Tao people
Encyclopedia
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...
in 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...
. The Tao are an Austronesian
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,...
people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people
Ivatan people
The Ivatans are a Filipino ethnolinguistic group predominant in the Batanes Islands of the Philippines. The origins of the Ivatans remained untraced among scholars, although evidences suggest that they are Christians who lived in the islands between northern Luzon and Taiwan...
of the Batanes
Batanes
The Province of Batanes , also called the Batanes Islands, is a Philippine province comprising ten islands that are located in the Luzon Strait between the islands of Luzon and Taiwan...
islands in 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...
than to other aboriginal peoples on the main island of Taiwan. The word "Tao" means "person" or "people" in both the Tao language
Tao language
Yami , also known as Tao , is a variety of the Ivatan dialect cluster spoken by the Tao people of Taiwan. It is spoken on Orchid Island, 46 kilometers southeast of the main island of Taiwan. Yami is known as ciriciring no Tao, or "human speech," by its native speakers...
and all Philippine languages
Philippine languages
The Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama–Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a subfamily of Austronesian languages...
. The Tao people are traditionally good at making balangay
Balangay
The Balangay or Balanghai is the first wooden watercraft ever excavated in Southeast Asia. Also known as the Butuan boat, this artifact is evidence of early Filipino craftsmanship and their seamanship skills during pre-colonial times...
s (native canoes), which is a symbol of their tribe.
In the year 2000 the Yami numbered 3,872. This was approximately 1% of Taiwan's total indigenous population.
the eating of the Yami
The Yami people—some 3,000 inhabitants of Irala (Orchard Island) south of Taiwan—rely on flying fish they catch during the summers as a major source of food year-round. The Yami language includes names for about 450 species of fish. Their fish taxonomy distinguishes edible fish (ovod a among) from inedible fish (maharet a among). These are subdivided into fish forbidden for men or forbidden for women. Pregnant women may only eat four species of fish, and the elderly consume only other species. The Yami language transmits this rich culinary and cultural knowledge of fish.See also
- Taitung CountyTaitung CountyTaitung County is a county in eastern Taiwan. The name means "Eastern Taiwan". Taitung County is also known as 後山 by many of the locals, meaning behind the mountains or the back mountains. Taitung is officially administered as a county of Taiwan, Republic of China.Taitung runs along the south east...
- Ivatan languageIvatan languageThe Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
- BatanesBatanesThe Province of Batanes , also called the Batanes Islands, is a Philippine province comprising ten islands that are located in the Luzon Strait between the islands of Luzon and Taiwan...
- Austronesian languagesAustronesian languagesThe 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...
- Taiwanese aboriginesTaiwanese aboriginesTaiwanese 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...