Passing the Baton: Surprisingly Fun-Loving Atayal

Sitting in the deep mountains of Wutai, at the southernmost tip of the Central Mountain Range, Cekele Adiri, the Adiri Community, was relocated down the mountains to permanent housing after Typhoon Morakot. Traveling often between Taichung and Cekele Adiri, the urban indigenous kid Muni Druluan finds the road home thus much shorter...

Growing up, I noticed that I have been searching for Adiri in every indigenous community in the mountains. My mother came from Cekele Adiri, Adiri Community, the highest indigenous community of the Rukai people, and two hours’ drive into the mountains from the low land. In my adolescent days when “nothing was ever good enough”, I was so accustomed to life in the city that I always felt Adiri inconvenient and outdated...

1,500 meters above sea level; first access to electricity in 1979; first road leading out built in 1995, these are numbers that describe Smangus, but nothing can compare to what the body actually feels after driving for 3 hours along the winding and bumpy roads, going up and down and constantly rocking in all directions before finally reaching the entrance of this indigenous community. This indigenous community, once isolated due to its geographical setting, later became a popular tourist site due to the giant trees discovered over three decades ago...

The tourism business at Smangus is divided into accommodations and restaurants, wholly joint operated by the entire community, and accounts for 70% of community income. Let's follow Muni and learn all about the ins and outs of the tourism industry!

Have you visited Smangus before? How did you imagine Smangus to be? I have never visited Smangus before, but I have visited Cinsbu on the other side. I saw on Public Television Service the joint operation system applied here, and I found this solidarity fantastic. We have been considering the accommodation and tourism industry in our community in the last few years, and this system has been proposed as well...

Smangus is famous for its giant trees, but how were they discovered? What does the scenery along the way have to do with the migration history and economy of the Atayal people? Walking on the traditional territory of the community, let's take a look at everything that makes Smangus!

Does it remind you of being in your old community when you hiked the giant trees trail today? It sure did. When I was going up the slope, my body kind of remembered it. We used to have to go up and down the slopes in our community, and it felt very similar. Especially the beginning part of the trail today, it's very similar to that in my community, just with a less densely grown bamboo forest. We didn't have toys to play with growing up, so we would walk about and snap twigs and grass, pick up pebbles and throw them about, just messing around. This reminds me of something...

The two main selling points at Smangus are the 'giant trees' and 'peaches'. Peaches are a highly sought-after fruit that is harvested only once a year, and many tourists flock to the mountains year after year in seek of peaches. In addition to the naturally well-resourced environment, much behind-the-scenes hard work goes into the big juicy sweet peaches.

How did you feel about working in the peach orchard today? This is probably the first and only time in my life to set a trap. Rukai women don't really take part in hunting, plus the fact that we grew up in the city and being kids, elders felt it extremely dangerous to take us to the fields in the mountains. Traps are handcrafts, and I am really bad at weaving. The only Rukai embroidery I am capable of is the most basic cross-stitch, so when Jumu was saying "L-shaped", I was wondering to myself the whole time, "where is that L-shape?"...

“Can you support yourself financially?” “Why are you not as outstanding as other people?” “Have you ever thought about what to do in the future?” Are you fed up with all those questions? Do you feel like yelling, “Auntie, can I quit working hard?” This time, the “Misanthropic Philosopher” decided to stay away from the hustle and bustle of cities and to explore the Atayal community in Nanao Township a bit. How exactly is indigenous life different from what we think? ?...

I am ashamed to admit that my knowledge about Taiwan’s indigenous peoples is quite limited and superficial. I teach Chinese literature in senior high school, and the relevant materials included in the curriculum mainly touch on the history of indigenous communities. There is a lesson that selects two modern poems from the Atayal poet Walis Nokan’s essay entitled “Wushe (1892-1931)”, focusing on the fate of the Atayal survivors in the “aftermath” of the Wushe Incident, the last major indigenous uprising against colonial Japanese forces that took place in 1930...

Legend has it that the people of Atayal originated in the region of the current Township of Ren’ai, Nantou County. The first ancestors appeared when a huge stone cracked apart, and villages were established afterward. As the land became insufficient to accommodate the increasing number of clansmen, their ancestors decided to leave their homeland in search of new land for future generations. There were three brothers among them who came to Quri Sqabu, and from there they embarked on three different routes of migration: Kbuta, the eldest brother, headed westward over...