Taiwan Today

On a December morning in 2011, one of the halls at Huashan Creative Park in Taipei came to life with indigenous sounds and colors. The event was a fashion show where models displayed clothing inspired by the weaving traditions of the Atayal, one of the 14 officially recognized aboriginal peoples in Taiwan, while traditional aboriginal music played in the background. “We’re starting to think about commercializing the clothing we make. By doing so, it’ll be easier to enhance the visibility of our culture,” says Yuma Taru, the major figure behind the event and a researcher known for her efforts to preserve Atayal weaving legacies over the past 20 years.

In fact, the show was the third staged last year by Lihang Studio, a group created by Taru in Xiangpi, a small community nestled in the mountains of Miaoli County, northern Taiwan. Still, the woman of mixed Atayal and Han Chinese heritage thinks the present level of support given to the preservation of indigenous cultures from both Han Chinese and aborigines themselves is far from sufficient. “Indigenous people are still expected to learn how to mix with mainstream society. We’re often advised not to look back at the old ways of our ancestors, which many think became obsolete long ago,” Taru says. Even her mother, who is Atayal, would rather her daughter took up a regular job than spend her time working to preserve her tribe’s culture.

Taru has good reason to feel worried about the state of indigenous cultures. Although aboriginal peoples were the earliest dwellers on the island, much of their traditional culture has been lost due to their assimilation into groups of later immigrants to Taiwan, mainly Han Chinese and Japanese. Today, indigenous people account for around 2 percent of Taiwan’s total population of 23 million. The good news is that mainstream society and aboriginal groups are becoming increasingly aware of the need to protect indigenous cultures. At the end of 1996, the Cabinet-level Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) was established, which led to the birth of the government-funded Taiwan Indigenous Television station in July 2005, the first of its kind in Asia. At the same time, individuals throughout Taiwan like Taru have set up cultural workshops in an effort to revive interest in indigenous cultural practices such as weaving and traditional rituals, as well as rehabilitate the public perception of traditional facial tattooing.

“As more and more indigenous people devote themselves to this area, we’re starting to see encouraging successes,” says Wsay Kolas, CEO of the Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation (IPCF). Since it was established in August 2009, the foundation has promoted indigenous cultures through a variety of projects, which are approved and funded by the CIP. One such project begun in 2010 offered subsidies to 41 schemes that promoted aboriginal culture in an innovative manner, including Yuma Taru’s fashion venture. Taru received a subsidy of NT$600,000 (US$20,000) to develop and create clothing, as well as to stage a fashion show, which was held at Huashan Creative Park in December.

Personal Motivation

Oftentimes it is a sobering personal experience that galvanizes these cultural crusaders into taking action to honor the legacies of their ancestors. Previously a full-time public servant at the government-run Taichung Cultural Center in central Taiwan, Taru did not realize how little she knew about Atayal weaving traditions until she was asked to plan an exhibition of indigenous textile arts for the government center in 1990. She later quit her job at the cultural center, giving up a stable income in the process, in order to study Atayal traditional textiles at the Graduate School of Textiles and Clothing at New Taipei City’s Fu Jen Catholic University, from which she obtained a master’s degree in 1997. During that time, as she built solid academic knowledge about traditional weaving, Taru recruited young women in her native community and trained them as weavers for Lihang Studio. Thus, her epiphany about being disconnected from her roots eventually developed into a mission to preserve Atayal weaving traditions.

For Kimi Sibal, the founder of the Sediq Cultural Studio in Hualien on Taiwan’s east coast, it was his son’s clash with a Han Chinese classmate that prompted Sibal to begin giving lectures about the traditions of facial tattooing practiced by his forebears. “My son was called ‘barbarian’ in Taiwanese. A fight ensued. His classmate said to his face it was natural for him to become violent because both mafia bosses and his ancestors had tattoos on their bodies,” Sibal says of insults hurled at his son about 15 years ago. “Facial tattoos are a symbol of pride and honor for my people, but for a long time the practice was vilified by outsiders. I need to change its negative image,” the 60-year-old man explains.

