Passing the Baton: Displacement, Return, and Resettlement

Part Bunun and part Atayal, Ispalakan Umav has traveled and moved between indigenous communities and cities from a young age. This time, she has come to the Niahosa Community, a Tsou community relocated from the Tapangx Community. After completing his education in the city, Tsou youth Voyu e tosk? came back home to start speaking his mother tongue, practicing the Tsou culture, and willingly recovering his indigenous name. Their apparently different experiences and background collides, nurturing the visitors and encouraging the generation of indigenous youths.

y name is Umav, full name Ispalakan Umav. I inherited my grandmother’s name and have been using my indigenous name on my official ID for over a decade. I am the daughter of a Bunun father and an Atayal mother......

Setting out from Provincial Highway 18 at the foot of the mountain, passing by the various signage and local specialty stores featuring Alishan, the winding road into the mountain expands before us. It is the road tourists are eager to embark on, and the route of migration the Tsou people took over a century ago, deep into the mountain......

The forest and rivers sustain the lifeline of the Tsou while forming their culture and order. When men hunt in the mountain on special occasions, women would make wine at home to show their appreciation for the hardworking men.

How did the experience of moving between the indigenous community and the city shape your identity? In terms of indigenous communities, ......

Hunting, agriculture, and fishing are the various sources of food for indigenous peoples. The forestry wisdom and ethics of life of the Tsou are displayed by the tangible tools and intangible culture.

While talking about culture, the instructors also shared their history of migration. Can you share with us the Bunun story? According to the Bunun legend,......

From the unique tanning crafts to farming tools and toys, the Tsou source material and inspiration from the forest and turn different handicrafts into new community features, which in turn, is used as medium to display their culture to outsiders.

Have you any handicraft experiences in the past? What impressed you most in the handicraft class today? I am not very good at handicrafts and can barely handle things like sticking together pieces of wood to make a flying squirrel,......

Most of us are aware that there are at least nine indigenous peoples in Taiwan, an impression derived from the name of the famous indigenous theme park in Nantou, central Taiwan. Some may even know that currently, the number of officially recognized indigenous peoples has increased to sixteen. Furthermore, those concerned about ethnic issues would be aware that at the end of October of this year, the ruling has been made in response to the Siraya’s petition for a constitutional interpretation regarding their indigenous identity. The Taiwan Plains Indigenous Peoples are eligible to ......

As a kid who grew up in Taipei, I have met several of my elementary school classmates and part-time job colleagues who had an indigenous background. In fact, I would not have known that if they had not declared their identities. In recent years, I begin to switch my focus to the creation of a state. To explore the issues about indigenous people’s traditional territories, I approach various advocacy groups who protest on Ketagelan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building......

The Pazeh is a subgroup of the Taiwan Plains Indigenous Peoples in Central Taiwan, who are originally based in the areas of Fengyuan, Da’an, Shengang, Houli, Daya, Tanzi (in present-day Taichung). During the rule of the Zheng clan and the Qing dynasty, their territories shrank gradually and became insufficient to accommodate the community, which forced them to migrate en masse to the area of Ailan in present-day Puli Township of Nantou County in about 1823. It was since then that the Pazeh people began to set down roots in the lowlands and merged with the Non-indigenous ......