In June last year, the Hla’alua and Kanakanavu were officially recognized as Taiwan’s 15th and 16th indigenous tribes. The two groups, which have around 400 and 520 members, respectively, were previously viewed as subgroups of the Tsou people, who mainly live in Chiayi County’s Alishan Township in southern Taiwan and Nantou County’s Xinyi Township in central Taiwan. However, the Hla’alua and Kanakanavu people, who primarily reside in Taoyuan and Namasia districts, respectively, in southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City, have distinct customs, languages and rituals, and formal recognition is expected to boost the tribes’ efforts to preserve their cultural identities.
In total, Taiwan’s indigenous peoples number around 530,000, comprising approximately 2 percent of the population. Throughout most of the last century, there were nine officially recognized aboriginal tribes. However, this number inadequately represented the rich ethnic diversity of the nation’s indigenous communities. In 2001, the Republic of China (ROC) government promulgated the Status Act for Indigenous Peoples to promote the recognition and reconstruction of aboriginal identity. Later that year, the Thao people, who are based in Nantou’s Sun Moon Lake area and were also previously considered part of the Tsou group, became Taiwan’s 10th officially recognized tribe. This marked the beginning of ongoing efforts to confer formal tribal status on the different ethnic groups among the country’s aboriginal peoples. “This process demonstrates the national policy shift toward a pluralistic model that respects the will of indigenous peoples and seeks to promote their unique ethnic identities,” notes Lin Chiang-i (林江義), minister of the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP).
ROC government policies concerning the nation’s aboriginal citizens have evolved significantly over the past few decades. The minister, who is a member of the Amis tribe and whose aboriginal name is Mayaw Dongi, points in particular to the 1997 amendment to the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the ROC, which requires the state to safeguard the status and political participation of indigenous peoples, as well as the 2005 promulgation of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act, a sweeping law to promote and protect aboriginal rights in a wide range of areas. As a result of measures such as these, Taiwan’s policies are now in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Lin says.
According to Wang Ming-huey (汪明輝), an associate professor in the Department of Geography at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) in Taipei, the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act’s quasi-constitutional status is a significant departure from the administrative rules that were previously used as the legal basis for the management of aboriginal affairs. “This act is an extremely important milestone in the development of indigenous rights in Taiwan,” he says.
Members of the Amis tribe perform the Ilisin ritual at a square in New Taipei City in 2012. (Photo by Central News Agency)
The scholar, whose Tsou name is Tibusungu’e Vayayana, heads NTNU’s Indigenous Research and Development Center, and has helped conduct CIP-funded surveys of traditional tribal territories. The basic act guarantees indigenous peoples’ right to self-rule in officially recognized aboriginal regions, though the supporting legislation for this has yet to be enacted. The CIP-funded surveys may be used in the future to determine the territorial boundaries for self-governing indigenous communities.
Provisions such as the recognition of aboriginal peoples’ right to autonomous rule underscore the substantial progress that has been made since the emergence of the indigenous rights movement in the 1980s. During that decade, groups such as the Taiwan Indigenous People’s Rights Development Association were formed to highlight the concerns of aboriginal communities. Notably, indigenous activists emphasized their Austronesian heritage in contrast to the Han Chinese ancestry of the majority of ROC citizens.
Recognizing Tribal Names
As a result of these efforts, a number of measures were enacted to promote formal recognition of aboriginal identity. In 1995, the law was changed to allow indigenous peoples to use their tribal names on official forms of identification, although the names were still transcribed using Han characters. In 2006, the ROC government required each citizen to swap their national identity card for a new version, and these new cards allowed indigenous peoples to use the Romanization of their tribal names.
The standard Mandarin term for the island’s indigenous peoples has also been altered over the years to reflect their ethnic distinctiveness. A constitutional amendment in 1994 changed the expression shan bao (mountain compatriots) to yuan zhu min (original inhabitants). Subsequently, another constitutional amendment was promulgated in 2000 to replace yuan zhu min with yuan zhu min zu (original peoples).
