Dulan Mountain, craggy and tall amidst the ranges of Taitung County on Taiwan’s east coast, is considered by many to be a sacred mountain. Seen from any angle, its majesty inspires awe and it is easy to see why both the area’s Amis and Puyuma tribes worship Dulan Mountain as a divine presence. Many visitors instantly fall under its sway, while numerous residents say they feel the area is alive with the energies of mountain and sea, so that those living in the area are charged with a wakefulness and creativity not usually experienced elsewhere.
It was to Dulan Village that prize-winning author Wang Jia-xiang, 44, and longtime partner Gong Li-chun moved their lives in 2005 from the schedule-dominated pressure of Kaohsiung City, where Wang had served for seven years as chief editor of the literary section of the Japanese-founded daily Taiwan Times.
Wang is an international figure in the context of late-20th century Taiwanese literature, even though not that many readers on the island are aware of him. In fact, you cannot easily buy Wang’s books in regular bookshops and must go to specialized bookstores to place an order directly from the publisher. But Wei Te-sheng, the dynamic young director of 2008’s blockbuster Cape No.7, has long been an ardent admirer of Wang’s work, which often features little known historical events concerning Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.
Wang says Wei is interested in filming a trilogy of movies based on his 1996 epic novel Daofeng Inner Sea, which is set in the wetlands of present-day Tainan County, southern Taiwan. Unlike Cape No.7, a modern tale made on a modest budget, filming Wang’s historical novel would likely require significant financial backing. Daofeng Inner Sea describes southern Taiwan four centuries ago, and Wei’s film trilogy is planned to include the swamp culture of the tall and stalwart Siraya tribesmen and their life in the woods hunting deer with spears, the pirate culture of marauding Chinese and Japanese bandits and their interactions with the various types of Taiwan residents, the appearance of the Dutch, who were enchanted with the wildlife running free on the plains, and their subsequent decision to establish a colony in Tainan by building a fortress. The narrative takes the reader into the fierce battles between the indigenous Siraya people and the Dutch colonialists.
Author Wang Jia-xiang has been examining aspects of life in Formosa that have been overlooked. (Photo by Joan Stanley-Baker)
“Wang is one of the very first writers to bring out the story of the original Formosa. He introduced Taiwan’s aboriginals long before others,” says Chen Wan-yi, a professor in the Institute of Taiwan Literature at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan and a cofounder of the Department of Taiwan Literature at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, southern Taiwan. Wang has researched and written a great deal about indigenous culture, but he is Han Chinese. “Although there have been aboriginal writers since, they present mostly the aboriginal perspective. Only Wang Jia-xiang reveals the whole picture, integrating Taiwan’s flora and fauna and its native first peoples. He also writes about the Dutch and the Japanese in Taiwan, as well as the various Han Chinese. He writes of pirate fleets made up of Chinese and Japanese bandits, and their interactions with aboriginal tribes as well as Chinese settlers. And he always writes through the persuasive voice of a participant,” Chen says.
In fact, Wang Jia-xiang’s books over the decades have been quietly examining aspects of life in Formosa that were overlooked by the Manchus in the 17th to 19th centuries, by the Japanese in the first half of the 20th century, and by many official Chinese-language textbooks ever since. His historical short stories and novels dig beneath the layers of recent narratives to expose the rich and pungent indigenous life that has thrived here since prehistory.
Wang’s story About Lamada Xianxian and Lahe Alei tells of the Bunun tribe warrior Istanda Lamata Sing Sing and the shaman Dahoali. In the story, which was published by Taiwan Historical Novels, Co. in 1995, we learn about the indigenous resistance through a fictitious field journal of real-life Japanese anthropologist Mori Ushinosuke (1877–1926) from Kyoto, who according to Japanese official records jumped to his death on his return sea journey to Japan in 1926.
True to Life
In Wang’s retelling, Mori reappears through the “journal,” saying he swam back to shore to continue living amongst the Bunun tribesmen he had come to understand, love and respect. In the story, he chooses to live the second part of his life amongst the Bunun rather than return to Japan’s academe or civil service. In Wang’s imaginative tale, Mori is accepted by the Ebako Bunun tribe living in the deep mountains in the vicinity of today’s Southern Link Highway. He receives the tribal name of Kaviar, meaning friend or adopted tribe member.
Members of the Amis tribe in Hualien, eastern Taiwan, return from fishing. Wang Jia-xiang’s historical novels are based on detailed research of the traditional lifestyles and cultures of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. (Photo by Wang Wei-chang)
Construction work was actually started in the 1920s to convert a beautiful and treacherous ancient mountain footpath into the highway by the Japanese police, who were trying to capture the leaders of the real Bunun resistance, warrior hero Istanda Lamata Sing Sing and shaman hero Dahoali. The fictional notebook, on which the dramatic story of Bunun-Japanese struggle is based, won Wang a measure of attention around Taiwan in April 1993 when the story was serialized in the Independent Evening News. Noted poet and critic Lin Juei-ming, a professor in the Department of History at National Cheng Kung University, was completely fooled, believing in the authenticity of the “diary.” “At a time when no one was willing to enter the treacherous mountains for fieldwork, Mori alone, when ordered to undertake the surveys, was not only happy to enter the mountains, but often would go in and stay for days on end, forgetting to come back. There was even one time when he went in for two years running,” Lin recounted to the newspaper of Mori’s real history. “Jumping ship in 1926, walking into Bunun tribal mountains—this time is not forgetting to return, but a determination to live as a Bunun tribesman,” Lin concluded in response to the fictional newspaper serial, such was the ring of veracity to Wang’s work.
In the story Record of Kapalan included in Wang’s 1995 collection of short stories called About Lamada Xianxian and Lahe Alei, Wang recounts some of the resistance movements by indigenous peoples to colonization that have not been common knowledge among immigrants to Taiwan of the last century. Record of Kapalan is based on Through Formosa, an Account of Japan’s Island Colony, a real travelogue by early 20th century British adventurer Owen Rutter (1889–1944), who wrote of Japanese soldiers being attacked by tribesmen that found themselves suddenly bullied by the gun-toting Japanese militia. Perhaps this use of source material is why Wang’s stories of the past and of tribal life always ring true, but because his writing style is sensitive, vivid and observant, they also instruct far more than would any history book or museum publication with mere facts and figures.
Another story in the same book, Warring Taiwan, a Pastor’s Own Account, is told in the words of an imaginary Christian preacher who witnesses the island’s Japanese takeover from the Manchus in the late 19th century and the ensuing aboriginal insurgence. In an interview about the tale Wang remarked, “The Manchu Court had become entirely corrupt at the time, and Taipei had even briefly formed a republic, with the Qing commissioner as president. But the Qing troops, disheartened at the collapse of the Qing empire, began to loot, rob and behave like bandits, so that the intelligentsia had to go to the Japanese troops to ask for help in restoring order and creating a measure of governance. There was much confusion all over the island, as well as divided loyalties. It was a very emotional and dramatic interlude.” Wang’s research informs his characters in depth, and he has much knowledge of the natural world, so that modern readers are brought lovingly into the verdant and resonant mountains and gorges of pre-industrialized, pre-urbanized Taiwan. Journeying through his pages we develop a new familiarity, a new love and respect for the original Taiwan and her first inhabitants.
Boys in Taitung County take part in target practice during the monkey-piercing ritual for young men. These days, straw “monkeys” are used instead of the real thing. (Photo by Wang Wei-chang)
In Wang’s books, different indigenous tribes interact with each other as well as with foreign invader-settlers including the Dutch, Manchu, Japanese and Han Chinese. His is the little known, but fascinating, history that is unique to Taiwan, a story far longer than the 60-odd years of Republic of China government rule.
Today, as Wang explains, the first peoples of Taiwan still comprise subgroups of many language systems. The Amis alone have branches differing in dialect and customs, having lived apart on the island in dissimilar environments, he says. Of the east coast are the tall and lordly Puyuma, traditionally the most warlike of Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples. Wang says their year-end Monkey Ceremony marks a boy’s entry into manhood. Young men of the Puyuma tribe must go through four trials of strength and courage, the most important of which is piercing a monkey with a bamboo staff.
For many years, the village of Dulan in the foothills of the sacred mountain was sparsely populated with only a handful of Han and Amis along the coast and a few settlements further up in the hills. Recently, with the spreading fame of the area’s beauty, many city folk have come to set up summer and winter retreats, or simply to migrate as new settlers.
“Here in Dulan we have mainly Amis, otherwise there are many recent immigrant artists who are changing the social and cultural scene, and some yuppies with their Benzes and architect-designed homes,” Wang says. “But I’d say my wife and I are hippies. I’ve been a hippie since way back. That is, we don’t go in for fashionable cars, fashionable homes or fashionable schedules. We don’t join the aboriginal or Han artists and the intellectuals for late-night sessions and drinks. We’re early sleepers and early risers. We don’t go to work, but rent out simple rooms to backpackers and surfers.” The couple’s income is irregular and unpredictable, but they have earned their freedom to write, to paint, to visit like-minded friends, and to take their beloved “family” of some 24 dogs on weekly sightseeing trips.
