It was late August, and the people who keep office hours and have to confine themselves to air-conditioned rooms did not sense the delicate changes in the air. Not so in the countryside, where it was time for a bounteous harvest after a year's labor. For the Ami tribe in eastern Taiwan, the changes in the air heralded the ilisin ceremony, in celebration of a bumper harvest.
The Ami dancers have long been noted for their handsome features, attractive complexions, gorgeous traditional garments, and lithe and graceful dancing. Stimulated by the season, we decided to pay them a visit.
The basin area of eastern Taiwan, inhabited by some 85,000 Ami tribesmen, is sandwiched between the Central Mountain Range and the coast, and extends from Hualien in the north to Taitung in the south. Designated according to certain cultural differences and geographical distribution, the Ami are generally viewed by ethnologists as belonging to five groups: the Nanshih Ami, Hsiukuluan Ami, Coastal Ami, Peinan or Taitung Ami, and Hengchun Ami. Many Japanese scholars, however, distinguish only three divisions-the Northern, Central, and Southern groups.
The origins of the Ami tribe rise in legend: A long time ago, two children, a brother and sister, Pilukalau and Marokirok, lived at a place called Karara. One day, the seas suddenly flooded the earth, and all was swept away. The brother and sister were quick enough climb into a large square wood mortar, which drifted to a place called Tsatsula?an. They were alone in the world, and when they grew up, they made love, after the sister first covered her face and body with an animal's hide. Over the years, she gave birth to 12 children-six boys and girls. They and their descendants became the ancestors of the Vataan clan, and several clans of the Nanshih Ami, the Atayal and the Bunun.
When the brother and sister were escaping on their mortar-boat, they encountered Tsihtsih and Patorau, also brother and sister, drifting on the wall pane of a house. The latter two drifted to Amanalai, where they settled down and multiplied.
Meanwhile, there lived at a place called Kalapanapanai a boy named Lutsi and his sister, Lalakan. The sudden flood swept another sister away. In order to rescue her, the two also utilized a square wood mortar. They failed to save her, however, but finally landed at Tsilayasan, where they settled down.
This couple then gave birth to snakes and frogs. Though greatly disappointed, they kept the snakes and frogs inside a rattan chest. This secret was revealed to the almighty Goddess Sauliyau when the couple was making a fire. To find out the whole truth, Sauliyau dispatched her son Tatakosan to the earth. After hearing their story, Tatakosan told the couple that they could not raise the creatures, which might endanger their security in the future. The couple accepted his judgment.
Tatakosan then returned to heaven to report to his mother Sauliyau. His mother decided to give the couple the seeds of millet and glutinous rice, and the couple was advised that when they scratched their heads, the millet and glutinous rice would fall down like lice. The couple stored the seed properly, and Sauliyau then told them to till the land, and gave them thick and thin bamboos, bananas, rattan, ginger, cogongrass, and other plants, which fell from heaven, one after another. Tatakosan told them to cultivate every plant that fell to them, and they obliged.
Sauliyau then ordered Tatakosan to inspect the millet and glutinous rice crops, and he taught the couple how to kill weeds. When the millet and glutinous rice were mature, Tatakosan taught them how to harvest the grain and how to make rice cakes. Later, Sauliyau and her son both visited the couple in person. They retrieved a huge bamboo tube, from which emerged a small hog which proceeded to grow to jumbo size in a short while. The couple killed the hog with a sharpened bamboo knife and made a fire of cogongrass. After burning off the bristles, they cut the hog open and hung it up in rattan bindings after first washing it clean. The hog's right front foot, liver, heart, lungs, and skin, and a rice cake and rice dough made from wet uncooked rice were then placed in satapas, rattan containers, and dedicated to the gods. And this is the origin of the Ami and the ilisin celebration of the bumper harvest.
The legend says that the immortals dined with Lalakan and Lutsi and gave them a remedy for their inability to bear human children. They gave birth to frogs and snakes, they were told, because they were brother and sister; to conceive human children they must place a sheep-skin between them when they made love. They later gave birth to two daughters, the ancestors of the Tavarong and Kiwit clans.
The legends tell the origins of the flood, which came from nowhere suddenly:
While the forefathers of the tribes were still living at Karara, the God Majau and Goddess Tsinatsinau gave birth to a daughter, Tejamatsan. She had a luminous body and couldn't hide her radiance. The Sea God Panasajan and Goddess Rijar had two sons-the Thunder God Kodunkun and Kalawatsan. Both proposed to Tejamatsan. The Thunder God arrived first, and Tejamatsan's parents consented to his marriage to their daughter, and had to reject Kalawatsan's proposal. It was agreed that the marriage ceremony would be held five days later.
However, the Thunder God's brother came again to plead with Tejamatsan's parents, but to no avail. He announced: "I will marry her in two days." Tejamatsan told him, "I wanted to marry you. Please don't take offence at my parent's objection."
Two days later, when Kalawatsan showed up, Tejamatsan's mother hid her daughter immediately. "She is not at home," she told him. But Tejamatsan's radiance penetrated through everything, betraying her whereabouts, whereupon Kalawatsan brought her to the east.
Hearing the news, the Thunder God raged against Tejamatsan's parents, and finally demanded: "Let her be wife to me in Winter; let Kalawatsan have her in summer." The parents would not consent to this arrangement. The Thunder God decided to show his power. Thunder raged and rumbled in the skies, and the seas receded. Tejamatsan's mother finally nodded her head, but too late. The swelling sea rapidly submerged the entire earth, drowning almost all its inhabitants, who ascended to heaven and became sparkling stars. It is said that the ancient stone pillars still standing in the table lands of eastern Taiwan were trans formed at this time from wooden columns.
It is amazing to find in the Ami folk legends such close resemblances to Greek mythology and the Bible.
The legends say that in the fourth generation, Vadah gave birth to Alovai, a daughter whose private parts held sharp teeth. Later, she married three husbands, all of whom died on the marriage bed. When Alovals mother discovered her secret, she considered it an evil omen; she tied the girl up in sackcloth, put her into a chest, and deposited her in the river. The chest drifted south, landing on the coast at Sare?ewan, where a man named Tartar rescued her. After hearing her fateful story, he decided to grind down the teeth in her private parts with stones. He tested with cogongrass, and when he found teeth marks on the grass, ground them again. After three times, the work was completed. Tartar then married Alovai, who gave birth to three children.
One day, Alovai told her children to go to her mother's home and get weaving machines she had left there. The mother was surprised and overjoyed to learn her daughter was still alive. Now old and lonely, she followed the children back to her daughter's home. But when the children saw their grandmother following, they severed two of the bamboo poles in a simple three-bamboo bridge. When the grandmother crossed the bridge, she fell to her death and was transformed into an Aroyai bird.
The Ami aborigines refer to a tribe as niarox, which means people settled behind a palisade. Obviously, a tribe is a defensive conglomeration with a piece of land as its basis. A tribe must meet at least two other fundamental conditions -have an assembly hall or solalatan, which is the tribe's administrative and educational center, and an "age class."
The age class is, perhaps, the most important social structure for the aboriginal peoples of southeast Asia. In Taiwan, except for the Atayal and Yami tribes, all the tribes have such a structure. In Vataan, for example, all men between 17 and 86 are divided into 13 classes, each class covering five years of age. Class initiation ceremonies are held every four years. For instance, the present youngest class of aborigines, aged between 17 and 21, is called the latomai (bear) class. Those between 27 and 31 are lavoloa (slender bamboo), one of the most important utensil and tool materials of ancient times. The names of each class are rather entertaining. For instance, maowai (32-46), means rattan; laowau (37-41), wrangling; latoron (42-46), cakes; lavokah (47-51), droppings sticking to an animal's small intestines, a delicacy; kalave (52-56), dinner-in ancient times, enemies always took this moment to attack, therefore the warriors would be especially vigilant at this time; latejam (57-61), ginger; lasana (67-71), ambush; latejol (77-81), to go once more; and lakulin (82-86), to drink a toast.