An aboriginal man demonstrates a traditional method for building a fire at the business exhibition in Taipei. (Photo by Chin Hung-hao)
Furthermore, the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act allows for the restoration of the aboriginal names for districts, mountains, rivers and towns in traditional tribal territories. As a result, the names of several areas have been changed in recent years, including the Kanakanavu tribe’s home district, which was renamed in 2008 from Sanmin to Namasia.
Lin points out that many issues concerning indigenous affairs—including the renaming of rivers, towns and other places—are handled at a local government level, and that consensus must be reached among all residents, including those without aboriginal heritage. A total of 55 townships and cities across Taiwan have been classified as aboriginal regions, and 25 of these have large numbers of residents of Han Chinese ancestry, the minister notes.
The ROC government has also enacted laws to address comparatively high unemployment levels in aboriginal communities. The Indigenous Peoples Employment Rights Protection Act, which was promulgated in 2001, stipulates that aboriginal peoples should make up at least 1 percent of the workforce in government agencies, public schools and state-owned enterprises with 100 or more employees. Furthermore, the act states that indigenous peoples should comprise at least one-third of the employees for these organizations if they are located within the 55 recognized aboriginal regions. Indigenous peoples are also given priority when applying for government procurement contracts and small-scale construction projects in these areas.
Toward Full Implementation
Although much has been achieved over the past few decades, Tibusungu’e points out that progress has been slow in enacting some aspects of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act. Lin emphasizes that the CIP has been working to address this, and has drafted a law for initial implementation of self-rule in aboriginal regions. “We hope to introduce some form of partial autonomy and then work toward full-fledged self-governance,” he says.
Tung Yuan-chao (童元昭), an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei and the director of the school’s Center for Indigenous Studies, also stresses the need to adapt existing laws. She says, for example, that amendments to the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act are required to avoid disputes such as a 2014 case in Laiyi Township in southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County concerning the registration of a quinquennial Paiwan ritual with the county government. This issue arose because the ceremony, known as the Maljeveq ritual, was jointly registered by a local cultural group and a Paiwan family without consulting another tribal family that traditionally co-organized the event. Some local residents were upset that the cultural group had assumed responsibility for the ceremony, which entitles it to apply for government funding, without consulting the wider community.
The Atayal village of Smangus, located in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu County, is known for the collective management model used to operate the farms in the community. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
In September 2014, three weeks before the latest edition of the Paiwan ritual took place, representatives from the public and private sectors in Laiyi were invited to discuss the matter at a forum in Taipei that was organized by Tung’s center as part of a series of lectures on indigenous cultures. “In this case, some local views were ignored in the administrative process,” Tung says. “The implementation of aboriginal polices must be responsive to differences of opinion between and within tribes.”
The NTU center plays a significant role in collecting and disseminating information on indigenous affairs. From September 2014 to January this year, it organized a separate set of lectures to discuss some of the major issues concerning indigenous communities, including joint administration of national parks, conservation areas and other natural regions that fall within traditional tribal territories. As stipulated by the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act, the government has established a common management mechanism for these areas, and the NTU center is seeking to improve the operation of this system. “This mechanism is important as it gives indigenous peoples a stronger say in policymaking concerning these regions,” Tung says.
Tibusungu’e says that aboriginal peoples would be able to increase their political influence and speed up the legislative process if they worked collectively. Six out of the 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan are reserved for indigenous peoples, and there are also many aboriginal representatives at the local government level. “However, these politicians tend to vote along party lines rather than thinking about what’s best for their tribes,” he says.
Though the development of indigenous laws is an ongoing process, much has been achieved over the past few decades. The rise in the number of officially recognized tribes highlights efforts to protect the ethnic diversity of Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples. Meanwhile, the CIP is diligently working toward the full implementation of the basic act. “Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples have a great deal of wisdom to share with the nation,” Tibusungu’e says. “Giving indigenous groups a bigger role in the decision-making process will benefit not only tribal communities, but society as a whole.”
Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw