Exhibition on the Yami, an aboriginal group from Taiwan

[yuanzhumin]

The Shisanhang Museum of Archaeology, located in the Taipei district, Taiwan, has launched an exhibition named YAMI TAO Ocean (WaWa) and dedicated to the Yami people. The Yami, also called Tao, are an aboriginal group living on Orchids Island (Lanyu in Chinese), a small island located in the Pacific Ocean close to Taiwan. The Yami have the only oceanic culture among the Taiwan aborigines. They are well known for their boat building tradition, but also for their extraordinary silver helmets and fish skin body armors.
Period： From January 1st to September 5th, 2010.
A total of 90 pieces are displayed : 13 pieces borrowed from the Taiwan National Museum of Natural Science, 14 pieces borrowed from the National Taiwan Museum, 20 pieces borrowed from the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 7 pieces from the Shisanhang Museum, and 35 pieces borrowed from the Yang-Grevot Collections (which I'm curating).
Some infos on the Shisanhang Museum of Archaeology :
'Located near the mouth of the Danshui River in Bali Township, the Shisanhang archaeological site dates back some 500 to 1800 years to Taiwan's prehistoric time. The ancient dwellers are believed to be the ancestors of the Ketegalan people of the Pingpu aboriginal tribe. The evidence gathered from the ruins indicates that the Shisanhang dwellers had the know-how of metal making. The discovered silver, copperware, gold jewelry, and coins indicate that trade and economic activities had taken place back then.
In 1998, the Shisanhang Museum was erected at the archaeological site, showcasing the prehistoric relics to visitors. The Bridge of Time allows visitors to travel through time into Shisanhang's culture.
The award-winning architecture adopts an archaeological theme and reflects the voyage of the early travelers from the mainland to Taiwan. Situated at the foot of Guanyin Mountain and facing Danshui River, the Shisanhang Museum affords a beautiful view from a great vantage point.
In addition to visiting the museum, one can also visit the mangrove conservation area nearby, go for a bike ride along the river, and take the Blue Highway Ferry.
Tel +886-2-2619-1313
Address No.200, Bowuguan Rd., Bali Township, Taipei County
Transportation
Take Prov. Highway 15 to Bali. There are clear roadsigns to the museum, and there is plenty of parking space.
THSR:
Take the THSR to Taipei Station, transfer to the bus. TaipeiStation Tourist Attractions
MRT & Bus:
1. From Guandu MRT Station, take the Red 13 bus.
2. From Danshui MRT Station, take the ferry across the river, then take the Red 13 bus.
3. From Danshui MRT Station, take the ferry across the river, then ride a bicycle.

[KuKulzA28]

That's awesome yuanzhumin ... I wish I could go.
Afterall I have an a'gong, a'ma, and other family members in the Taipei area (though most are from Chi-aYi further south). It's too bad I cannot. If anyone has the opportunity, don't miss out! the Danshui area is nice and you can also shop at it's nightmarkets and at Shih-Ling.

The Yami are a very interesting group. They're related to the other yuanzhumin, but they are an oceanic group. They don't headhunt, drink, and aren't landlocked. All the other aborigines stayed on land. I've heard the Yami once had a war with coastal peoples in the northern part of Luzon. Their warfare, compared to the other aborigines, is unique... and does in some ways resemble pacific islanders'.

From an ethnographic weapon standpoint..... The last Atayal laraw makers can be found near Wulai, south of Taipei. The last traditional pocket knife maker can be found in Taipei in the Shih-Ling area. There's excellent kai-shan-dao being made in the northern Taiwan area. The last traditional swordmaker (same guy who make the sword for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is in Gowshiong. The last unsecret bladesmith of the aborigines is in Tong-men, Hualien (there's other privately commissioned smiths for the other tribes). There's somewhere where rattan shields are still made I hear.

[yuanzhumin]

You'll have the time to go, Kukulza ! The exhibition will remain open for nearly one year. I guess you'll find the opportunity to come back before October, when it's ending. By the way, I recommand a nice aborigine restaurant just 5 mn away from the Shisanhang Museum where to stop for a lunch/dinner with friends, with live Taiwan aboriginal music. There, you can enjoy a saute of betel flower, glutinous millet wrapped into wild vegetable leaves, BBqed wild mountain pigs or flying squirrels, and many other great dishes. Don't forget the delicious but sometimes dangerous xiao mi jiu (millet alcohol) !
Talking about drinking, Kukulza, you're right to underline the big differences between the Yami and the other Taiwan aborigines group. The Yami didn't drink alcohol when, on the other hand, this tradition is very strong among the Taiwan island aborigines that are used to drink xiao mi jiu (millet alcohol), with a strong religious dimension. To the Taiwan island aborigines, drinking alcohol is closely associated with worshiping the spirits, the ancestors and headhunting. Even today, many Taiwan aborigines put their fingers into their glass of alcohol before drinking it, and then snap it into the air to share the few falling drops with the spirit of the ancestors. Headhunting, as you mentioned, is also something that the Yami didn't do.
If Orchid Island, better known formerly under the name of Botel Tobago, is today territorially dependent from Taiwan, it is in fact ethnically closer to the Philippines. The Yami are close relatives of the people living on the other side of the Bashi Channel, on the northern littoral of Luzon, Northern Philippines, and most probably came from there few hundred years ago. But anyway, all of them were coming from Taiwan when they first arrived in the Philippines, few thousand years ago.
Inez de Beauclair, a French German ethnologist that lived among the Yami in the 40s, wrote a very interesting paper on their fighting weapons and traditions. By the way, I lost the link to her article online, and it would really be great if someone could communicate it to me. It would be also worthwhile to make it permanent in the links list of the this forum. Just a suggestion !

