after 1949, have been effective in leveraging their ethnic identity and socio-linguistic acculturation into contemporary Taiwanese society against the political backdrop of a changing Taiwan. This has allowed indigenous people a means to take over their own political destiny and push for greater political space, including the still unrealized prospect of aboriginal Autonomous Areas within Taiwan (Liu 2006:427-429; Ericsson 2004).

[edit] Economic Issues

The indigenous community did not share equally in the benefits of the economic boom Taiwan experienced during the last quarter of the 20th century. They often lacked satisfactory educational resources on their reservations, undermining their pursuit of marketable skills. Students transplanted into urban schools face many barriers, including isolation, culture shock, and discrimination from their peers (Chou 2005:8-13):

The economic boom resulted in drawing large numbers of aborigines out of their villages and into the unskilled or low-skilled sector of the urban workforce (DGBAS 2000; CIP 2004). Construction jobs were generally available. The aborigines quickly formed bonds with other tribes as they all had similar political motives to protect their collective needs as part of the labor force. The aborigines became the most skilled iron workers and construction teams on the island often selected to work on the most difficult projects. The result was a mass exodus of tribal members from their traditional lands and the cultural alienation of young people in the villages, who could not learn their languages or customs while employed. Often, young aborigines in the cities fell into gangs aligned with the construction trade. Recent laws governing the employment of laborers from Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines have also eroded aboriginal opportunities in the labor force:

[edit] Parks, Tourism and Commercialization

There is currently a movement by the Aborigines to return to their traditional sites and find ways to remain on their lands, continue their culture and speak their languages while earning a living. Eco-tourism, sewing and selling tribal carvings, jewelry and music has become a new area of economic opportunity. Many groups of Aborigines have turned to tourism, as symbolized by an ad campaign organized by the R.O.C. Government Information Office, featuring the warm greeting Naruw'an! The most visible example of a tourism-based commercial development is Taiwan Aboriginal Culture Park. The creation of national parks has been a mixed blessing, however. Although it has created new jobs, the Aborigines are seldom given management positions. Moreover, some national parks have been built on Aboriginal lands against the wishes of the local tribes, prompting one Taroko activist to label the Taroko National Park as a form of "environmental colonialism" (Simon 2006). At times in the past, the creation of national parks has resulted in forced resettlement of the Aborigines (Lin 2006).

Due to the close proximity of Aboriginal land to the mountains, many tribes have hoped to cash in on hot spring ventures and hotels, where they offer singing and dancing to add to the ambiance. The Wulai Atayal in particular have been active in promoting their region's hot springs. The government has also spent considerable funds on museums and culture centers focusing on plains tribes and Taiwan's Aboriginal heritage. Critics often call the ventures exploitative and "superficial portrayals" of Aboriginal culture, which distract attention from the real problems of substandard education:

However, proponents suggest that such projects can positively impact the public image and economic prospects of the indigenous community.

Young residents in the Bunun village of Lona, Taiwan dress up for the traditional Christmas holiday (even though Christmas is not a holiday in Taiwan). Christian missionaries have converted many residents to the Catholic and Protestant faiths and the town holds two large holiday parades.

[edit] Music

A full-time Aboriginal radio station, "Ho-hi-yan," was launched in 2005 (Ho Hi Yan 2005) with the help of the Executive Yuan, to focus on issues of interest to the indigenous community. [Listen to Ho-hi-yan; requires Windows Media Player 9]. This came on the heels of a "New wave of Indigenous Pop," (Liu 2000) as Aboriginal artists such as A-mei (Puyuma tribe), Difang (Amis tribe), Pur-dur and Samingad (Puyuma tribe) became international pop stars. Music has given Aborigines both a sense or pride and a sense of cultural ownership. The issue of ownership was exemplified when the musical project Enigma used an Ami chant in their song "Return to Innocence." This song was the theme song of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The main chorus was sung by Difang and his wife, Igay.The Amis couple successfully sued Enigma's record label, which had paid royalties to the museum that held the original recordings of traditional songs, but the original artists, who had been unaware of the Enigma project, remained uncompensated. The Enigma suit raised serious issues regarding indigenous people's participation and compensation in the commoditizing of their cultures and traditions (Anderson 2000:283-290).

[edit] Ecological issues

The indigenous tribes of Taiwan have also come to symbolize ecological awareness on the island as many of the environmental issues are spearheaded by aborigines. Political activism and sizable public protests regarding the logging of the Chilan Formosan Cypress, as well as efforts by an Atayal member of the Legislative Yuan, "...focused debate on natural resource management and specifically on the involvement of Aboriginal people therein" (Chen & Hay 2004:1124). Another high-profile case is the nuclear waste storage facility on Orchid Island, a small tropical island 60 km (30 nautical miles) off the southeast coast of Taiwan. The inhabitants are the 4000 members of the Tao (or Yami) tribe. In the 1970s the island was designated as a possible site to store low and medium grade nuclear waste. The island was selected on the grounds that it would be cheaper to build the necessary infrastructure for storage and that the population would not cause trouble (Cohen 1988:355-357). Large-scale construction began in 1978 on a site 100 meters from the Immorod fishing fields. The Tao tribe alleges that government sources at the time described the site as a 'factory' or a 'fish cannery', intended to bring "jobs [to the] home of the Tao/Yami.. one of the least developed areas in Taiwan" (Ericsson 2004). When the facility was completed in 1982, however, it was in fact a storage facility for "97,000 barrels of low-radiation nuclear waste from Taiwan's three nuclear power plants." (Premier apologizes 2002). The Tao have since stood at the forefront of the anti-nuclear movement and launched several exorcisms and protests to remove the waste they claim has resulted in deaths and sickness (Tao demand 2003). The lease on the land has expired, and an alternative site has yet to be selected.

[edit] List of Notable people of Aboriginal descent

• A-mei - pop singer (Puyuma)
• Chin-hui Tsao - baseball player (Amis)
• Landy Wen - pop singer (Atayal)

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• List of ethnic groups in Taiwan
• Taiwanese (linguistics) (non-aboriginal)
• History of Taiwan
• Batan Islands
• A New Partnership Between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Taiwan

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Taiwanese aborigine

• Taiwan Aboriginal Culture Park, Bureau of Cultural Parks, Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan.
  • Desktop images. Free download.
• Council of Indigenous Peoples (Taiwan)
  • Laws and regulations
  • Statistics of Indigenous Population in Taiwan and Fukien Areas
  • Introduction to the 10 tribes of Taiwanese indigenous peoples
• Taiwan Aboriginal Handicraft Art
• Academia Sinica: Formosan Language Archive
• an overview of the tribes
• Taiwan Aborigines Studies
• Taiwan First Nations
• Reed Institute's Formosa Digital Library
• Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines
• National Museum of Prehistory
• BBC News: Taiwan's aborigines find new voice (2005-07-04)
• Taiwan Indigenous Television