Women cut open banana stems for the inner fibers that will be dyed and woven into cloth. (Photo by Wang Wei-chang)
As a student in the Forestry Department at National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, central Taiwan, Wang roamed the hills for days. He often met aboriginals, and over time learned many of their stories. Later he quit university to join an aboriginal band that toured Taiwan for a whole year, gaining a glimpse of the different types of reception indigenous people gave their kin outside their settlements. At various towns, tribal kinsmen of band members of different tribes would welcome the entire band, and in this manner Wang experienced distinct cultural structures and customs. Most tribes like the Amis are matrilineal, while the historically more warlike tribes have been patrilineal, he says. Wang describes how each tribe used to have a shamaness who was chosen by the elder outgoing shamaness, and the tribal deity would descend onto her and speak to the tribe through her voice. Direct contact with invisible spirits was prevalent throughout the island not only among aboriginal people, but also with animals, and Wang became respectful of their presence. Bunun shamnesses used to interpret dreams and make herbal medicines of great efficacy, Wang says. Today, however, the legacy of language policies under the Japanese (1895–1945) and the Kuomintang, which forbade public use of aboriginal tongues to at least two generations, meant that children could no longer learn from their grandmothers, and the sacred traditions of the shamaness have virtually died out.
Just Beneath the Surface
Wang Jia-xiang reminds us of the vivid presence of such traditions just beneath the surface of everyday life. In the short story Voices of Autumn which he published in a blog, Wang writes, “Some sounds can grow in the heart, even become boisterous, but there is no sound whatsoever near the ear. Only the Siraya’s shamanness can hear the Xianghun [ritual] spirit voices yearning for autumn. Perhaps voices of ghostly spirits continually wandering in the world have never left, yet songs raised by the plains Siraya in ritual antiphonal chanting in autumn have gradually disappeared. The sounds we are told of in ancient Taiwan documents of deer hunters racing through sparsely wooded plains have long ceased to be! Echoes of ritual singing in autumn no longer reverberate over the great open fields…”
These days, Wang sometimes makes the trip to the small village of Xinshe in nearby Hualien County to a favorite aboriginal restaurant, which offers roasted flying fish (in season), cold seaweed, and Ali feng feng, a kind of zongzi, or rice dumpling, made of steamed white and black rice stuffed with wild boar and mushroom, and wrapped with leaves woven intricately into a free-standing little basket that requires a seasoned hand to open. The local Amis moved to the area more than three centuries ago from present-day Yilan County, having been driven south by early Han colonists. Left in relative peace since then, these Amis have taken to fishing and weaving, creating in the area a culture somewhat distinct from their Amis neighbors to the north and south.
Ali feng feng, a traditional kind of rice dumpling wrapped in woven leaves (Photo by Joan Stanley-Baker)
Not far from the restaurant is a tiny workshop where Kavalan women gather to make a silken fabric from the central stems of banana leaves. In the past, elder tribeswomen had gathered together to weave the cloth, Wang explains. They would tell stories as they spun, dyed and wove. The shiny banana leaves were stripped and the spine separated into threads that were pounded and dyed and wound onto wooden spindles. The final product was a shiny and cool fabric that becomes ever softer with wear, but never loses its sheen. This tradition was in danger of being lost, however, and only recently did the Council for Cultural Affairs intervene, enlisting the help of the Council of Labor Affairs to organize workshops promoting the craft. Here in a modest house, five small looms have been set up and the weavers have changed from sitting on the ground with threads banded around the waist, to working on the looms while seated on chairs. The project has been going for several years already, but no products have been forthcoming to promote this interesting and plentiful material native to Taiwan as the cultural specialty it once was.
Surrounded by the living heritage of indigenous culture, Wang continues to absorb and digest, research and contemplate the stories and events of Taiwan’s multicultural, polyethnic past. At day’s end, he returns to his home off the highway and to his quiet life, but he is always alive to the stories, myths and legends of Taiwan’s original inhabitants, be they plants, animals or people.
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Joan Stanley-Baker is an art historian and art critic based in Taipei.
Copyright © 2010 by Joan Stanley-Baker