[KuKulzA28]

Damn... I am going to try, but my finances aren't the best... we'll see!

I remember eating shan-joo-zhou (mountain pig)... and with Millet wine it's... it's heavenly...

I loved their food so much (and was so determined to learn more about the aborigines and also get a laraw) that all my relatives started calling me yuanzhumin! Hehe, but I have a lot of female ancestors that were yuanzhumin (pingpu) back when my Fujian ancestors were settling in the Chia-Yi area - so I guess that statement is not out of place! Just as the old saying goes... there is a gandpa from the mainland but no grandma from the mainland.

As you can see with my post on my laraw , it was no simple task to get one.



I might have read the paper you are talking about... I'll see if I can find it. If not, I know I have some resources about the Yami I can post up!

[yuanzhumin]

'there is a gandpa from the mainland but no grandma from the mainland'.

-Yes, Kukulza, the first one of your Han or Hakka ancestors coming from mainland China was probably a male, for the good reason that the Qing emperor had forbidden for a long time the immigration of women or whole families (but don't forget that the first ones coming also from Mainland to taiwan where the Austronesian themselves !) In Taiwan, these first male Han or hakka migrants got married to women from the Pingpu aborigines (Pingpu meaning plains, by opposition to the mountains austronesians), ethnic groups that have been living there for thousand of years, may be ten thousands of years. There were at that time, 3 centuries ago, many plains austronesian tribes that have mostly disappeared today after being sinicised. The good reason for their sinicisation is that the first Han or hakka males imposed their Confucean/chinese/male dominant culture to their newly wed austronesian wives, and it went on like this through the family tree till today. These austronesian roots have often been forgotten in the mind of most of the Taiwanese today and most of them disregard the austronesian/aborigines/original inhabitants people of the island. But if the memory has failed, the blood is speaking for the Taiwanese : today, 80% of the island population whose family was in the island before 1949 (arrival year of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek and his armies) have austronesian blood at a diverse degree. Ah, one important thing that helped a lot in the integration of these first Han/Hakka males in their new land is that, when they arrived a couple of centuries ago, the already there Pingpu tribes had a mostly matriarchal family structure. So when they married a woman from this tribes, they inherited the power and the land, and that's a reason why this integration was quite easy for them. The story was completely different with the mountains aborigines that mostly refused the assimilation and whose territorties in the 2/3 central part of the island was still vastly unexplored at the end of the 19th century.
-So Kukulza, what about this paper on the fighting weapons of the Yami, did you find it ? If you do, don't forget to post it wholly on the forum as the link could disappear once more. I wish you, Kukulza, a Happy Chinese new year fron Taichung, taiwan, where I am for few more days.
Ah one more

[KuKulzA28]

Good points! I never realized the matrilineal structure being helpful to the Chinese sinicizing the ping-pu... very interesting. It's almost pitiful that earlier historians theorized or claimed that plains aborigines were driven from the plains into the mountains to become today's tribal groups. Even my own father, a staunch democratic party supporter and one who wishes for Taiwanese rights and self-determination... even he was misled by that education. I'm glad that historians are beginning to do Yuan Zhu Min peoples justice and that society is starting to recognize them. Sadly a lot of stereotypes and racism still exist against them.

Thanks for the happy new years wish - I even made a resolution.
Enjoy Taiwan yuanzhumin, it's a beautiful island - wish I could be there right now.

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by yuanzhumin

The Shisanhang Museum of Archaeology xxx Period： From January 1st to September 5th, 2010.

Thanks for informing us, yuanzhumin!

I definitely should see this. Now what would be a good reason to persuade my wife to come along?

I also noticed in one of the links you and kukulz cited that the aboriginal Taiwanese call the spirits anito. The exact same word is used in Luzon to refer to the same thing.

And then you also use the words tao or tawu. Here at home, tao in Luzon means a man or group of people, and in the Visayas, it's tawo and it has the same meaning.

Would you know the root words of anito and tao/tawu in your native tongue?