In Taiwan, according to Sibal, only Atayal people and their cousins, the Truku and Sediq peoples, who were officially recognized as distinct from the Atayal in 2004 and 2008 respectively, had facial tattoos. “But Han Chinese immigrants mistook the tattoos as the same kind of punishment criminals received in ancient China. Then the Japanese called us ‘barbarians of the forests’ because of the designs on our faces,” says Sibal, a member of the Sediq tribe. The Japanese, who ruled the island from 1895 to 1945, banned the tradition in 1913 in their efforts to assimilate the colonized local population.

Sibal’s first step was to conduct field research to learn the stories behind the tattoos, but that turned out to be quite challenging, mainly because he had to split his time between his job at a cement manufacturing plant and visiting elderly Atayal, Sediq and Truku people, whose dwellings are scattered throughout the mountains in the northern half of the island. It also was difficult talking them into having their photos taken because some worried that the pictures could “steal their souls.” Others refused to cooperate since they had once been photographed by people who promised to give the photos to them, but never did. “Those people’s failure to keep their word became a barrier to my job,” says Sibal, noting that the tribespeople put a premium on honesty.

From the early 1990s until about two years ago, Sibal took photos of and spoke with more than 300 Atayal, Sediq and Truku elders with facial tattoos. It is thanks to his efforts that a large amount of information about the practice has been compiled at a time when the tradition is fast fading from Taiwan’s collective memory. As far as Sibal knows, there are only seven people with traditional tattoos still living, and the youngest of them is already 92 years old. Through the lectures, which Sibal began in Taiwan in 2000 and abroad in 2004, the researcher also has helped eliminate some of the bias against the practice. “I expect to have more time for lectures and let more people know about [facial tattooing] in the near future,” he says in reference to his retirement from the cement manufacturer this year.

Traditional Atayal clothing passed down through the generations is also hard to come by today, which Baunay Watan, Taru’s husband, says constitutes a major barrier to Lihang Studio’s research. According to Watan, who joined Lihang Studio mainly as its photographer, weaving by indigenous peoples was banned by the Japanese, although some individuals continued the handicraft covertly. Meanwhile, it is difficult to preserve many of the clothes and fabric, which were made from natural materials, from those early days. As a result, Taru often needs to visit museums in Taiwan and abroad that have collections of such items, including a number of Japanese institutions that house Atayal clothing from the Japanese colonial era. She has also made a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada to view a collection of indigenous clothing from Taiwan collected by George Leslie Mackay (1844–1901), a Canadian missionary based in northern Taiwan for the second half of his life, who spent much time among local aborigines.

“We were delighted when we found the clothes have been so well preserved in those museums, which are equipped with humidity and temperature control systems,” Watan says. “It’s so important to see and feel [with gloves] the actual things. Photos alone give you little idea about their structure and texture,” he adds.

Taru continues to conduct field studies in Taiwan on traditional Atayal weaving techniques and pattern designs by talking to elderly tribeswomen. “For an Atayal woman, competence in weaving boosted one’s social status. Consequently, weaving skills were passed down only from mothers to daughters,” Watan says. “But we let these elderly weavers know that the weaving traditions would soon die out if they refused to share their knowledge with outsiders.”

The field research is challenging also because of the forced relocation of indigenous peoples from place to place during the Japanese era. According to Watan, the Japanese often split up a tribe and then moved members to other places to live with people from other tribes. The purpose of the demographic reshuffling was to weaken the cohesiveness of indigenous groupings and make it easier for the Japanese to rule over them, he says. This poses a challenge to cultural researchers today, who frequently have to piece information together in order to reach a conclusion about a certain tradition or legacy, such as a weaving style belonging to a particular group.

Wsay Kolas notes that the measures taken by the Japanese colonialists and then the Republic of China government, which took over in 1945, to move mountain-dwelling aborigines such as the Atayal to the plains also had the effect of uprooting them and undermining their culture. Indeed, when it comes to cultural preservation, geographical isolation is often deemed an advantage. “The Amis are facing a greater threat of assimilation than most other indigenous groups mainly because they have long inhabited the plains, living among the Han Chinese,” says Kolas, herself a member of Taiwan’s largest indigenous group. She says the culture of the Yami, or Tao, people, for example, is better preserved than other indigenous groups because they live on remote Orchid Island, which lies off the southeastern shore of Taiwan. She worries that the recent boom in tourism to the islet poses a serious threat to Tao cultural integrity, however.

Cultural displays that pander to tourists distort or stereotype indigenous cultures, Kolas says. That is a great concern for Lalan Unak, an Amis man from Hualien, who began to document the cultural aspects of his tribe’s daily life in the 1980s by videotaping everything from folk religion practices to folk medicine to traditional rituals. “It’s wrong to attract tourists by vulgarizing culture. We need to develop tourism and retain our cultural roots at the same time,” he says.

Hands-On Culture

Unak founded the Fataan Pangcah Cultural Workshop in 1996. Today, his research into the tribe’s culture complements the various tourism services he offers, which range from guided tours of the local area to hands-on experiences such as his tribe’s traditional style of fishing. Unak insists on presenting genuine examples of indigenous traditions to visitors, including the famous harvest ritual, a performance of singing and dancing long practiced by Amis tribes. “Most tourism operators tend to stage performances featuring young girls in revealing costumes and using exaggerated gestures. I feel uncomfortable with that,” he says. Instead, his troupe consists of men and women from the local community who have actually performed the ritual for its own sake since their youth. Unak is also serious about the details of the costumes and says the clothes can be quite expensive to make, which is why he never lets tourists try them on. The troupe sometimes even travels to other Amis tribes to teach young people about the ritual. “It’s revived tribal culture in many other communities. This is probably its greatest contribution to cultural preservation,” he says.

Unak’s workshop hopes to sustain this revival by expanding its activities. The organization offers complete courses in woodcarving to tribespeople, some of whom already have their own studios. Last year, the workshop was commissioned by the Hualien Forest District Office under the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture to carry out a survey of native plants in Unak’s community that are used in traditional folk medicine. As dozens of local people have been trained in the survey methods of identifying local plants and medicines, tribe members are becoming more aware of their surroundings and the tribe’s history.

Meanwhile, the IPCF continues to seek talented individuals dedicated to preserving and extending indigenous traditions. This year, one of the major events organized by the foundation will be a national visual arts contest focusing on indigenous culture, with winners announced in the second half of the year.

“Both Southern Min and Hakka people [two major groups of immigrants originally from mainland China] are Han Chinese, and share the same basic culture, language and ethnicity as people in mainland China. It’s indigenous culture that makes Taiwan distinct,” Kolas says. “The government should look at it as one of Taiwan’s treasures and give it more support, especially considering how indigenous peoples still lag behind economically and educationally.”

The sense of urgency Yuma Taru feels about preserving indigenous culture has pushed her to offer a new ethnic education project for children in her tribe. In September 2011, six children from 2 to 5 years old took the free classes in Atayal culture using teaching materials created by Lihang Studio. But, despite her studio’s success in reproducing indigenous attire—Lihang was entrusted to create the vast majority of indigenous costumes for the recent high-profile film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale—her mother still tried to dissuade Taru from taking up the new challenge. “She just wants me to have an easier life. We talked about this nearly all night,” Taru says of the discussion between mother and daughter on the eve of the December fashion show in Taipei.

Taru has not heeded her mother’s advice, however, and is just as determined to continue her work of boosting Taiwan’s indigenous cultures as Kimi Sibal and Lalan Unak. “This project is of great significance,” Taru says. “Hopefully, it can inspire other people who wish to improve the state of indigenous cultures through education.”

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw