Passing the Baton: A Long Overdue Homecoming in Mountains

Laipunuk is the southmost stop of the migration of the Bunun people, and the final blank space on the map of Taiwan during Japanese colonization. After much bloodshed and confrontations, the Bunun people were forced to relocate on a large scale to flat land. Although the mountain remained in place all this time, they never got to return home.......

Accidentally joined the Ngasal Maku in university, an indigenous student club, and was exposed to various indigenous cultures in abundance. The first thing I learned was the “age class” of the Amis people. I once heard an Amis friend say, “people in the same age class are like real brothers.”......

In 2002, a helicopter carrying 15 elder ones landed in Laipunuk in Yanping Township, Taitung, on a patch in the woods previously cleared by youths in the indigenous community. The flight only took 10 minutes, but the elder ones have been waiting for over 60 years. ...

Most people think of those who live deep in the mountains and sing Pasibutbut when they think of the Bunun people, but the Bunun didn’t start as mountain people, they actually originated from Lamungan, downstream of Zhuoshui River (currently where the Nantou Service Station sits). Legend has it that a great flood forced Bunun ancestors to migrate higher up the Central Mountain Range and the Yushan Mountain Range, thus dispersing the 5 main communities in between the rivers along the mountain ranges......

Share with us the process of you learning that you are indigenous, and how you felt during that period? When I was preparing for my senior high school entrance exam, my mother asked if I wanted to take the indigenous language proficiency test. My first reaction was, “what? I can do that? Am I indigenous? How have I never heard you talk about this growing up?” Then I recalled the time I spent with my grandmother on my mother’s side, how she would speak to me in our language, but no one ever told me that it was the Truku language......

The forest gives life to abundant fauna and flora, which lends to the survival of the Bunun, the Bunun also developed ways to co-exist with the environment, being grateful and respectful of what nature has given them. Dahu took Lowking hiking along the trail to learn about the applications of the plants as well as share the Bunun concept of life.

Having heard the Bunun legend today, have you ever heard of Truku legends before? ...

The stone materials scattered in the mountain were all once homes to the Bunun. But here on flat land, a modern Bunun stone slab house is being built. Stacking stone slabs is like playing a jigsaw puzzle, there is a trick to stacking. ...

What do you remember most about the Bunun family house? How is it different from the Truku family house? ...

There are times in life when we tend to avoid talking about certain issues for fear of offending or hurting the feelings of people involved due to our lack of knowledge or familiarity with the topics that prevents us from making sound judgments. Therefore, we always keep a safe distance from each other, which also leads to estrangement. For different ethnic groups in Taiwan, being unfamiliar with each other does not help achieve a multiethnic society that embraces diverse cultures. Only by recognizing and appreciating each other's differences can we achieve mutual admiration and respect. ...

Having been born and bred in the Chia-nan Plain in southern Taiwan, when I was young, I only had a rudimentary knowledge about Taiwanese indigenous peoples, which was mainly based on textbooks and sightseeing experiences to scenic spots like Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village and Sandimen. Later in senior high school, I got to make friends with peers with indigenous backgrounds and therefore foster a deeper understanding as I learned more about them. Perhaps due to the limited exposure to indigenous communities in the city, however......

The Payuwan Community of the Paiwan, is located in the Majia Township, Pingtung Country. During the Japanese colonial era, it was dubbed “the Black Kingdom,” inspired by the Japanese people’s first impression of the village. When they saw from across the slope of the mountain the stone-slab houses built along the hillside, the dark roofs sparkled in the sunlight like the scales of the hundred-pace viper reflecting the light. Rows of houses stretched like several black hundred-pacers that dominated the mountains. ...