The structure of Tavarong's age classes is similar to that of Vataan, only the former has 15. An initiation or puberty rite is held every four years. This ceremony has become one of the most important parts of the ilisin celebration.
About a week prior to the ilisin, young men about to enter adulthood gather to choose priests to fill vacant seats. The priests occupy most important tribal positions, though they have to observe many taboos.
After the priests, or sakopayai in the Ami language, are chosen, several representatives of the young men visit their seniors of the next higher class along with a retinue of 20 others of their group, and are updated on their responsibilities and tasks. They are also indoctrinated on the tribe's defense facilities, the skills involved in overhaul of the assembly hall, the repair of roads, and the construction of makeshift hunting shelters. and taught adult etiquette relative to conversation and receptions. The seniors discharge their responsibility to pass on all their experience and lore to the next class.
Such class representatives must be attentive to eloquence in conversation, and on night after night throughout the ilisin, they must visit seniors known for silver tongues in the hope of sharpening their own. On the fifth night of the ilisin, they must call on the chieftain and grand priest of the tribe. The representatives bring liquor and betel nuts along, with which to entice the chieftain's approval, for if the chieftain and the elders decide that the young men are too immature to master additional skills, they order them to extend their instruction another year. Otherwise, they simply agree, and then choose an auspicious name for the new class.
On the sixth morning of ilisin, the young men gather construction materials, wood and cogongrass, for the over haul of the assembly hall. Some maidens join them, husking millet and glutinous rice nearby with pestle and mortar, then serve liquor to the old men. In the after noon, the young men of the new class dance in the hall courtyard. The women and children are forbidden to join in-they must keep boars from intruding in the rice fields. All men can join in the dance, including male children, but the young representatives must be in ceremonial dress and dance until day is dawning.
After completing the overhaul work, representatives of the new class invite the chieftains to preside over a worship ceremony involving the offering of libations. They pray for the gods' protection for the class institution ceremonies and for good luck for the hunters.
Members of the new class then wait in the court until millet, and glutinous rice cakes and a hog are properly prepared. After the praying ends, the two priests of the new class kill a hog with a sharpened bamboo lance. The onlookers interpret the blood oozing out from the lance wound to tell the fortune of the new class: It is an auspicious omen if it takes a long time for the blood to run. If the blood spurts, the name of the class must be changed to reverse an ill fate. After the blood flow ceases, a fire is set to burn off the bristles. The hog is then cut open and its liver taken out to be placed alongside the cakes.
The new class then goes through a kind of swearing-in ceremony. Cutting pieces of liver and millet cake, they take them in hand and perform the rites. They first face east, then south to invite ancestors and immortals, the god of hunting in particular, to wish them good luck. Then all these in attendance turn north and offer libations to their ancestors. They throwaway the food remaining in their hands and cry. "Protect me to go northward!" They squat, then leap forward. After hearing a kind of sermon, the new adults dance until 10 p.m., except for a short dinner rest.
Before daybreak the following day, members of the new class bring out their ocean fishing gear and go out to sea. Priests of the different age classes gather at the assembly hall to start a fire and to fashion three pots from the bark of betel palm trees. After returning home, the new class members offer the fish they have caught to their seniors. The best of the cooked fish are placed in the betel bark pots as a treat for the three highest ranking elders. The three pots also signify that the tribe is as stable and steadfast as a tripod. The priests of the new class are allowed to eat rice and meat from this day, but vegetables are taboo.
In the past, except in celebrating a bumper harvest year, the major activities of ilisin focused on initiation rites as described above. But many Ami would take the opportunity of the ilisin for wedding ceremonies.
As is typical in a matrilineal society, matrilineal residence, inheritance, and succession are prevalent practices in the Ami tribe. Normally, the groom would move in with the bride's family after marriage.
The Ami's typical wedding ceremonies are as varied as they are entertaining. In some cases, a member of the bride's family first pounds rice in a mortar with a pestle in each hand. Getting the message, the groom-to-be rushes home; the bride-to-be places glutinous rice in the mortar, and her sisters help to husk the rice. As the already pounded rice is steamed, the sonorous "tong, tong, rong, rong" sound of the pestles' pounding continues through the depths of the night. The whole village is aware of the happy news.
The groom then visits the bride's home in the company of his uncle. He must then wait outdoors while his uncle enters the room. The bride's family places steamed glutinous rice cakes and a pot of wine in front of the guest. And while the bride sits by the uncle, her parents sit near a fireplace. The uncle says: "Give me the scarf." The groom throws a scarf in from the window. The uncle places the scarf, the glutinous rice cakes, and the wine in proper order and starts to pray. The bride follows suit. The uncle first dips his index finger in the wine vessel, then pinches a piece of glutinous rice cake with one hand and recites his prayer:
"Oh immortals in heaven, please look our way. Now our children are about to hold the wedding ceremony. Please let the crops they sow take root and grow. Like immortals, may the children stay united. Please let their crops have plentiful water. Please ask the plants to grow fruits and seeds. Bless these children so they may give birth to twins. When the children are hunting, help them to hunt down large animals that have braved through long spans of time. And when the children are with a crowd of people, make them as happy as birds, and when they speak, their voices as fluent and resonant as silver bells. When the children go out to hunt deer, smooth out their roads and cast away the green bristlegrass and hidden rocks. Protect my children. Reinforce their souls. Promote their health. Make them happy and at ease...."
After the prayer, the bride's family treats the guests to wine and dinner. But the groom still waits outside, then spends the night either at his home or at the assembly hall. On the following day, the groom gets up early in the morning and brings along such personal effects as rifles and nets to the bride's home. After having breakfast with the bride's family, the groom stays on to do some family chores. The groom may not spend the night with the bride until the eighth or tenth day; then, after dusk, the bride shuts the doors to make the groom spend the night in her place. And it is at this moment that the ceremony is completed.
Another type of wedding ceremony features the bearing of a torch. On the night of the wedding, the bride, walking in front, followed by her uncle and her aunt, lights the way with a torch to the groom's residence. After entering, they chitchat with the groom's family and treat them to betel nuts. Then the bride takes the groom's net and sword and walks back home. This time, the groom bears the torch and leads the way, followed by the bride, then her uncle and aunt. The groom does not spend the night with the bride until several days later.
Another wedding-day variation requires the bride's family to make a glutinous rice cake 90 cm in diameter and 15 cm high. Before dinner, the bride carries the cake in a backrack, torch in hand, to the groom. The rest of the program is roughly the same.
A more carnival-like wedding ceremony is held on the seventh day of ilisin, when the new age class is initiated. On this particular day, a grand dance is staged for people in the different age classes. When single women arrive at the fete, they snatch the single men's tobacco bags and hang them on their own shoulders. If the girl only wants to treat the man as a friend, she returns the bag to him the same day; but if he is a person of her heart, she keeps the bag for several months or even years. Those who get married on this day go to the bride's home after the dance is over.
The most conspicuous feature of the Ami tribe is its habit of concentrated, large scale permanent settlements. Agriculture has long been the tribe's major occupation. They learned rice growing from the pioneer Han people and settled down a long time ago. In the plains area, the northern and central elements of the Ami tribe were under threat from the Atayal, and the southern elements, from the Bunun. In order to better defend themselves from their enemies, they concentrated their residences to form large-scale communities. It is not unusual to find tribal communities with populations of 2,000 to 3,000.
Documents show that as early as the Ching Dynasty, Vataan and Tavarong were recognized as the two largest Ami tribes. Since the two tribes live very close to each other, they naturally have frequent exchanges, resulting in both friendly and antagonistic relations. Since the Ami lack reliable historical records, people of the two tribes always claim their tribe's superiority. The Vataan, for instance, always brag that the Tavarong are their descendants; and the Tavarong claim that the Vataan are descendants of their offspring.
It happened in the age of Okak and Komod, that the Vataan engaged in a battle with Tsikajoman. Though the Vataan emerged victorious, they were very unhappy that the Tavarong did not come to help them and so challenged the Tavarong to battle; the latter consented accordingly. The Tavarong used 15 meter clubs made from "too-slippery for-monkey trees." The Vataan used 10-meter clubs made from willow trees. The Tavarong were defeated, and the Vataan occupied parts of their land immediately.
But the Tavarong refused to accept defeat, and the two tribes engaged in battle again. Again the Tavarong were defeated, and more lands were ceded. Not long after, a new war broke out that continued for nine long years. The Tavarong lost again. Several years later, the Tavarong tried to take their revenge, and war between the two tribes continued for another five years. After the war, the Vataan gained another piece of land. The rift between the two tribes only deepened with time.
Last August, Governor Lee Teng-hui visited Kuangfu village in Hualien County and attended ilisins at Tavarong and Vataan. He thought that since the two tribes still keep alive the special features of the Ami culture, that it would be beneficial to both if they held the ilisin together. He invited the chieftains of the two tribes to iron out their discord, sustained for nearly a century. Moved by the Governor's sincerity, the tribes decided to jointly hold a large-scale ilisin this year at Kuangfu.
To launch the festival, 18 young Ami runners began a 50-km marathon race from Kuangfu to Hualien early in the morning. On arriving, they presented some betel nuts and areca leaves to Hualien County Magistrate Wu Shui-yung and Speaker of the County Council Wang Ching-feng and invited all the people in the county to join the ilisin at Kuangfu. On their return to Kuangfu at 8:40 a.m., a dance fiesta began.
As arrived at the dance ground at the foot of the coastal mountains of Hualien County, a messenger group of 12 Ami youths ran across the meeting ground for the ilisin; bells tied to their waists gave out crisp sounds. Several ceremonially dressed old ladies, squatting alongside a rectangular mortar to the left of the reviewing stand, suddenly stood up and pounded the mortar with pestles, striking out rhythms for the traditional festivity. The four great chieftains of Vataan and Tavarong wore wreaths festooned with feathers and crimson-red garments, held sticks in their hands, and seemed to salute with their eyes.
The great chieftain of Vataan, Wang Hsi-shan, then announced in the Ami language: "God bless our bountiful harvest." Teams in traditional garments, arranged in U formations, suddenly moved. Maidens and women retreated to two sides in light and hurried steps. Muscular men, cast-bronze skin shining, bamboo sticks in hand, entered the area, guided by ceremonial guards with raised shields and long spears. A hunting team in linen garments struck a pose on the festival ground. Two aged men, wearing heavy necklaces strung up from beasts' skulls, shuttled onto the ground in a boast of faded splendor.
Aboisterous festivity atmosphere echoed in the valley. Magistrate Wu, holding a bunch of areca leaves, extended his greetings to everyone present in the Ami dialect. Middle-aged women carried dehydrated vegetables, beads of millet, tree branches, pumpkins, and such utensils as pottery and bamboo urns, gourd-shaped wine bottles, and flat pans, and held banana leaves or the huge leaves of a jungle tree.
Their garments reminded us (at the onset of autumn) of the blossoms of a hundred spring flowers. Young maidens wore long black skirts trimmed in white and green, red shortsleeve blouses bound with silver threads and decorated with silver lines in different patterns. On their feet were black and white ankle socks; on their heads, cottony crowns embroidered in colorful ornamental designs. A unique feature of their costumes was a red girth, its ends hanging down to cover almost the entire front of the skirt. The maidens of another group looked like peach blossoms-white blouses, peach-red capes bound with tassels, and red headband fitted with white plumes.
The elderly women mostly wore black or white blouses and black, embroidered skirts with red borderlines, and either yellow silk sashes or white girths. These ladies would always smile at you with great gusto, revealing mouthfuls of uneven yellow teeth.
The young men were strongly muscled, like warriors of ancient times. Most of them kept their upper torsos naked and wore red shorts or black hulahula style male sarongs, leaving their legs and feet bare. Most wore necklaces strung from dry betel nuts.
Most eye-catching were the three senior priests, in long red gowns and wearing wreathes decorated with feathers —one of them carried a lover's sash embroidered with silver beads, one of them a simple blue necklace, and another a black and white necklace.
