Taiwanese aborigines
Encyclopedia
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples
of Taiwan
. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han Chinese
immigration
began in the 17th century . Taiwanese aborigines are Austronesian people
s, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines
, Malaysia, Indonesia
, Madagascar
, Polynesia
, and Oceania
. The issue of an ethnic identity
unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political status of Taiwan
.
For centuries, Taiwan's aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift
and cultural assimilation
, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in 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
, five are moribund and several are to some degree endangered
. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists
consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian
language family .
Taiwan's Austronesian speakers were formerly distributed over much of the island's rugged central mountain range and were concentrated in villages along the alluvial plain
s. As of 2009, their total population is around 499,500 (approximately 2 percent of Taiwan's population). The bulk of contemporary Taiwanese aborigines live in the mountains and cities.
The indigenous peoples of Taiwan face economic and social barriers, including a high unemployment rate and substandard education. Many aboriginal groups have been actively seeking a higher degree of political self-determination
and economic development
since the early 1980s . A revival of ethnic pride is expressed in many ways by aborigines, including incorporating elements of their culture into commercially successful pop music
. Efforts are under way in indigenous communities to revive traditional cultural practices and preserve their traditional languages. Several aboriginal tribes are becoming extensively involved in the tourism and ecotourism
industries to achieve increased economic self-reliance from the state . The Austronesian Cultural Festival in Taitung City
is another means to promote aboriginal culture.
, and Nationalist "civilizing" projects, with a variety of aims. Each "civilizing" project defined the aborigines based on the "civilizer"'s cultural understandings of difference and similarity, behavior, location, appearance and prior contact with other groups of people . Taxonomies imposed by colonizing forces divided the aborigines into named subgroups, referred to as "tribes". These divisions did not always correspond to distinctions drawn by the aborigines themselves. However, the categories have become so firmly established in government and popular discourse over time that they have become de facto
distinctions, serving to shape in part today's political discourse within the Republic of China
(ROC), and affecting Taiwan's policies regarding indigenous peoples.
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 .
Beginning nearly a century later, as the rule of the Qing Empire
expanded over wider groups of people, writers and gazetteers recast their descriptions away from reflecting degree of acculturation
, and toward a system that defined the aborigines relative to their submission or hostility to Qing rule. Qing literati used the term "raw/wild" ("生番") to define those people who had not submitted to Qing rule, and "cooked/tame" ("熟番") for those who had pledged their allegiance through their payment of a head tax. According to the standards of the Qianlong Emperor
and successive regimes, "cooked" was synonymous with having assimilated to Han cultural norms, and living as a subject of the Empire, but retained a pejorative designation to signify the perceived cultural lacking of the non-Han people , . This designation reflected the prevailing idea that anyone could be civilized/tamed by adopting Confucian social norms .
As the Qing consolidated their power over the plains and struggled to enter the mountains in the late 19th century, the terms "Plains tribes" (lowland) Pepo or Pingpu zu 平埔族 and "High Mountain tribes" (highland) Gao shan zu 高山族 were used interchangeably with the terms "Raw" and "Cooked" . During the 50 years of Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945), anthropologists from Japan maintained the binary classification. In 1900 they incorporated it into their own colonial project by employing the term Peipo (Plains aborigine) for the "cooked tribes", and creating a category of "recognized tribes" for the aborigines who had formerly been called "raw". Soon after Mona Rudao
led the uprising known as the Wushe Incident
(depicted in the film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale), the Japanese government began referring to them as takasago-zoku (高砂族) . The latter group included the Atayal, Bunun
, Tsou
, Saisiat, Paiwan, Puyuma, and Ami peoples. The Yami
(Tao) and Thao were added later, for a total of nine recognized tribes . During the early period of Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang
(KMT) rule the terms Shandi Tongbao 山地同胞 "mountain compatriots" and Pingdi Tongbao 平地同胞 "plains compatriots" were invented, to remove the presumed taint of Japanese influence and reflect the place of Taiwan's indigenous people in the Chinese Nationalist state . The KMT later adopted the use of all the earlier Japanese groupings except "Peipo".
Despite recent changes in the field of anthropology and a shift in Taiwanese government objectives, the Gaoshan and Pingpu labels in use today maintain the form given by the Qing to reflect aborigines' acculturation to Han culture. The current recognized aborigines are all regarded as Gaoshan, though the divisions are not and have never been based strictly on geographical location. The Amis, Saisiat, Tao and Kavalan are all traditionally Eastern Plains cultures . The distinction between Plains and Gaoshan people continues to affect Taiwan's policies regarding indigenous peoples, and their ability to participate effectively in government (Saisiyat people 2006).
Although the ROC's Government Information Office officially lists 13 major groupings as "tribes" the consensus among scholars maintains that these 13 groupings do not reflect any social entities, political collectives, or self-identified alliances dating from pre-modern Taiwan . The earliest detailed records, dating from the Dutch arrival in 1624, describe the aborigines as living in independent villages of varying size. Between these villages there was frequent trade, intermarriage, warfare and alliances against common enemies. Using contemporary ethnographic and linguistic criteria, these villages have been classed by anthropologists into more than 20 broad (and widely debated) ethnic groupings , which were never united under a common polity, kingdom or "tribe" .
(CIP) . To gain this recognition, tribes must gather a number of signatures and a body of supporting evidence with which to successfully petition the CIP. 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. As of May 2008, 14 tribes have been recognized.
The Council of Indigenous Peoples consider several limited factors in a successful formal petition. The determining factors include collecting member genealogies, group histories and evidence of a continued linguistic and cultural identity . The lack of documentation and the extinction of many indigenous languages as the result of colonial cultural and language policies have made the prospect of official recognition of many tribes a remote possibility. Current trends in ethno-tourism have led many former Plains aborigines to continue to seek cultural revival .
Among the Plains aboriginal groups that have petitioned for tribal status, only the Kavalan
and Sakizaya
have been officially recognized. The remaining twelve 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 ) 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 before 1945 by the Japanese government . The Thao, Kavalan and Truku were recognized by Taiwan's government in 2001, 2002 and 2004 respectively. The Sakizaya were recognized as a 13th tribe on January 17, 2007 , and on April 23, 2008 the Sediq were recognized as Taiwan's 14th official tribe . Previously the Sakizaya had been listed as Amis and the Sediq as Atayal. 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
, Sakizaya
, and Sediq.
Unrecognized: Babuza, Basay, Hoanya, Ketagalan, Luilang, Makatao, Pazeh
/Kaxabu
, Papora, Qauqaut, Siraya, Taokas
, Trobiawan.
The Taiwanese aborigines in the People's Republic of China
(PRC) are collectively known as the "Gaoshan" and are one of the 56 ethnicities officially recognized by the PRC. They are descendants of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan who were in China during the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 . According to the 2000 Census, 4,461 people were identified as Gaoshan living in mainland China.
Some surveys indicate that of the 4,461 "Gaoshan" recorded in the 2000 PRC Census, it is estimated that there are 1,500 Amis, 1,300 Bunun, 510 Paiwan, and the remainder belonging to other tribes .D
Particularly among the Pingpu, as the degree of the "civilizing projects" increased during each successive regime, the aborigines found themselves in greater contact with outside cultures. The process of acculturation
and assimilation
sometimes followed gradually in the wake of broad social currents, particularly the removal of ethnic markers (such as bound feet, dietary customs and clothing), which had formerly distinguished ethnic groups on Taiwan . The removal or replacement of these brought about an incremental transformation from "Fan" (barbarian) to the dominant Confucian "Han" culture . During the Japanese and KMT periods centralized modernist government policies, rooted in ideas of Social Darwinism
and culturalism, directed education, genealogical customs and other traditions toward ethnic assimilation , . Ethnic shift among the Gaoshan, who had less contact with outsiders due to the inaccessibility of their lands, was more the result of centralized assimilative pressures than gradual social change. Nonetheless, the cultures and languages of most of the recognized tribes remain resilient today. Multicultural policies have contributed to ethnic pride in those communities.
Many of these forms of assimilation are still at work today. For example, when a central authority nationalize
s one language, that attaches economic and social advantages to the prestige language. As generations pass, use of the indigenous language often fades or disappears, and linguistic and cultural identity recede as well. However, some groups are seeking to revive their indigenous identities . 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 change. The oldest 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 . A relatively newer view asserts that through widespread intermarriage between Han and aborigines between the 17th and 19th centuries, the aborigines were completely sinicized . 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 .
(Huang Di) and the Five Emperors of Han mythology . Possession of a Han surname, then, could confer a broad range of significant economic and social benefits upon aborigines, despite a prior non-Han identity or mixed parentage. In some cases, members of Plains tribes adopted the Han surname Pan
(潘) as a modification of their designated status as Fan (番: "barbarian"). One family of Pazih became members of the local gentry 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 . Many Plains aborigines joined the brotherhoods to gain protection of the collective as a type of insurance policy against regional strife, 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
. In addition, legal barriers to the use of traditional surnames persisted until recently, and cultural barriers remain. Aborigines were not permitted to use their traditional names on official identification cards until 1995 when a ban on using aboriginal names dating from 1946 was finally lifted. One obstacle is that household registration forms allow a maximum of 15 characters for personal names. However, aboriginal names are still phonetically translated into Chinese characters, and many names require more than the allotted space .
Taiwanese aborigines are Austronesian people
s, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines
, Malaysia, Indonesia
, Madagascar
and Oceania
. Chipped-pebble tools dating from perhaps as early as 15,000 years ago suggest that the initial human inhabitants of Taiwan were Paleolithic
cultures of the Pleistocene
era. These people survived by eating marine life. Archaeological evidence points to an abrupt change to the Neolithic
era around 6,000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture, domestic animals, polished stone adzes and pottery. The stone adze
s were mass-produced on Penghu and nearby islands, from the volcanic rock found there. This suggests heavy sea traffic took place between these islands and Taiwan at this time .
Recorded history of the aborigines on Taiwan began around the 17th century, and has often been dominated by the views and policies of foreign powers and non-aborigines. 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 Taiwanese
(the Chinese Nationalist government, or Kuomintang
) rulers. Each of these successive "civilizing" cultural centers participated in violent conflict and peaceful economic interaction with both the Plains and Mountain tribal groups. To varying degrees, they influenced or transformed the culture and language of the indigenous peoples.
Four centuries of non-indigenous rule can be viewed through several changing periods of governing power and shifting official policy toward aborigines. From the 17th century until the early 20th, the impact of the foreign settlers—the Dutch, Spanish and Han—was more extensive on the Plains tribes. The latter were far more geographically accessible, and thus had more dealings with the foreign powers. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Plains tribes had largely been assimilated into contemporary Taiwanese culture as a result of European and Han colonial rule. Until the latter half of the Japanese colonial era the Mountain tribes were not entirely governed by any non-tribal polity. However, the mid-1930s marked a shift in the intercultural dynamic, as the Japanese began to play a far more dominant role in the culture of the Highland groups. This increased degree of control over the Mountain tribes continued during Kuomintang rule. Within these two broad eras, there were many differences in the individual and regional impact of the colonizers and their "civilizing projects". At times the foreign powers were accepted readily, as some tribes adopted foreign clothing styles and cultural practices , and engaged in cooperative trade in goods such as camphor
, deer hides, sugar, tea and rice . At numerous other times changes from the outside world were forcibly imposed.
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 greater "civilizing" projects. The collection of information aided in the consolidation of administrative control.
. The village sites in southern Taiwan were more populated than other locations. Some villages supported a population of more than 1,500 people, surrounded by smaller satellite villages . Siraya villages were constructed of dwellings made of thatch and bamboo, raised 2 m 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 Formosan Sika Deer
, Formosan Sambar Deer
, and Reeves's muntjac
as well as conducting light millet
farming. Sugar and rice were grown as well, but mostly for use in preparing wine .
Many of the Plains peoples were matrilineal/matrifocal societies. Men married into a woman's family after a courtship period during which 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 Reformed 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 . Almost all indigenous peoples in Taiwan have traditionally had a custom of sexual division of labor. Women did the sewing, cooking and farming, while the men hunted and prepared for military activity and securing enemy heads in headhunting raids, which was a common practice in early Taiwan. Women were also often found in the office of priestess or medium to the gods.
For centuries, Taiwan's aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift
and cultural assimilation
, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in 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
, five are moribund and several are to some degree endangered
. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists
consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian
language family .
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 City. This established an Asia
n base for triangular trade between the company, the Qing Dynasty
and Japan
, with the hope of interrupting Portuguese and Spanish trading alliances. 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 . 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" . 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 warriors from Mattau, and the victory inspired other villages to rebel . 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 brought an end to centuries of inter-village warfare . The new period of peace allowed the Dutch to construct schools and churches aimed to acculturate and convert the indigenous population . Dutch schools taught a romanized script (Sinckan writing), which transcribed
the Siraya language. This script maintained occasional use through the 18th century . Today only fragments survive, in documents and stone stele 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 in the East Asian market to be a lucrative endeavor , and recruited Plains aborigines to procure the hides. The deer trade attracted the first Han traders to aboriginal villages, but as early as 1642 the demand for deer greatly diminished the deer stocks. This drop significantly reduced the prosperity of aboriginal tribes , forcing many aborigines to take up farming to counter the economic impact of losing their most vital food source.
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. Several Han took up residence in Siraya villages. 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" . Despite this, local alliances transcended ethnicity during the Dutch period. For example, the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion
in 1652, a Han farmers' uprising, was defeated by an alliance of 120 Dutch musketeers with the aid of Han loyalists and 600 aboriginal warriors .
The Dutch period ended in 1662 when Ming
loyalist forces of Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga
) drove out the Dutch and established the short-lived Zheng family kingdom
on Taiwan. 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 . However, the impact of the Dutch was deeply ingrained in aboriginal society. In the 19th and 20th centuries, European explorers wrote of being welcomed as kin by the aborigines who thought they were the Dutch, who had promised to return .
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
or from a variety of other factors, including: frequent intermarriage between Han and aborigines, the replacement of aboriginal marriage and abortion taboos, and the widespread 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.
Reports from American envoys and others suggest that Taiwanese aboriginals under Qing rule were treated extremely harshly. Presbyterian missionary George Leslie Mackay
in From far Formosa (1896) reported that "if a savage is killed inland, the heart is eaten, flesh taken off in strips, and bones boiled to a jelly and preserved as a specific for malarial fever" . American consul James W. Davidson
described in The Island of Formosa (1903) how the Han Chinese in Taiwan ate and traded in their aboriginal victims' flesh , a practice also mentioned by Owen Rutter
in Through Formosa (1923), whose account bears some similarities to Davidson's . Sangren, in History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community (1987) mentions Davidson's account, adding that elderly Ta-ch'i informants had corroborated his claims .
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 territory . The Qing authorities hoped to turn the Plains tribes into loyal subjects, and adopted the head and corvée
taxes on the aborigines, which made the Plains aborigines directly responsible for payment to the government 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. 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" . 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 .
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 .
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 ; ).
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 .
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 . There are also recorded oral histories that recall some Plains aborigines were sometimes captured and killed by Highlands tribes while relocating through the mountains (Yeh 2003). However, as explained in detail, documented evidence shows that the majority of Plains people remained on the plains, intermarried Hakka
and Hoklo
immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong
, and adopted a Han identity, where they remain today.
Imperial Chinese and European societies had little contact with the Highland aborigines until expeditions to the region by European and American explorers and missionaries commenced in the 19th and early 20th centuries . The lack of data before this was primarily the result of a Qing quarantine on the region to the east of the "earth oxen" (土牛) border, which ran along the eastern edge of the western plain. Han contact with the mountain tribes was usually associated with the enterprise of gathering and extracting camphor
from Camphor Laurel trees (Cinnamomum camphora), native to the island and in particular the mountainous areas. The production and shipment of camphor (used in herbal medicines and mothballs) was then a significant industry on the island, lasting up to and including the period of Japanese rule . These early encounters often involved headhunting parties from the Highland tribes, who sought out and raided unprotected Han forest workers. Together with traditional Han concepts of Taiwanese behavior, these raiding incidents helped to promote the Qing-era popular image of the "violent" aborigine .
Plains aborigines were often employed and dispatched as interpreters to assist in the trade of 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 that were generally used as a forest tool. These blades became notorious among Han settlers, given their alternative use to decapitate Highland tribal enemies in customary headhunting expeditions.
, which was a symbol of bravery and valor . Almost every tribe except the Yami (Tao) practiced headhunting. Once the victims had been dispatched the heads were taken then boiled and left to dry, often hanging from trees or shelves constructed for the purpose. A party returning with a head was cause for celebration, 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 at workers in the fields, or employ the ruse of setting a dwelling alight and then decapitating the inhabitants as they fled the burning structure. It was also customary to later raise the victim's surviving children as full members of the tribe. Often the heads themselves were ceremonially ‘invited' to join the tribe as members, where they were supposed to watch over the tribe and keep them safe. The indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan accepted the convention and practice of headhunting as one of the calculated risks of tribal life. The last groups to practice headhunting were the Paiwan, Bunun, and Atayal groups . Japanese rule ended the practice by 1930, but some elder Taiwanese can recall the practice (Yeh 2003).
was finalized on April 17, 1895, Taiwan was ceded by the Qing Empire to Japan, which sought to transform Taiwan into the supply-end of an extremely unequal flow of assets . 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 . 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 was 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" . 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" . In the Wushe Incident
of 1930, 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 most remote high mountain villages could be relocated closer to administrative control .
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 Japanese "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 . To satisfy these needs, "the Japanese portrayed and catalogued Taiwan's indigenous peoples in a welter of statistical tables, magazine and newspaper articles, photograph albums for popular consumption" . The Japanese based much of their information and terminology on prior Qing era narratives concerning degrees of "civilization" .
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) . 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 . By the mid-1930s as Japan's empire was reaching its zenith, the colonial government began a political socialization program designed to enforce 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 . The Japanese colonial experience left an indelible mark on many older aborigines who maintained an admiration for the Japanese long after their departure in 1945 .
on September 2 and the subsequent appropriation of the island by Chinese Nationalist Party (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 . The KMT pursued highly centralized political and cultural policies rooted in the party's decades-long history of fighting warlordism in China and opposing competing concepts of a loose federation following the demise of the imperial Qing . The project was designed to create a strong national Chinese cultural identity
(as defined by the state) at the expense of local cultures . Following the 228 Incident
, the Kuomintang placed Taiwan under martial law
, which was to last for nearly four decades.
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 . Much of the burden of educating the aborigines was undertaken by unqualified teachers, who could, at best, speak Mandarin
and teach basic ideology . 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" . 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 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 . 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 definition of aboriginal identity had been 100% aboriginal parentage, leaving any intermarriage resulting in a non-aboriginal child. Later the policy was adjusted to the ethnic status of the father determining the status of the child .
. However, they did so as an elected government rather than a dictatorial power. The elected KMT government supported many of the bills that had been promoted by aboriginal groups. The tenth amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of China
also stipulates that the government would protect and preserve aborigine culture and languages and also encourage them to participate in politics.
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 . 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 . By the late 1980s 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 a Han Chinese dominant perspective into a wider acceptance of Taiwan as a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community .
In many districts Taiwanese aborigines tend to vote for the Kuomintang
, to the point that the legislative seats allocated to the aborigines are popularly described as iron votes for the pan-blue coalition
. This may seem surprising in light of the focus of the pan-green coalition
on promoting aboriginal culture as part of the Taiwanese nationalist discourse against the KMT. However, this voting pattern can be explained on economic grounds, and as part of an inter-ethnic power struggle waged in the electorate. Some aborigines see the rhetoric of Taiwan nationalism as favoring the majority Hoklo speakers rather than themselves. Aboriginal areas also tend to be poor and their economic vitality tied to the entrenched patronage networks established by the Kuomintang over the course of its fifty-five year reign.
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" . On the other hand, bright spots are not hard to find. A resurgence in ethnic pride has accompanied the aboriginal cultural renaissance, which is exemplified by the increased popularity of aboriginal music and greater public interest in aboriginal culture .
(1948) . Although the Republic of China was a UN member and signatory to the original UN Charter, four decades of martial law controlled the discourse of culture and politics on 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.
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) , established the Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines (ATA, or yuan chuan hui) 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 .
In 1988, amid the ATA's Return Our Land Movement, in which aborigines demanded the return of lands to the original inhabitants, the ATA sent its first representative to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations
. 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" . The KMT government initially opposed the term, due to its implication that other people on Taiwan, including the KMT 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 .
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. In 1996 the Council of Indigenous Peoples
was promoted to a ministry-level rank within the Executive Yuan
. The central government has taken steps to allow romanized spellings of aboriginal names on official documents, offsetting the long held policy of forcing a Han 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, led mostly by aboriginal elites 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 push for greater political space, including the still unrealized prospect of Indigenous People's Autonomous Area
s within Taiwan . In recent years however, the drive by the "ethnic elites" to promote aboriginal particularity has run in contrast to ordinary aborigines who wish to assimilate into contemporary social norms.
, has been cited as having the potential to change the balance of the legislature. Citing these six seats in addition with five seats from smaller counties that also tend to vote pan-blue, has been seen as giving the pan-blue coalition
11 seats before the first vote is counted .
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). Manufacturing and construction jobs were generally available for low wages. 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 has led to an increased atmosphere among urban aborigines of xenophobia and encouraged the formulation of a pan-indigenous consciousness in the pursuit of political representation and protection .
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 ambience. The Wulai Atayal in particular have been active in this area. Considerable government funding has been allocated to museums and culture centers focusing on 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 . Proponents of ethno-tourism suggest that such projects can positively impact the public image and economic prospects of the indigenous community.
Of the current population of Taiwanese aborigines, about 70 percent identify themselves as Christian
. Moreover, many of the Pingpu groups have mobilized their members around predominantly Christian organizations; most notably the Taiwan Presbyterian Church and Catholicism
.
Before contact with Christian missionaries during both the Dutch and Qing periods, Taiwanese aborigines held a variety of beliefs in spirits, gods, sacred symbols and myths that helped their societies find meaning and order. Although there is no evidence of a unified belief system shared among the various indigenous groups, there is evidence that several groups held supernatural
beliefs in certain birds and bird behavior. The Siraya were reported by Dutch sources, to incorporate bird imagery into their material culture
. Other reports describe animal skulls and the use of human heads in societal beliefs. The Paiwan and other southern groups worship the Formosan Hundred Pacer
snake and use the diamond patterns on its back in many tribal designs . In many plains societies, the power to communicate with the supernatural world was exclusively held by women called Inibs. During the period of Dutch colonization, the Inibs were removed from the villages to eliminate their influence and pave the way for Dutch missionary work .
During the Zheng and Qing eras, Han immigrants brought Confucianized beliefs of Taoism
and Buddhism
to Taiwan's indigenous people. Many Plains aborigines adopted Han religious practices, though there is evidence that many aboriginal customs were transformed into local Taiwanese Han beliefs. In some parts of Taiwan the Siraya spirit of fertility, Ali-zu
(A-li-tsu) has become assimilated into the Han pantheon
. The use of female spirit mediums (tongji) can also be traced to the earlier matrilineal Inibs.
Although many aborigines assumed Han religious practices, several sub-groups sought protection from the European missionaries, who had started arriving in the 1860s. Many of the early Christian converts were displaced Pingpu groups that sought protection from the oppressive Han. The missionaries, under the articles of extraterritoriality
, offered a form of power against the Qing establishment and could thus make demands on the government to provide redress for Pingpu complaints . Many of these early congregations have served to maintain aboriginal identity, language and cultures.
The influence of 19th and 20th-century missionaries has both transformed and maintained aboriginal integration. Many of the churches have replaced earlier tribal functions, but continue to retain a sense of continuity and community that unites members of aboriginal societies against the pressures of modernity
. Several church leaders have emerged from within the tribes to take on leadership positions in petitioning the government in the interest of indigenous peoples
and seeking a balance between the interests of the communities and economic vitality.
, to focus on issues of interest to the indigenous community. [Listen to Ho-hi-yan; requires Windows Media Player 9 or higher]. This came on the heels of a "New wave of Indigenous Pop" , as aboriginal artists, such as A-mei
(Puyuma tribe), Difang, A-Lin (Ami tribe), Pur-dur and Samingad
(Puyuma tribe), and Landy Wen
(Atayal tribe) became international pop-stars. The rock musician Chang Chen-yue
is a member of the Ami tribe. Music has given aborigines both a sense of 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
", which was selected as the official theme 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 then paid royalties to the French museum that held the master recordings of the 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 .
issues 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" . Another high-profile case is the nuclear waste storage facility on Orchid Island
, a small tropical island 60 km (30 nautical mile
s) off the southeast coast of Taiwan. The inhabitants are the 4,000 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 it was thought that the population would not cause trouble . Large-scale construction began in 1978 on a site 100 m (328.1 ft) 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 economically integrated areas in Taiwan" . 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 .
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....
of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
began in the 17th century . Taiwanese aborigines are Austronesian people
Austronesian people
The Austronesian-speaking peoples are various populations in Oceania and Southeast Asia that speak languages of the Austronesian family. They include Taiwanese aborigines; the majority ethnic groups of East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Polynesia,...
s, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Malaysia, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
, Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
, and Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
. The issue of an ethnic identity
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...
unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political status of Taiwan
Political status of Taiwan
The controversy regarding the political status of Taiwan hinges on whether Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu should remain effectively independent as territory of the Republic of China , become unified with the territories now governed by the People's Republic of China , or formally declare...
.
For centuries, Taiwan's aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
and cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death
Language death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
and loss of original cultural identity
Cultural identity
Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages
Formosan languages
The Formosan languages are the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift...
), at least ten are extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
, five are moribund and several are to some degree endangered
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
consider Taiwan to be the original homeland 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 .
Taiwan's Austronesian speakers were formerly distributed over much of the island's rugged central mountain range and were concentrated in villages along the alluvial plain
Alluvial plain
An alluvial plain is a relatively flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms...
s. As of 2009, their total population is around 499,500 (approximately 2 percent of Taiwan's population). The bulk of contemporary Taiwanese aborigines live in the mountains and cities.
The indigenous peoples of Taiwan face economic and social barriers, including a high unemployment rate and substandard education. Many aboriginal groups have been actively seeking a higher degree of political self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
and economic development
Economic development
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...
since the early 1980s . A revival of ethnic pride is expressed in many ways by aborigines, including incorporating elements of their culture into commercially successful pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
. Efforts are under way in indigenous communities to revive traditional cultural practices and preserve their traditional languages. Several aboriginal tribes are becoming extensively involved in the tourism and ecotourism
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...
industries to achieve increased economic self-reliance from the state . The Austronesian Cultural Festival in Taitung City
Taitung City
Taitung City is the county seat of Taitung County, Taiwan. It lies on the southeast coast of Taiwan facing the Pacific Ocean.The city is served by Taitung Airport. Taitung is a gateway to Green Island and Orchid Island, both of which are very popular among Taiwanese tourists.-History:Taitung...
is another means to promote aboriginal culture.
Plains, mountains and tribal definitions
For most of their recorded history, Taiwanese aborigines have been defined by the agents of different Confucian, ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, and Nationalist "civilizing" projects, with a variety of aims. Each "civilizing" project defined the aborigines based on the "civilizer"'s cultural understandings of difference and similarity, behavior, location, appearance and prior contact with other groups of people . Taxonomies imposed by colonizing forces divided the aborigines into named subgroups, referred to as "tribes". These divisions did not always correspond to distinctions drawn by the aborigines themselves. However, the categories have become so firmly established in government and popular discourse over time that they have become de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
distinctions, serving to shape in part today's political discourse within the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
(ROC), and affecting Taiwan's policies regarding indigenous peoples.
The Han sailor, Chen Di
Chen Di
Chen Di , courtesy name: Jili , was a Chinese philologist, strategist, and traveler of the Ming Dynasty. A native of Fujian, he was versed in both pen and sword. As a strategist, he served under Qi Jiguang and others for many years before retiring to occupy himself with studies and travel...
, 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 .
Beginning nearly a century later, as the rule of the Qing Empire
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
expanded over wider groups of people, writers and gazetteers recast their descriptions away from reflecting degree of acculturation
Acculturation
Acculturation explains the process of cultural and psychological change that results following meeting between cultures. The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both interacting cultures. At the group level, acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and...
, and toward a system that defined the aborigines relative to their submission or hostility to Qing rule. Qing literati used the term "raw/wild" ("生番") to define those people who had not submitted to Qing rule, and "cooked/tame" ("熟番") for those who had pledged their allegiance through their payment of a head tax. According to the standards of the Qianlong Emperor
Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796...
and successive regimes, "cooked" was synonymous with having assimilated to Han cultural norms, and living as a subject of the Empire, but retained a pejorative designation to signify the perceived cultural lacking of the non-Han people , . This designation reflected the prevailing idea that anyone could be civilized/tamed by adopting Confucian social norms .
As the Qing consolidated their power over the plains and struggled to enter the mountains in the late 19th century, the terms "Plains tribes" (lowland) Pepo or Pingpu zu 平埔族 and "High Mountain tribes" (highland) Gao shan zu 高山族 were used interchangeably with the terms "Raw" and "Cooked" . During the 50 years of Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945), anthropologists from Japan maintained the binary classification. In 1900 they incorporated it into their own colonial project by employing the term Peipo (Plains aborigine) for the "cooked tribes", and creating a category of "recognized tribes" for the aborigines who had formerly been called "raw". Soon after Mona Rudao
Mona Rudao
Mona Rudao, or Mouna Rudao was the son of a chief of the Seediq tribe of Taiwanese aborigines. In 1911, he made a visit to Japan...
led the uprising known as the Wushe Incident
Wushe Incident
The Wushe Incident or Wushe Event or Wushe Revolution / Rebellion / Uprising / Insurrection of 1930 was the last major uprising against colonial Japanese forces in Taiwan...
(depicted in the film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale), the Japanese government began referring to them as takasago-zoku (高砂族) . The latter group included the Atayal, Bunun
Bunun People
The Bunun , also historically known as the Vonum, are a tribe of Taiwanese aborigines and are best known for their sophisticated polyphonic vocal music. They speak the Bunun language. Unlike other aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, the Bunun are widely dispersed across the island. In the year 2000 the...
, Tsou
Tsou people
The Tsou are an indigenous people of central southern Republic of China . They are spread across three administrative entities of the Republic of China — Nantou County, Chiayi County and Kaohsiung City....
, Saisiat, Paiwan, Puyuma, and Ami peoples. The Yami
Tao people
The Tao , originally recognized as Yami , are a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island in Taiwan. The Tao are an Austronesian people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people of the Batanes islands in the Philippines than to other aboriginal peoples on...
(Tao) and Thao were added later, for a total of nine recognized tribes . During the early period of Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
(KMT) rule the terms Shandi Tongbao 山地同胞 "mountain compatriots" and Pingdi Tongbao 平地同胞 "plains compatriots" were invented, to remove the presumed taint of Japanese influence and reflect the place of Taiwan's indigenous people in the Chinese Nationalist state . The KMT later adopted the use of all the earlier Japanese groupings except "Peipo".
Despite recent changes in the field of anthropology and a shift in Taiwanese government objectives, the Gaoshan and Pingpu labels in use today maintain the form given by the Qing to reflect aborigines' acculturation to Han culture. The current recognized aborigines are all regarded as Gaoshan, though the divisions are not and have never been based strictly on geographical location. The Amis, Saisiat, Tao and Kavalan are all traditionally Eastern Plains cultures . The distinction between Plains and Gaoshan people continues to affect Taiwan's policies regarding indigenous peoples, and their ability to participate effectively in government (Saisiyat people 2006).
Although the ROC's Government Information Office officially lists 13 major groupings as "tribes" the consensus among scholars maintains that these 13 groupings do not reflect any social entities, political collectives, or self-identified alliances dating from pre-modern Taiwan . The earliest detailed records, dating from the Dutch arrival in 1624, describe the aborigines as living in independent villages of varying size. Between these villages there was frequent trade, intermarriage, warfare and alliances against common enemies. Using contemporary ethnographic and linguistic criteria, these villages have been classed by anthropologists into more than 20 broad (and widely debated) ethnic groupings , which were never united under a common polity, kingdom or "tribe" .
Recognized peoples
The government of Taiwan officially recognizes distinct tribes among the indigenous community based upon the qualifications drawn up by the Council of Indigenous PeoplesCouncil of Indigenous Peoples
The Council of Indigenous Peoples , a ministry-level body under the Executive Yuan in Taiwan, was established in 1996 to provide a central point of government supervision for indigenous affairs, as well as a central interface for the Taiwan's indigenous community to interact...
(CIP) . To gain this recognition, tribes must gather a number of signatures and a body of supporting evidence with which to successfully petition the CIP. 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. As of May 2008, 14 tribes have been recognized.
The Council of Indigenous Peoples consider several limited factors in a successful formal petition. The determining factors include collecting member genealogies, group histories and evidence of a continued linguistic and cultural identity . The lack of documentation and the extinction of many indigenous languages as the result of colonial cultural and language policies have made the prospect of official recognition of many tribes a remote possibility. Current trends in ethno-tourism have led many former Plains aborigines to continue to seek cultural revival .
Among the Plains aboriginal groups that have petitioned for tribal status, only the Kavalan
Kavalan people
The Kavalan or Kuvalan are an indigenous people of Taiwan, part of the larger Taiwanese aborigine ethnic group. The Kavalan originally inhabited modern-day Yilan County. Most of them moved to the coastal area of Hualien County and Taitung County in the 19th century...
and Sakizaya
Sakizaya people
The Sakizaya are Taiwanese Aborigines with a population of approximately 5,000–10,000...
have been officially recognized. The remaining twelve 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 ) 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
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
of that name. Commonly cited examples of this ambiguity include (Seediq/Sediq/Truku/Taroko) and (Tao/Yami).
Nine of the tribes were originally recognized before 1945 by the Japanese government . The Thao, Kavalan and Truku were recognized by Taiwan's government in 2001, 2002 and 2004 respectively. The Sakizaya were recognized as a 13th tribe on January 17, 2007 , and on April 23, 2008 the Sediq were recognized as Taiwan's 14th official tribe . Previously the Sakizaya had been listed as Amis and the Sediq as Atayal. 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
Bunun People
The Bunun , also historically known as the Vonum, are a tribe of Taiwanese aborigines and are best known for their sophisticated polyphonic vocal music. They speak the Bunun language. Unlike other aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, the Bunun are widely dispersed across the island. In the year 2000 the...
, Kavalan
Kavalan people
The Kavalan or Kuvalan are an indigenous people of Taiwan, part of the larger Taiwanese aborigine ethnic group. The Kavalan originally inhabited modern-day Yilan County. Most of them moved to the coastal area of Hualien County and Taitung County in the 19th century...
, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiyat, Tao, Thao, Tsou
Tsou people
The Tsou are an indigenous people of central southern Republic of China . They are spread across three administrative entities of the Republic of China — Nantou County, Chiayi County and Kaohsiung City....
, Truku
Truku people
The Truku people are an Indigenous Taiwanese tribe. Taroko is also the name of the area of Taiwan where the Truku tribe resides. The Executive Yuan, Republic of China has officially recognized the Truku since January 15, 2004. The Truku are the 12th aboriginal tribe in Taiwan to receive this...
, Sakizaya
Sakizaya people
The Sakizaya are Taiwanese Aborigines with a population of approximately 5,000–10,000...
, and Sediq.
Unrecognized: Babuza, Basay, Hoanya, Ketagalan, Luilang, Makatao, Pazeh
Pazeh people
The Pazeh people, including the Kaxabu, are the descendants of the Tsouic Pazeh speaking indigenous people from the central Taiwanese areas of Taichung and Miaoli...
/Kaxabu
Kaxabu people
The Kaxabu people are a variant of the Pazeh/Kaxabu ethno-linguistic group of Taiwanese Aborigines.-See also:*Kingdom of Middag*Formosan languages*Taiwanese aborigines...
, Papora, Qauqaut, Siraya, Taokas
Taokas people
Taokas is one of a number of indigenous ethno-linguistic groups that inhabited the plains of western Taiwan. The Taokas were located in the areas around today's Hsinchu City/Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, and Taichung City region. Several Taokas groups have been historically linked to many revolts...
, Trobiawan.
Taiwanese aborigines in the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
(PRC) are collectively known as the "Gaoshan" and are one of the 56 ethnicities officially recognized by the PRC. They are descendants of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan who were in China during the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 . According to the 2000 Census, 4,461 people were identified as Gaoshan living in mainland China.
Some surveys indicate that of the 4,461 "Gaoshan" recorded in the 2000 PRC Census, it is estimated that there are 1,500 Amis, 1,300 Bunun, 510 Paiwan, and the remainder belonging to other tribes .D
Assimilation and acculturation
Archaeological, linguistic and anecdotal evidence suggests that Taiwan's indigenous peoples have undergone a series of cultural shifts to meet the pressures of contact with other societies and new technologies . Beginning in the early 17th century, Taiwanese aborigines 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 . In some cases groups of aborigines resisted colonial influence, but other groups and individuals readily aligned with the colonial powers. This alignment could be leveraged to achieve personal or collective economic gain, collective power over neighboring villages or freedom from unfavorable societal customs and taboos involving marriage, age-grade and child birth .Particularly among the Pingpu, as the degree of the "civilizing projects" increased during each successive regime, the aborigines found themselves in greater contact with outside cultures. The process of acculturation
Acculturation
Acculturation explains the process of cultural and psychological change that results following meeting between cultures. The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both interacting cultures. At the group level, acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and...
and assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
sometimes followed gradually in the wake of broad social currents, particularly the removal of ethnic markers (such as bound feet, dietary customs and clothing), which had formerly distinguished ethnic groups on Taiwan . The removal or replacement of these brought about an incremental transformation from "Fan" (barbarian) to the dominant Confucian "Han" culture . During the Japanese and KMT periods centralized modernist government policies, rooted in ideas of Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
and culturalism, directed education, genealogical customs and other traditions toward ethnic assimilation , . Ethnic shift among the Gaoshan, who had less contact with outsiders due to the inaccessibility of their lands, was more the result of centralized assimilative pressures than gradual social change. Nonetheless, the cultures and languages of most of the recognized tribes remain resilient today. Multicultural policies have contributed to ethnic pride in those communities.
Many of these forms of assimilation are still at work today. For example, when a central authority nationalize
National language
A national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...
s one language, that attaches economic and social advantages to the prestige language. As generations pass, use of the indigenous language often fades or disappears, and linguistic and cultural identity recede as well. However, some groups are seeking to revive their indigenous identities . 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 change. The oldest holds that Han migration from Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
and Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
in the 17th century pushed the Plains aborigines into the mountains, where they became the Highland tribes of today . A relatively newer view asserts that through widespread intermarriage between Han and aborigines between the 17th and 19th centuries, the aborigines were completely sinicized . Finally, modern ethnographical
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
and anthropological
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
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 .
Surnames and identity
Several factors encouraged the assimilation of the Plains tribes. Taking a Han name was a necessary step in instilling Confucian values in the aborigines . Confucian values were necessary to be recognized as a full person and to operate within the Confucian Qing state . A surname in Han society was viewed as the most prominent legitimizing marker of a patrilineal ancestral link to the Yellow EmperorYellow Emperor
The Yellow Emperor or Huangdi1 is a legendary Chinese sovereign and culture hero, included among the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Tradition holds that he reigned from 2697–2597 or 2696–2598 BC...
(Huang Di) and the Five Emperors of Han mythology . Possession of a Han surname, then, could confer a broad range of significant economic and social benefits upon aborigines, despite a prior non-Han identity or mixed parentage. In some cases, members of Plains tribes adopted the Han surname Pan
Pan (surname)
Pan is a family name originated from China. Pan also is often romanized as Poon or Pun. The surname is spelled as Poon or Pun in Hong Kong and Macau, Ban in South Korea and Phan in Vietnam....
(潘) as a modification of their designated status as Fan (番: "barbarian"). One family of Pazih became members of the local gentry 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 . Many Plains aborigines joined the brotherhoods to gain protection of the collective as a type of insurance policy against regional strife, 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
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
from their respective Formosan languages
Formosan languages
The Formosan languages are the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift...
to Chinese
Sinitic languages
The Sinitic languages, often called the Chinese languages or the Chinese language, are a language family frequently postulated as one of two primary branches of Sino-Tibetan...
. In addition, legal barriers to the use of traditional surnames persisted until recently, and cultural barriers remain. Aborigines were not permitted to use their traditional names on official identification cards until 1995 when a ban on using aboriginal names dating from 1946 was finally lifted. One obstacle is that household registration forms allow a maximum of 15 characters for personal names. However, aboriginal names are still phonetically translated into Chinese characters, and many names require more than the allotted space .
History of the aboriginal peoples
Austronesian people
The Austronesian-speaking peoples are various populations in Oceania and Southeast Asia that speak languages of the Austronesian family. They include Taiwanese aborigines; the majority ethnic groups of East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Polynesia,...
s, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Malaysia, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
and Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
. Chipped-pebble tools dating from perhaps as early as 15,000 years ago suggest that the initial human inhabitants of Taiwan were Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
cultures of the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
era. These people survived by eating marine life. Archaeological evidence points to an abrupt change to the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
era around 6,000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture, domestic animals, polished stone adzes and pottery. The stone adze
Adze
An adze is a tool used for smoothing or carving rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards his feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind...
s were mass-produced on Penghu and nearby islands, from the volcanic rock found there. This suggests heavy sea traffic took place between these islands and Taiwan at this time .
Recorded history of the aborigines on Taiwan began around the 17th century, and has often been dominated by the views and policies of foreign powers and non-aborigines. Beginning with the arrival of Dutch merchants in 1624, the traditional lands of the aborigines have been successively colonized by Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
, Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
, Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
(from both the Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
and Qing dynasties), Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
, and Taiwanese
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...
(the Chinese Nationalist government, or Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
) rulers. Each of these successive "civilizing" cultural centers participated in violent conflict and peaceful economic interaction with both the Plains and Mountain tribal groups. To varying degrees, they influenced or transformed the culture and language of the indigenous peoples.
Four centuries of non-indigenous rule can be viewed through several changing periods of governing power and shifting official policy toward aborigines. From the 17th century until the early 20th, the impact of the foreign settlers—the Dutch, Spanish and Han—was more extensive on the Plains tribes. The latter were far more geographically accessible, and thus had more dealings with the foreign powers. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Plains tribes had largely been assimilated into contemporary Taiwanese culture as a result of European and Han colonial rule. Until the latter half of the Japanese colonial era the Mountain tribes were not entirely governed by any non-tribal polity. However, the mid-1930s marked a shift in the intercultural dynamic, as the Japanese began to play a far more dominant role in the culture of the Highland groups. This increased degree of control over the Mountain tribes continued during Kuomintang rule. Within these two broad eras, there were many differences in the individual and regional impact of the colonizers and their "civilizing projects". At times the foreign powers were accepted readily, as some tribes adopted foreign clothing styles and cultural practices , and engaged in cooperative trade in goods such as camphor
Camphor
Camphor is a waxy, white or transparent solid with a strong, aromatic odor. It is a terpenoid with the chemical formula C10H16O. It is found in wood of the camphor laurel , a large evergreen tree found in Asia and also of Dryobalanops aromatica, a giant of the Bornean forests...
, deer hides, sugar, tea and rice . At numerous other times changes from the outside world were forcibly imposed.
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 greater "civilizing" projects. The collection of information aided in the consolidation of administrative control.
Plains aboriginals
The Plains aborigines mainly lived in stationary village sites surrounded by defensive walls of bambooBamboo
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....
. The village sites in southern Taiwan were more populated than other locations. Some villages supported a population of more than 1,500 people, surrounded by smaller satellite villages . Siraya villages were constructed of dwellings made of thatch and bamboo, raised 2 m 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 Formosan Sika Deer
Formosan Sika Deer
The Formosa sika deer, , is a subspecies of sika deer endemic to the island of Taiwan. Formosan sika, like most of the terrestrial fauna and flora of Taiwan, arrived on the island during Pleistocene glacial periods when lower sea levels connected Taiwan to the Asian mainland.-Appearance and...
, Formosan Sambar Deer
Formosan Sambar Deer
The Formosan Sambar is a subspecies of sambar found in Taiwan. It is the largest native herbivore there. Its fur color changes with season to provide camouflage, it is yellowish brown in the summer and dark brown in the winter....
, and Reeves's muntjac
Reeves's Muntjac
The Reeves' Muntjac is a muntjac species found widely in southeastern China and in Taiwan. They have also been introduced in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland by 2008. It feeds on herbs, blossoms, succulent shoots, grasses and nuts, and was also reported to eat trees...
as well as conducting light millet
Millet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...
farming. Sugar and rice were grown as well, but mostly for use in preparing wine .
Many of the Plains peoples were matrilineal/matrifocal societies. Men married into a woman's family after a courtship period during which 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 Reformed Church
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...
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 . Almost all indigenous peoples in Taiwan have traditionally had a custom of sexual division of labor. Women did the sewing, cooking and farming, while the men hunted and prepared for military activity and securing enemy heads in headhunting raids, which was a common practice in early Taiwan. Women were also often found in the office of priestess or medium to the gods.
For centuries, Taiwan's aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
and cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death
Language death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
and loss of original cultural identity
Cultural identity
Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages
Formosan languages
The Formosan languages are the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift...
), at least ten are extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
, five are moribund and several are to some degree endangered
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
consider Taiwan to be the original homeland 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 .
European period (1623–1662)
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
maintained a colony in southwestern Taiwan (1624–1662) near present-day Tainan City. This established an Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n base for triangular trade between the company, the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, with the hope of interrupting Portuguese and Spanish trading alliances. The Spanish also maintained a colony in northern Taiwan (1626–1642) in present-day Keelung
Keelung
Keelung City is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. It borders New Taipei and forms the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with the Taipei and New Taipei. Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport...
. However, Spanish influence wavered almost from the beginning, so that by the late 1630s they had already withdrawn most of their troops . 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" . 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
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
arrived in 1624 at Tayouan (Anping
Anping, Tainan
Anping District is a district of Tainan City. The history of Anping dates back to the 17th century, when Dutch East India Company occupied Tayuan/Tayoan/Tayouan/Tayowan...
) 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 warriors from Mattau, and the victory inspired other villages to rebel . In 1635, with reinforcements having arrived from Batavia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
(now Jakarta, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
), 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 brought an end to centuries of inter-village warfare . The new period of peace allowed the Dutch to construct schools and churches aimed to acculturate and convert the indigenous population . Dutch schools taught a romanized script (Sinckan writing), which transcribed
Transcription (linguistics)
Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...
the Siraya language. This script maintained occasional use through the 18th century . Today only fragments survive, in documents and stone stele 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 in the East Asian market to be a lucrative endeavor , and recruited Plains aborigines to procure the hides. The deer trade attracted the first Han traders to aboriginal villages, but as early as 1642 the demand for deer greatly diminished the deer stocks. This drop significantly reduced the prosperity of aboriginal tribes , forcing many aborigines to take up farming to counter the economic impact of losing their most vital food source.
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. Several Han took up residence in Siraya villages. 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
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
but the military and the administrative structures were Dutch" . Despite this, local alliances transcended ethnicity during the Dutch period. For example, the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion
Guo Huaiyi Rebellion
The Guo Huaiyi Rebellion was a peasant revolt against Dutch rule in Taiwan which took place in 1652. Sparked by dissatisfaction with heavy Dutch taxation and extortion by low-ranking Dutch officials and servicemen, the rebellion initially gained ground before being brutally crushed by a coalition...
in 1652, a Han farmers' uprising, was defeated by an alliance of 120 Dutch musketeers with the aid of Han loyalists and 600 aboriginal warriors .
The Dutch period ended in 1662 when Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
loyalist forces of Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga
Koxinga
Koxinga is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong , a military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant/pirate, and his Japanese wife and died in 1662 on the island of Formosa .A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of...
) drove out the Dutch and established the short-lived Zheng family kingdom
Kingdom of Tungning
The Kingdom of Tungning was a government that ruled Taiwan between 1661 and 1683. A pro-Ming Dynasty state, it was founded by Koxinga after the Ming government in mainland China was replaced by the Manchu-ruled Qing Dynasty...
on Taiwan. 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 . However, the impact of the Dutch was deeply ingrained in aboriginal society. In the 19th and 20th centuries, European explorers wrote of being welcomed as kin by the aborigines who thought they were the Dutch, who had promised to return .
Qing rule (1683–1895)
After the Qing government defeated the Ming loyalist forces maintained by the Zheng family in 1683, parts of Taiwan became increasingly integrated into the Qing Empire . 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 acculturationAcculturation
Acculturation explains the process of cultural and psychological change that results following meeting between cultures. The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both interacting cultures. At the group level, acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and...
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
Zhangzhou
Zhangzhou is a prefecture-level city in southern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. Located on the banks of the Jiulong River , Zhangzhou borders the cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou to the northeast, Longyan City to the northwest and the province of Guangdong to the southwest.Zhangzhou...
and Quanzhou
Quanzhou
Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two and faces the Taiwan Strait...
in Fujian province
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
or from a variety of other factors, including: frequent intermarriage between Han and aborigines, the replacement of aboriginal marriage and abortion taboos, and the widespread 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.
Reports from American envoys and others suggest that Taiwanese aboriginals under Qing rule were treated extremely harshly. Presbyterian missionary George Leslie Mackay
George Leslie Mackay
George Leslie Mackay was the first Presbyterian missionary to northern Formosa . He served with the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. Mackay is among the best known Westerners to have lived in Taiwan.-Early life:...
in From far Formosa (1896) reported that "if a savage is killed inland, the heart is eaten, flesh taken off in strips, and bones boiled to a jelly and preserved as a specific for malarial fever" . American consul James W. Davidson
James W. Davidson
James Wheeler Davidson was an explorer, writer, United States diplomat, businessman and philanthropist...
described in The Island of Formosa (1903) how the Han Chinese in Taiwan ate and traded in their aboriginal victims' flesh , a practice also mentioned by Owen Rutter
Owen Rutter
Edward Owen Rutter was an English historian, novelist and travel writer.After serving with the North Borneo Civil Service from 1910 to 1915, Rutter returned to Britain during World War I and was commissioned. Rutter served with the 7th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment in France and on the...
in Through Formosa (1923), whose account bears some similarities to Davidson's . Sangren, in History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community (1987) mentions Davidson's account, adding that elderly Ta-ch'i informants had corroborated his claims .
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 territory . The Qing authorities hoped to turn the Plains tribes into loyal subjects, and adopted the head and corvée
Corvée
Corvée is unfree labour, often unpaid, that is required of people of lower social standing and imposed on them by the state or a superior . The corvée was the earliest and most widespread form of taxation, which can be traced back to the beginning of civilization...
taxes on the aborigines, which made the Plains aborigines directly responsible for payment to the government yamen
Yamen
A yamen is any local bureaucrat's, or mandarin's, office and residence of the Chinese Empire. The term has been widely used in China for centuries, but appeared in English during the Qing Dynasty....
. 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. 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" . Aboriginal participation in a number of major revolts during the Qing era, including the Taokas-led Ta-Chia-hsi revolt
Ta-Chia-hsi revolt
The Ta Chia-Hsi Revolt of 1731-32 was a major aboriginal revolt on Taiwan, which saw the Taokas tribe take up arms against the Qing authorities following a series of issues with the corvee labor policy. The Taokas swept southward and were joined by other plains aboriginal groups, stopping to lay...
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 .
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 .
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 recorded anecdotal evidence also suggests there has been island-wide migration of indigenous peoples for over 3,000 years.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 ; ).
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 .
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 . There are also recorded oral histories that recall some Plains aborigines were sometimes captured and killed by Highlands tribes while relocating through the mountains (Yeh 2003). However, as explained in detail, documented evidence shows that the majority of Plains people remained on the plains, intermarried Hakka
Hakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
and Hoklo
Hoklo people
The Hoklo people are Han Chinese people whose traditional Ancestral homes are in southern Fujian of South China...
immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
, and adopted a Han identity, where they remain today.
Highland tribes
Camphor
Camphor is a waxy, white or transparent solid with a strong, aromatic odor. It is a terpenoid with the chemical formula C10H16O. It is found in wood of the camphor laurel , a large evergreen tree found in Asia and also of Dryobalanops aromatica, a giant of the Bornean forests...
from Camphor Laurel trees (Cinnamomum camphora), native to the island and in particular the mountainous areas. The production and shipment of camphor (used in herbal medicines and mothballs) was then a significant industry on the island, lasting up to and including the period of Japanese rule . These early encounters often involved headhunting parties from the Highland tribes, who sought out and raided unprotected Han forest workers. Together with traditional Han concepts of Taiwanese behavior, these raiding incidents helped to promote the Qing-era popular image of the "violent" aborigine .
Plains aborigines were often employed and dispatched as interpreters to assist in the trade of 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 that were generally used as a forest tool. These blades became notorious among Han settlers, given their alternative use to decapitate Highland tribal enemies in customary headhunting expeditions.
Headhunting
The Highland tribes were renowned for their skill in headhuntingHeadhunting
Headhunting is the practice of taking a person's head after killing them. Headhunting was practised in historic times in parts of China, India, Nigeria, Nuristan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Borneo, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Micronesia, Melanesia, New Zealand, and the Amazon Basin, as...
, which was a symbol of bravery and valor . Almost every tribe except the Yami (Tao) practiced headhunting. Once the victims had been dispatched the heads were taken then boiled and left to dry, often hanging from trees or shelves constructed for the purpose. A party returning with a head was cause for celebration, 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 at workers in the fields, or employ the ruse of setting a dwelling alight and then decapitating the inhabitants as they fled the burning structure. It was also customary to later raise the victim's surviving children as full members of the tribe. Often the heads themselves were ceremonially ‘invited' to join the tribe as members, where they were supposed to watch over the tribe and keep them safe. The indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan accepted the convention and practice of headhunting as one of the calculated risks of tribal life. The last groups to practice headhunting were the Paiwan, Bunun, and Atayal groups . Japanese rule ended the practice by 1930, but some elder Taiwanese can recall the practice (Yeh 2003).
Japanese rule (1895–1945)
When the Treaty of ShimonosekiTreaty of Shimonoseki
The Treaty of Shimonoseki , known as the Treaty of Maguan in China, was signed at the Shunpanrō hall on April 17, 1895, between the Empire of Japan and Qing Empire of China, ending the First Sino-Japanese War. The peace conference took place from March 20 to April 17, 1895...
was finalized on April 17, 1895, Taiwan was ceded by the Qing Empire to Japan, which sought to transform Taiwan into the supply-end of an extremely unequal flow of assets . 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 . 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 was 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" . 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" . In the Wushe Incident
Wushe Incident
The Wushe Incident or Wushe Event or Wushe Revolution / Rebellion / Uprising / Insurrection of 1930 was the last major uprising against colonial Japanese forces in Taiwan...
of 1930, 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 most remote high mountain villages could be relocated closer to administrative control .
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 Japanese "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 . To satisfy these needs, "the Japanese portrayed and catalogued Taiwan's indigenous peoples in a welter of statistical tables, magazine and newspaper articles, photograph albums for popular consumption" . The Japanese based much of their information and terminology on prior Qing era narratives concerning degrees of "civilization" .