[yuanzhumin]

Migueldiaz, concerning the language of the Yami:
The Yami are very special Taiwanese aborigines because, today, they depend politically from Taiwan but they are in fact coming from Luzon. Let's go back in the time : the Austronesian began their migration from Mainland Asia around 8000 years ago, reaching first Taiwan. Then, on pirogues, they spread around 6000 years ago from Taiwan towards the rest of the Pacific till the Easter Island, in the West, and some part of Madagascar, in the east. On the beginning of this long migration, they reached first Luzon, in the Philippines, and mixed with other people that were already there for more than 20 000 years. It is now known that 800 hundred years ago, Ivatan people went from the batanes Islands (today Philippines) to the north, in the Bashi Channel, and reached the Orchid Island/Botel Tobago/Lanyu (today taiwanese territory) and settled down there to become the Yami. So the Yami, coming from Luzon, brought with them their batanic language that is still an austronesian language but more closely related to the Luzon languages than the Taiwanese aboriginal languages (even if originally they are all coming from the same place/family). Yami people can understand and be understood from the Ivatan people. In fact, tao/tawu as in Tagalog if I remember well means 'people'.
-Migueldiaz, for your wife : Taiwan is definitely a nice vacations trip to do ! Good restaurants, nice shops and museums, warm people, beautiful unspotted mountains ! You have everything there and cheaper than in Honkong or Japan !
-Kukulza : Most of the plain aborigines assimilated themselves with the Han migrants. Some have been recognized as independant ethnic groups (Sakiraya...), some not (Siraya...). The Amis, the biggest aboriginal tribe in Taiwan, are often considered as plains aborigines. Whatever, the plains and mountains aborignes have always been distinct groups.

[yuanzhumin]

Migueldiaz, after my last post, I went to look for more infos on the sovereignity over Botel Tobago and found this article that is bringing more elements on the matter.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit.../23/2003204030

[Nonoy Tan]

yuanzhumin, thank you for those important insights.

Are there traces of the Dong Son culture influence among the Formosa aborigines? How about in terms of archaeological findings?

[yuanzhumin]

Hi Nonoy,
Yes, there are. The most obvious traces are the bronze knives that are considered as sacred among the Paiwan. I already displayed few of them in a previous thread titled 'Exceptionaly rare knife from Formosa/Taiwan' and posted on the 25th of March, 2006.

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by yuanzhumin

Migueldiaz, after my last post, I went to look for more infos on the sovereignity over Botel Tobago and found this article that is bringing more elements on the matter.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit.../23/2003204030

Thanks yuanzhumin for the link. I've never heard of this before ... interesting.

[yuanzhumin]

Nonoy, here is an interesting link about the bronze knife and Dongson culture in Taiwan:
http://culture.teldap.tw/culture/sho...nze-knife.html

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by yuanzhumin

Migueldiaz, concerning the language of the Yami:
The Yami are very special Taiwanese aborigines because, today, they depend politically from Taiwan but they are in fact coming from Luzon. Let's go back in the time : the Austronesian began their migration from Mainland Asia around 8000 years ago, reaching first Taiwan. Then, on pirogues, they spread around 6000 years ago from Taiwan towards the rest of the Pacific till the Easter Island, in the West, and some part of Madagascar, in the east. On the beginning of this long migration, they reached first Luzon, in the Philippines, and mixed with other people that were already there for more than 20 000 years. It is now known that 800 hundred years ago, Ivatan people went from the batanes Islands (today Philippines) to the north, in the Bashi Channel, and reached the Orchid Island/Botel Tobago/Lanyu (today taiwanese territory) and settled down there to become the Yami. So the Yami, coming from Luzon, brought with them their batanic language that is still an austronesian language but more closely related to the Luzon languages than the Taiwanese aboriginal languages (even if originally they are all coming from the same place/family). Yami people can understand and be understood from the Ivatan people. In fact, tao/tawu as in Tagalog if I remember well means 'people'.

Very interesting, thanks for that background

Yes, tao (or tawo/ tawu) in the Philippines also means people or person.

In the study of swords (or any ethnic object for that matter), I'm sure all will agree that it helps a lot if we can also understand the wars fought, the trading and migration patterns, etc.

But a lot of history was not written. But thanks to linguistics we can see who really influenced whom and to what extent.

As for the Taiwanese aborigine word, anito (referring to gods and/or the spirits of departed ones), it's not only in the Philippines (i.e., anito or anitu) where the word and its derivatives are still being used --

antu (Sea Dyak), nitu (east Indonesia), nitu (Fiji), aitu (Samoa), etua (Mangreva, French Polynesia), akua (Hawaii), otua (Tonga), atua (generic Polynesian), atua (Rotuma, south Pacific), atua (Easter Is.), etc.

A prominent Filipino scholar (Dr. Zeus A. Salazar) has published a book by the way, related the subject -- Ang Pilipinong Banwa/ Banua sa Mundong Melano-Polynesiano (loosely, The Filipino concept of motherland in the Melano-Polynesian [Austronesian] world).

In summary, in the study of the sword, it helps a lot studying words!

Originally Posted by yuanzhumin

-Migueldiaz, for your wife : Taiwan is definitely a nice vacations trip to do ! Good restaurants, nice shops and museums, warm people, beautiful unspotted mountains ! You have everything there and cheaper than in Honkong or Japan !

Ok, you convinced me. But alone or with her, I'm definitely seeing that exhibit! A man has to know his priorities, you see