And we not infrequently ran into men from another time. One, wearing a bamboo hat decorated with four red wool balls on its four corners and a pendant animal skull, smoked a bamboo pipe and held a calabash wine bottle bound with red threads in one hand, and a necklace strung from skulls in the other. His age-old cloth costume seemed to recount tales of the treacherous warfare in which he once engaged.
A hoarse sound from a loudspeaker announced a second program of greetings for the guests. Aged women at once caught the rhythm and swayed in absolute unison. The Vataan and Tavarong have long been noted for their outstanding singing. Ever since ancient times, the best singer would sing solo, and the rest of the choir echo at the end of each section or phrase. The songs are full of the elders' nostalgic sentiments for their own youth, and of their encouragement to the young men to now sing and dance before the years steal up.
Other songs advised the seniors to work conscientiously, because once they make a mistake, the whole tribe suffers; others pray for the chieftains to be in good health and to protect the whole community. The stirring strains of war songs, songs of triumph, greeting songs, worship songs, party songs, nursery and love songs, and farmers' songs intoxicated all present.
In fact, the programs of this year's ilisin were more like dance drama than dance. Through them, the audience come to know how the Ami people worship their ancestors, of many their primitive customs, about their spirit and their sports, their celebrations for construction of houses, hunting, fishing, weddings, and weaving cloth, and their songs for curing diseases and honoring the dead.
Though the onlookers couldn't understand the solo singer's individual words, they did comprehend and were deeply moved by her articulate gestures.
The vivid presentation included the use of instrumentalities used long ago, and the personification of such animals as boars-even the use of real dogs. The audience was easily transported back through the years. We noticed some little girls swaying naturally to the rhythm of the music; they were born to dance. When we asked one young man how long they practice before the ilisin starts, he replied with pride: "We don't have to practice. Just watch it several times and you will dance as well."
Just opposite the reviewing stand on the other side of the ground stands a kind of meeting place, a hall constructed of bamboo. On its upper floor, many aged people, now too old to dance, were gathered to drink, smoke, and chew betel nuts. The boisterous music seemed to have nothing to do with them. It was time for them to recollect in tranquility. In their wrinkled faces, we thought we discovered a bit of melancholy and a bit of remorse, but also the wisdom that comes along with great maturity.
Downstairs in the bamboo hall is a museum exhibiting weapons, tilling and carpentry instrumentalities, fishing gear, weaving machines, cooking utensils, daily appliances fabricated from rattan and bamboo, male and female garments, ornaments and decorations, pottery urns, Buddhist beads, girdles, and such dried staple foods as millet, Chinese sorghum, pumpkin, taro, bitter melon, green beans, soybeans, and others.
Two watch towers, constructed from bamboo, wood, and thatch, were set up on both sides of the playground-one serving as a reviewing stand, the other as a reporters' vantage. In ancient times, such towers sheltered guards, watching out for sudden invasions by antagonistic tribes. Especially during ilisin, when the people were all busy preparing for the fiesta, their enemies might take the opportunity to suddenly attack. The guards were on special alert.
When the nights descended, the Ami youths were prepared for a little romance in the moonlight. As midnight neared, the men would wear betel nut sashes or lovers' sashes across their torsos, then dance in a circle, as the maidens looked on. When a maiden saw a man of her heart, she stepped up and pulled his sash, whether he was an acquaintance or not. The chosen man looked back, and if satisfied, he would take the sash down from his left shoulder. When the maiden pulled his sash a second time, he would dance in front of her, then give her the sash. If a maiden pulled on a man's sash three times without response, she had to look elsewhere.
After giving the sashes to the maidens, the men continue dancing until the end of ilisin, then go out to find the maidens with their sashes, and go with them to their homes. The couples seclude themselves in the gardens, where the maidens treat the men to tobacco, receiving betel nuts in return. They talk until daybreak, when the maidens return the sashes.
While we were heading back to Taipei, the vast plains area along the highway disseminated the fragrance of its soil-the farmers were busy tilling and sowing seed. They work hard, the best omen for another bumper harvest years and other ilisins, in which the torch of traditional Ami tribal culture will be handed down, again, endlessly.