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) . 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 . By the mid-1930s as Japan's empire was reaching its zenith, the colonial government began a political socialization program designed to enforce 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 . The Japanese colonial experience left an indelible mark on many older aborigines who maintained an admiration for the Japanese long after their departure in 1945 .
Kuomintang rule (1945–1987)
Japanese rule of Taiwan ended in 1945, following the armistice with the alliesJapanese Instrument of Surrender
The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was the written agreement that enabled the Surrender of Japan, marking the end of World War II. It was signed by representatives from the Empire of Japan, the United States of America, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist...
on September 2 and the subsequent appropriation of the island by Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
, or KMT) on October 25. In 1949, on losing the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
to the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
led the Kuomintang in a retreat from Mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, 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 . The KMT pursued highly centralized political and cultural policies rooted in the party's decades-long history of fighting warlordism in China and opposing competing concepts of a loose federation following the demise of the imperial Qing . The project was designed to create a strong national Chinese cultural identity
Cultural identity
Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
(as defined by the state) at the expense of local cultures . Following the 228 Incident
228 Incident
The 228 Incident, also known as the 228 Massacre, was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that began on February 27, 1947, and was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang government. Estimates of the number of deaths vary from 10,000 to 30,000 or more...
, the Kuomintang placed Taiwan under martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
, which was to last for nearly four decades.
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
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, history
History of China
Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...
and citizenship — with a curriculum steeped in pro-KMT ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
. Some elements of the curriculum, such as the Wu Feng Legend
Wu Feng Legend
The Wu Feng Legend is a politically controversial myth once popular in Taiwan.According to the myth, Wu Feng was a Han Chinese who befriended aborigines. He tried to persuade the A-li-shan tribe to give up their practice of headhunting, but his attempts were unsuccessful. On one occasion he...
, are currently considered offensive to aborigines . Much of the burden of educating the aborigines was undertaken by unqualified teachers, who could, at best, speak Mandarin
Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
and teach basic ideology . 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" . 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 as the direct result of what has been referred to as Han chauvinism
Han chauvinism
Han chauvinism is the chauvinistic and ethnocentric viewpoint that the Han Chinese and their culture are superior to other ethnicities, particularly other ethnicities within modern China...
.
The pattern of intermarriage continued, as many KMT soldiers married aboriginal women who were from poorer areas and could be easily bought as wives . 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 definition of aboriginal identity had been 100% aboriginal parentage, leaving any intermarriage resulting in a non-aboriginal child. Later the policy was adjusted to the ethnic status of the father determining the status of the child .
Transition to democracy
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 . The KMT continued to hold the reins of power for another decade under President Lee Teng-huiLee Teng-hui
Lee Teng-hui is a politician of the Republic of China . He was the 7th, 8th, and 9th-term President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the Kuomintang from 1988 to 2000. He presided over major advancements in democratic reforms including his own re-election which marked the first direct...
. However, they did so as an elected government rather than a dictatorial power. The elected KMT government supported many of the bills that had been promoted by aboriginal groups. The tenth amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of China
Constitution of the Republic of China
The Constitution of the Republic of China is the fundamental law of the Republic of China . Drafted by the Kuomintang as part of its third stage of national development , it established a centralized Republic with five branches of government...
also stipulates that the government would protect and preserve aborigine culture and languages and also encourage them to participate in politics.
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 . 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 . By the late 1980s many Hoklo and Hakka speaking people began identifying themselves as Plains aborigines, though any initial shift in ethnic consciousness from Hakka
Hakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
or Hoklo people
Hoklo people
The Hoklo people are Han Chinese people whose traditional Ancestral homes are in southern Fujian of South China...
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 a Han Chinese dominant perspective into a wider acceptance of Taiwan as a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community .
In many districts Taiwanese aborigines tend to vote for the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
, to the point that the legislative seats allocated to the aborigines are popularly described as iron votes for the pan-blue coalition
Pan-Blue Coalition
The Pan-Blue Coalition 泛藍聯盟 or Pan-Blue Force is a political alliance in the Republic of China , consisting of the Kuomintang , the People First Party , and the New Party . The name comes from the party colours of the Kuomintang...
. This may seem surprising in light of the focus of the pan-green coalition
Pan-Green Coalition
The Pan-Green Coalition or Pan-Green Camp, is an informal political alliance of the Republic of China, commonly known as "Taiwan", consisting of the Democratic Progressive Party , Taiwan Solidarity Union , and the minor Taiwan Independence Party...
on promoting aboriginal culture as part of the Taiwanese nationalist discourse against the KMT. However, this voting pattern can be explained on economic grounds, and as part of an inter-ethnic power struggle waged in the electorate. Some aborigines see the rhetoric of Taiwan nationalism as favoring the majority Hoklo speakers rather than themselves. Aboriginal areas also tend to be poor and their economic vitality tied to the entrenched patronage networks established by the Kuomintang over the course of its fifty-five year reign.
Aborigines in the democratic era
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
: "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" . On the other hand, bright spots are not hard to find. A resurgence in ethnic pride has accompanied the aboriginal cultural renaissance, which is exemplified by the increased popularity of aboriginal music and greater public interest in aboriginal culture .
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 RightsUniversal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
(1948) . Although the Republic of China was a UN member and signatory to the original UN Charter, four decades of martial law controlled the discourse of culture and politics on 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.
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
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan
The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan was planted in Taiwan in the 19th century by Dr James Laidlaw Maxwell Snr of the Presbyterian Church of England and Dr George Leslie Mackay of the Presbyterian Church in Canada....
(PCT) , established the Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines (ATA, or yuan chuan hui) 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 .
In 1988, amid the ATA's Return Our Land Movement, in which aborigines demanded the return of lands to the original inhabitants, the ATA sent its first representative to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations
Working Group on Indigenous Populations
The Working Group on Indigenous Populations was a subsidiary body within the structure of the United Nations. It was established in 1982, and was one of the six working groups overseen by the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, the main subsidiary body of the United...
. 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" . The KMT government initially opposed the term, due to its implication that other people on Taiwan, including the KMT 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 .
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. In 1996 the Council of Indigenous Peoples
Council of Indigenous Peoples
The Council of Indigenous Peoples , a ministry-level body under the Executive Yuan in Taiwan, was established in 1996 to provide a central point of government supervision for indigenous affairs, as well as a central interface for the Taiwan's indigenous community to interact...
was promoted to a ministry-level rank within the Executive Yuan
Executive Yuan
The Executive Yuan is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China , commonly known as "Taiwan".-Organization and structure:...
. The central government has taken steps to allow romanized spellings of aboriginal names on official documents, offsetting the long held policy of forcing a Han 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, led mostly by aboriginal elites 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 push for greater political space, including the still unrealized prospect of Indigenous People's Autonomous Area
Autonomous area
An autonomous area or autonomous entity is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority. Typically it is either geographically distinct from the rest of the country or populated by a national minority. Countries that include autonomous areas are often...
s within Taiwan . In recent years however, the drive by the "ethnic elites" to promote aboriginal particularity has run in contrast to ordinary aborigines who wish to assimilate into contemporary social norms.
Aboriginal political representation
Aborigines are currently represented by eight members out of 225 seats in the Legislative Yuan. In 2008, the number of legislative seats was cut in half to 113, of which Taiwanese aborigines are represented by six members (three each for lowland and highland tribes).("Legislative Yuan" 2004) The tendency of Taiwanese aborigines to vote for members of the pan-blue coalitionPan-Blue Coalition
The Pan-Blue Coalition 泛藍聯盟 or Pan-Blue Force is a political alliance in the Republic of China , consisting of the Kuomintang , the People First Party , and the New Party . The name comes from the party colours of the Kuomintang...
, has been cited as having the potential to change the balance of the legislature. Citing these six seats in addition with five seats from smaller counties that also tend to vote pan-blue, has been seen as giving the pan-blue coalition
Pan-Blue Coalition
The Pan-Blue Coalition 泛藍聯盟 or Pan-Blue Force is a political alliance in the Republic of China , consisting of the Kuomintang , the People First Party , and the New Party . The name comes from the party colours of the Kuomintang...
11 seats before the first vote is counted .
Economic issues
Many indigenous communities did not evenly share 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. The economic disparity between the village and urban schools resulted in imposing many social barriers on aborigines, which prevent many from moving beyond vocational training. Students transplanted into urban schools face adversity, including isolation, culture shock, and discrimination from their peers . The cultural impact of poverty and economic marginalization has led to an increase in alcoholism and prostitution among aborigines .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). Manufacturing and construction jobs were generally available for low wages. 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 has led to an increased atmosphere among urban aborigines of xenophobia and encouraged the formulation of a pan-indigenous consciousness in the pursuit of political representation and protection .
| Date | Total population | Aged 15 and above | Total work force | Employed | Unemployed | Labor participation rate (%) | Unemployment rate (%） |
| Dec-05 | 464,961 | 337,351 | 216,756 | 207,493 | 9,263 | 64.25 | 4.27 |
| Dec-06 | 474,919 | 346,366 | 223,288 | 213,548 | 9,740 | 64.47 | 4.36 |
| Dec-07 | 484,174 | 355,613 | 222,929 | 212,627 | 10,302 | 62.69 | 4.62 |
| Dec-08 | 494,107 | 363,103 | 223,464 | 205,765 | 17,699 | 61.54 | 7.92 |
| Dec-09 | 504,531 | 372,777 | 219,465 | 203,412 | 16,053 | 58.87 | 7.31 |
Parks, tourism, and commercialization
Aboriginal groups are seeking to preserve their folkways and languages as well as to return to, or remain on, their traditional lands. Eco-tourism, sewing and selling tribal carvings, jewelry and music has become a viable area of economic opportunity. However, tourism-based commercial development, such as the creation of Taiwan Aboriginal Culture Park, is not a panacea. Although these create new jobs, 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" . At times, the creation of national parks has resulted in forced resettlement of the aborigines .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 ambience. The Wulai Atayal in particular have been active in this area. Considerable government funding has been allocated to museums and culture centers focusing on 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 . Proponents of ethno-tourism suggest that such projects can positively impact the public image and economic prospects of the indigenous community.
Religion
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
. Moreover, many of the Pingpu groups have mobilized their members around predominantly Christian organizations; most notably the Taiwan Presbyterian Church and Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
.
Before contact with Christian missionaries during both the Dutch and Qing periods, Taiwanese aborigines held a variety of beliefs in spirits, gods, sacred symbols and myths that helped their societies find meaning and order. Although there is no evidence of a unified belief system shared among the various indigenous groups, there is evidence that several groups held supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
beliefs in certain birds and bird behavior. The Siraya were reported by Dutch sources, to incorporate bird imagery into their material culture
Material culture
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations. Studying a culture's relationship to materiality is a lens through which social and cultural attitudes can be discussed...
. Other reports describe animal skulls and the use of human heads in societal beliefs. The Paiwan and other southern groups worship the Formosan Hundred Pacer
Deinagkistrodon
Deinagkistrodon is a monotypic genus created for a venomous pitviper species, D. acutus, found in Southeast Asia. No subspecies are currently recognized.-Description:...
snake and use the diamond patterns on its back in many tribal designs . In many plains societies, the power to communicate with the supernatural world was exclusively held by women called Inibs. During the period of Dutch colonization, the Inibs were removed from the villages to eliminate their influence and pave the way for Dutch missionary work .
During the Zheng and Qing eras, Han immigrants brought Confucianized beliefs of Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
to Taiwan's indigenous people. Many Plains aborigines adopted Han religious practices, though there is evidence that many aboriginal customs were transformed into local Taiwanese Han beliefs. In some parts of Taiwan the Siraya spirit of fertility, Ali-zu
Ali-zu
Ali-zu is an assimilated Siraya deity that is worshipped by former plains people in southern Taiwan....
(A-li-tsu) has become assimilated into the Han pantheon
Pantheon (gods)
A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...
. The use of female spirit mediums (tongji) can also be traced to the earlier matrilineal Inibs.
Although many aborigines assumed Han religious practices, several sub-groups sought protection from the European missionaries, who had started arriving in the 1860s. Many of the early Christian converts were displaced Pingpu groups that sought protection from the oppressive Han. The missionaries, under the articles of extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality is the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Extraterritoriality can also be applied to physical places, such as military bases of foreign countries, or offices of the United Nations...
, offered a form of power against the Qing establishment and could thus make demands on the government to provide redress for Pingpu complaints . Many of these early congregations have served to maintain aboriginal identity, language and cultures.
The influence of 19th and 20th-century missionaries has both transformed and maintained aboriginal integration. Many of the churches have replaced earlier tribal functions, but continue to retain a sense of continuity and community that unites members of aboriginal societies against the pressures of modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
. Several church leaders have emerged from within the tribes to take on leadership positions in petitioning the government in the interest of indigenous peoples
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....
and seeking a balance between the interests of the communities and economic vitality.
Music
A full-time aboriginal radio station, "Ho-hi-yan", was launched in 2005 (Ho Hi Yan 2005) with the help of the Executive YuanExecutive Yuan
The Executive Yuan is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China , commonly known as "Taiwan".-Organization and structure:...
, to focus on issues of interest to the indigenous community. [Listen to Ho-hi-yan; requires Windows Media Player 9 or higher]. This came on the heels of a "New wave of Indigenous Pop" , as aboriginal artists, such as A-mei
A-Mei
A-Mei , also known by her birth name Chang Hui-mei , is an aboriginal Taiwanese pop singer and occasional songwriter. She is also known by her aboriginal name Gulilai Amit . She was born in the rugged mountains of eastern Taiwan and is the third youngest of nine siblings. A-mei made her debut in...
(Puyuma tribe), Difang, A-Lin (Ami tribe), Pur-dur and Samingad
Samingad
Samingad is an aboriginal Taiwanese pop singer and songwriter. She is an ethnic Puyuma. In her native Puyuma language Samingad means "without equal". She was born October 2, 1977 in a Puyuma Township in Taitung County. She was discovered while singing in a restaurant, where she worked as a waitress...
(Puyuma tribe), and Landy Wen
Landy Wen
Landy Wen is a Taiwanese singer.A member of the Atayal ethnic group, she is one of the few Taiwanese aborigines to become a musical star....
(Atayal tribe) became international pop-stars. The rock musician Chang Chen-yue
Chang Chen-yue
Chang Chen-yue, also known as A-Yue is a Taiwanese rock musician known for his 1998 hit song "Ai Wo Bie Zou". He is a songwriter, singer and guitarist, and also a dance music DJ under the name DJ Orange. Chang is also the frontman of his band, Free Night, also known as Free9...
is a member of the Ami tribe. Music has given aborigines both a sense of pride and a sense of cultural ownership. The issue of ownership was exemplified when the musical project Enigma
Enigma (musical project)
Enigma is an electronic musical project founded in Germany by Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and Frank Peterson in 1990. The Romanian-born Cretu conceived the Enigma project while working in Germany, but has based his recording studio A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza, Spain, since the early 1990s until May...
used an Ami chant
Chant
Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...
in their song "Return to Innocence
Return to Innocence
"Return to Innocence" is a 1994 song created by the musical group Enigma. The single was the first from their chart-topping second album, The Cross of Changes....
", which was selected as the official theme of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
. The main chorus was sung by Difang and his wife, Igay. The Amis couple successfully sued Enigma's record label, which then paid royalties to the French museum that held the master recordings of the 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 .
Ecological issues
The indigenous tribes of Taiwan are closely linked with ecological awareness and conservationConservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
issues 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
Legislative Yuan
The Legislative Yuan is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China .The Legislative Yuan is one of the five branches of government stipulated by the Constitution of the Republic of China, which follows Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People...
, "focused debate on natural resource management and specifically on the involvement of aboriginal people therein" . Another high-profile case is the nuclear waste storage facility on Orchid Island
Orchid Island
Orchid Island is a 45-km² volcanic island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan island and separated from the Batanes of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait. It is governed as Lanyu Township of Taitung County...
, a small tropical island 60 km (30 nautical mile
Nautical mile
The nautical mile is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian, but is approximately one minute of arc of longitude only at the equator...
s) off the southeast coast of Taiwan. The inhabitants are the 4,000 members of the Tao
Tao people
The Tao , originally recognized as Yami , are a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island in Taiwan. The Tao are an Austronesian people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people of the Batanes islands in the Philippines than to other aboriginal peoples on...
(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 it was thought that the population would not cause trouble . Large-scale construction began in 1978 on a site 100 m (328.1 ft) 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 economically integrated areas in Taiwan" . 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
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
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 .
See also
- A New Partnership Between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of TaiwanA New Partnership Between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of TaiwanA New Partnership Between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Taiwan is a treaty-like document signed in Ponso no Tao on 1999-09-10 by the representatives of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the then-presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian .The seven articles in the documents...
- Batan Islands
- History of TaiwanHistory of TaiwanTaiwan was first populated by Negrito, and then Austronesian people. It was colonized by the Dutch in the 17th century, followed by an influx of Han Chinese including Hakka immigrants from areas of Fujian and Guangdong of mainland China, across the Taiwan Strait...
- List of ethnic groups in Taiwan
- Formosan Aboriginal Culture VillageFormosa Aboriginal Culture VillageThe Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village is an amusement park in the Nantou County of Taiwan which has been in operation since 1986. It is distinctive for its Formosan aboriginal culture theme...
- Shung Ye Museum of Formosan AboriginesShung Ye Museum of Formosan AboriginesShung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines is a museum located diagonally across from the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. It houses exhibits relating to the cultures and histories of the Taiwanese aborigines...
- Taiwanese Hokkien
External links
- Andrade, Tonio (2002). How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century. Columbia University Press, Gutenberg e-Books.
- Taiwan Aboriginal Culture Park, Bureau of Cultural Parks, Council of Indigenous PeoplesCouncil of Indigenous PeoplesThe Council of Indigenous Peoples , a ministry-level body under the Executive Yuan in Taiwan, was established in 1996 to provide a central point of government supervision for indigenous affairs, as well as a central interface for the Taiwan's indigenous community to interact...
, Executive YuanExecutive YuanThe Executive Yuan is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China , commonly known as "Taiwan".-Organization and structure:...
. - Council of Indigenous Peoples (Taiwan)
- Digital Museum of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples
- Academia Sinica: Formosan Language Archive
- An overview of the tribes
- Taiwan First Nations
- Reed Institute's Formosa Digital Library
- Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines official site
- Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines another description
- BBC News: Taiwan's aborigines find new voice
- Taiwan Indigenous Television