Photo: Courtesy of Lin Chien-hsiang
By June Tsai
"In the territory that is not ours we rowed, passing by a coastline that was strange to us. We remembered the colors of the sky and ocean, and how the breaking waves near Hualien's steep cliffs wet our skin. We tell all these things to our children. One day when they are in that part of the world, they will remember what their fathers told them and will have a special feeling for those places. They will want to protect them. This is probably contrary to what the Han Chinese will do to nature."
--Shyaman Vengayen, Feb. 5.
Last year, tribesmen from the Tao ethnic group--also known as the Yami--made an historic voyage up Taiwan's east coast in a traditional handmade boat. The 35-day journey helped write a different chapter to the long, often uncomfortable, relationship that exists between the aboriginal group and mainstream society.
Boats are integral to traditional life on the outlying Orchid Island, home to the Tao--Taiwan's only ocean-going tribe. Over the past few decades, however, the island's boat culture has faced the threat of going into decline, as many of the tribe's younger members left to seek work. The elder generation that remained on the island also gradually lost the strength to collect the necessary timber. To revive the tradition, and highlight the diminishing connection between humankind and the sea, Shyaman Vengayen and Lin Chien-shiang came up with the idea for the Tao to make a large boat and sail it to Taiwan.
Fishermen and farmers for generations, the Tao people build their wooden boats in accordance with methods passed down orally from their ancestors. Whenever a boat is built, the whole society gets involved in the project from start to finish. "The process was intriguing," Lin said Feb. 4. Lin is a Taiwanese documentary filmmaker who began working with Vengayen, a Tao social and political activist, in 1988 on a film project. Since that first meeting, Lin has been closely engaged in the island's culture.
The first-ever project to showcase the Tao's boat-making skills was initiated in 2001 when nine Tao people made a boat to be displayed in Taichung's National Museum of Natural Science. Since then, five more vessels have been built for museums and various other cultural agencies and organizations. But as one tribal elder said upon seeing the craft, "Why not actually row it since the boat has been made?" Lin agreed, "A boat should not merely be an item on display."
In November 2006, with the backing of five fishing clans from Vengayen's Langdao Village, work on the boat commenced. Decorated with patterned carvings imbued with supernatural meaning, the red, black and white craft was finished two months later. It was constructed using 60 planks, and measured 10 meters in length, 1.7 meters in width and 2.7 meters in height. It was the longest Tao vessel made in living memory, being able to take 14 rowers. The finished product was named "Ipanga na 1001," with the number indicating the length and the words meaning "crossing over."
After joining other boats in activities related to the flying-fish season from March to June and being tested for sea worthiness, the boat was finally ready for its journey to Taiwan on June 19, 2007. The initial 80-kilometer trip to Taitung County that required crossing the Kuroshio Current took approximately 14 hours. With an estimated 35 to 47 strokes per second, around 100 people, coming mainly from four of Orchid Island's six villages, took turns to finish the whole voyage.
The boat followed the coastline, stopping along the way to replenish supplies and change hands. The colorful boat and rowers in their blue-and-white ceremonial clothing were a source of fascination for Taiwanese tourists who saw it in the distance, according to Lin, who filmed the whole trip. The boat finally entered Taipei City via the Danshuei River on July 28 to a rapturous welcome.
It was an historic moment for the Tao. "The Taiwan public's impression of the Tao may have been of an angry group that often protests against the dumping of nuclear waste on its island," according to Lin. However, the voyage has helped change that, he continued. "Taiwanese people now see a proud group showing their strength and wisdom." In 1982, Taiwan Power Co., the nation's energy provider, built low-level radioactive-waste storage facilities on Orchid Island. Ever since then, Vengayen and other activists have staged many demonstrations, leading to frayed relations between islanders and Taiwan society.
For Vengayen, the boat project is a new strategy to highlight another struggle. The introduction of motorized boats in the 1970s and the encroachment of Taiwanese fishermen using modern technology on traditional Tao fishing grounds have been seriously threatening the survival of boat-making and navigation skills. "The loss of these skills would mean the destruction of the whole tribe because the wooden boat is an embodiment of every aspect of the Tao culture, from economy and psychology to language. The boat is a matter of life and death," he stressed.
In that regard, last year's voyage was seen as being the Tao's proud demonstration of their traditional culture, and more importantly, it represented the possibility of its continuation. "My people regained a degree of pride after the successful journey," Vengayen stated. "They felt that the flame of their culture had not been extinguished by the Han Chinese culture. The voyage also helped facilitate communication and inspire self-reflection in people who took an interest in our heritage."
The fact that many Taiwanese people volunteered to support the venture by participating in onshore jobs was an example that proved the power of the Tao's historical and cultural uniqueness to affect people. Lin, for instance, helped raise funds and find people or organizations to make sure the journey could be completed. After having ridden the waves, the boat was later exhibited in museums in Taipei and Kaohsiung in December. According to Lin, he will also arrange the sale of the boat and make sure the income is distributed among the Tao tribesmen.
"In the very beginning, not many people thought this was possible. Some of the Tao even had doubts," Lin emphasized. Recalling the pre-journey planning, he said, "Behind the realization of this seemingly romantic project were a lot of calculations, competitions and politics." This is the reality of life for islanders, who have long been relatively isolated with limited resources, Lin reminded. Knowing this harsh existence would prevent people from romanticizing the indigenous group, which would definitely not help with mutual understanding, he suggested.
"Many people thought we ignored taboos and broke tribal rules along the way. Some Taiwanese critics even said that our project marketed the Tao culture like a commodity. These accusations are not true," Lin said. "Any decision concerning boats has to be made with permission from each and every Tao participant." Lin explained that it took a great deal of time and social skill to put the idea into reality. Lin said he and his team learned in the process the Tao way of doing things, which shows a great respect for nature and for every individual.
Vengayen confirmed that over the years he had noticed a certain degree of progress in Taiwanese people in terms of respect and appreciation of different cultures. Everybody should try to learn something from indigenous peoples' method of managing resources in their hunting grounds, he said. As an example, he cited the Tao's ban on catching other kinds of fish during the flying-fish season.
In many cultures, the sea is something to be afraid of. Yet for the Tao, the ocean is like a road--a passage that connects people, experiences and cultures. To emphasize the point, Vengayen explained how several participants had even written accounts of what they had seen. "They put the colors of the waves, shapes of the cliffs and bays on Taiwan's east coast into words," the activist said. Their compositions will be sung in tribal ceremonies and thus passed from generation to generation. In that sense, the ocean had indeed brought together, as it was proposed, "the Tao and the Taiwanese, the traditional and modern, the oceanic and the terrestrial cultures."
This article was published in Taiwan Journal March 6, 2008.
An earlier report on June 29, 2007
Tao aborigines paddle fishing canoe to Taipei
By June Tsai
Boats are integral to traditional life on Taiwan's outlying Orchid Island, home to the Tao people--also known as the Yami--who lived primarily by fishing and farming. Their white, red and black wooden boats, symbolic of this lifestyle and surrounded by ritual, are still made by hand according to methods passed down orally from their ancestors.
Over the last few years, a dream coalesced among some Tao tribespeople to build a boat and make an ocean voyage to, or perhaps even around, Taiwan. The journey would showcase the group's boat-making and navigation skills and raise awareness of its vanishing culture and customs. Furthermore, it would highlight the diminishing connection between humankind and the sea for all Taiwanese living on the main island. Drawing on these concepts, they proposed a project and applied to the Johnnie Walker "Keep Walking Fund" for sponsorship, which subsequently awarded them around US$36,000.
According to this proposal, the project was the brainchild of Tao social and political activist Shyaman Vengayen. He was supported by Lin Chien-shiang, a Han Taiwanese filmmaker who had worked closely with Orchid Islanders in the past on documentary films. Vengayen was also backed by five of the island's fishing clans, kinship organizations based around fishing teams unique to Tao society. Last November, they started to build a traditional Tao fishing boat, Lin said June 23.
This particular boat, composed of 60 wooden planks and measuring 10 meters in length, 1.7 meters in width and 2.7 meters in height, was the largest in living memory, Lin said. Nevertheless, it was made using traditional skills.
This reflected one of Vengayen's concerns: the preservation and revival of Tao culture. The fishing-clan social structure and the manufacture of wooden boats by hand and without the use of nails were at the core of Tao tribal tradition, Vengayen said in a June 6 CNA report. Following the introduction of motorized boats in the 1970s and encroachment of Taiwanese fishermen with modern technology on traditional Tao fishing grounds, the skills were starting to be lost.
In a move to help conserve these traditions, in 2001 a group of Tao people from different fishing clans were commissioned by the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung to build a big boat inside the museum. This broke a number of taboos surrounding boat construction, which, for one thing, is normally undertaken by a single clan. Permission was received from tribal elders, however, and the project was so successful it led to commissions from other organizations. Nine more were made, but some people felt that the boats were losing their significance in the process, the proposal stated. They therefore suggested making an 11th large boat using inter-clan cooperation, only this time it would take to the water, Lin said.
The boat would be called "Ipanga na 1001," the number meaning it was more than 1,000 centimeters in length and the words meaning "crossing over." This represented the trip it would make, Lin said June 23, "as well as a crossover between the Tao and Taiwanese, the traditional and modern, and the oceanic and terrestrial cultures."
Finally, with the money secured from Johnnie Walker, more promised by the central government, and a remaining sum of US$15,000 donated from a number of private individuals, the boat was finished. The 12 Tao tribespeople began June 19 the "Keep Rowing" journey that will take them and other islanders from Langdao Village on Orchid Island to Taipei in northern Taiwan. Even at the last moment they were delayed for a week by inclement weather but, once it improved, the boat was able to make the 49-nautical-mile crossing to the coast of Taitung County. The fast-flowing Kuroshio Current meant they had to take a somewhat circuitous route, however.
From Taitung the rowers will take about 30 to 35 days to travel up the east coast, stopping at Hualien, Yilan and Keelung. They will then round the north coast, and enter Taipei City via Danshuei River in time for the Tao representatives to attend the creation of a forum of Austronesian indigenous groups, scheduled for Aug. 1.
According to the original proposal, four teams of rowers would take turns in the boat but, to date, only two teams had volunteered. The project was open to people from Taiwan's main island, Lin explained, so that they could also get a taste of Tao fishing life.
After arriving in Taipei, he continued, the boat would be exhibited in front of the National Taiwan Museum. "We thought about exhibiting it in front of Taipei 101 to see what sparks it would ignite; placing the most traditional thing face-to-face with the most modern."
The boat would eventually be sold to a collector, and the money made would be distributed among the different clans "in accordance with the Tao culture of 'distributing fishes.'" The private investors would also get their monies back, Lin estimated.
Another reason for making the trip was to show how the Tao's ancestors had been able to journey from island to island across the Pacific Ocean. The next project for Vengayen and his team, once funds were raised, Lin said, would be to travel to the Batan Islands to the north of the Philippines, to meet the local Ivatan inhabitants with whom the Tao share much of the same language, culture and origins.
"In the territory that is not ours we rowed, passing by a coastline that was strange to us. We remembered the colors of the sky and ocean, and how the breaking waves near Hualien's steep cliffs wet our skin. We tell all these things to our children. One day when they are in that part of the world, they will remember what their fathers told them and will have a special feeling for those places. They will want to protect them. This is probably contrary to what the Han Chinese will do to nature."
--Shyaman Vengayen, Feb. 5.
Last year, tribesmen from the Tao ethnic group--also known as the Yami--made an historic voyage up Taiwan's east coast in a traditional handmade boat. The 35-day journey helped write a different chapter to the long, often uncomfortable, relationship that exists between the aboriginal group and mainstream society.
Boats are integral to traditional life on the outlying Orchid Island, home to the Tao--Taiwan's only ocean-going tribe. Over the past few decades, however, the island's boat culture has faced the threat of going into decline, as many of the tribe's younger members left to seek work. The elder generation that remained on the island also gradually lost the strength to collect the necessary timber. To revive the tradition, and highlight the diminishing connection between humankind and the sea, Shyaman Vengayen and Lin Chien-shiang came up with the idea for the Tao to make a large boat and sail it to Taiwan.
Fishermen and farmers for generations, the Tao people build their wooden boats in accordance with methods passed down orally from their ancestors. Whenever a boat is built, the whole society gets involved in the project from start to finish. "The process was intriguing," Lin said Feb. 4. Lin is a Taiwanese documentary filmmaker who began working with Vengayen, a Tao social and political activist, in 1988 on a film project. Since that first meeting, Lin has been closely engaged in the island's culture.
The first-ever project to showcase the Tao's boat-making skills was initiated in 2001 when nine Tao people made a boat to be displayed in Taichung's National Museum of Natural Science. Since then, five more vessels have been built for museums and various other cultural agencies and organizations. But as one tribal elder said upon seeing the craft, "Why not actually row it since the boat has been made?" Lin agreed, "A boat should not merely be an item on display."
In November 2006, with the backing of five fishing clans from Vengayen's Langdao Village, work on the boat commenced. Decorated with patterned carvings imbued with supernatural meaning, the red, black and white craft was finished two months later. It was constructed using 60 planks, and measured 10 meters in length, 1.7 meters in width and 2.7 meters in height. It was the longest Tao vessel made in living memory, being able to take 14 rowers. The finished product was named "Ipanga na 1001," with the number indicating the length and the words meaning "crossing over."
After joining other boats in activities related to the flying-fish season from March to June and being tested for sea worthiness, the boat was finally ready for its journey to Taiwan on June 19, 2007. The initial 80-kilometer trip to Taitung County that required crossing the Kuroshio Current took approximately 14 hours. With an estimated 35 to 47 strokes per second, around 100 people, coming mainly from four of Orchid Island's six villages, took turns to finish the whole voyage.
The boat followed the coastline, stopping along the way to replenish supplies and change hands. The colorful boat and rowers in their blue-and-white ceremonial clothing were a source of fascination for Taiwanese tourists who saw it in the distance, according to Lin, who filmed the whole trip. The boat finally entered Taipei City via the Danshuei River on July 28 to a rapturous welcome.
It was an historic moment for the Tao. "The Taiwan public's impression of the Tao may have been of an angry group that often protests against the dumping of nuclear waste on its island," according to Lin. However, the voyage has helped change that, he continued. "Taiwanese people now see a proud group showing their strength and wisdom." In 1982, Taiwan Power Co., the nation's energy provider, built low-level radioactive-waste storage facilities on Orchid Island. Ever since then, Vengayen and other activists have staged many demonstrations, leading to frayed relations between islanders and Taiwan society.
For Vengayen, the boat project is a new strategy to highlight another struggle. The introduction of motorized boats in the 1970s and the encroachment of Taiwanese fishermen using modern technology on traditional Tao fishing grounds have been seriously threatening the survival of boat-making and navigation skills. "The loss of these skills would mean the destruction of the whole tribe because the wooden boat is an embodiment of every aspect of the Tao culture, from economy and psychology to language. The boat is a matter of life and death," he stressed.
In that regard, last year's voyage was seen as being the Tao's proud demonstration of their traditional culture, and more importantly, it represented the possibility of its continuation. "My people regained a degree of pride after the successful journey," Vengayen stated. "They felt that the flame of their culture had not been extinguished by the Han Chinese culture. The voyage also helped facilitate communication and inspire self-reflection in people who took an interest in our heritage."
The fact that many Taiwanese people volunteered to support the venture by participating in onshore jobs was an example that proved the power of the Tao's historical and cultural uniqueness to affect people. Lin, for instance, helped raise funds and find people or organizations to make sure the journey could be completed. After having ridden the waves, the boat was later exhibited in museums in Taipei and Kaohsiung in December. According to Lin, he will also arrange the sale of the boat and make sure the income is distributed among the Tao tribesmen.
"In the very beginning, not many people thought this was possible. Some of the Tao even had doubts," Lin emphasized. Recalling the pre-journey planning, he said, "Behind the realization of this seemingly romantic project were a lot of calculations, competitions and politics." This is the reality of life for islanders, who have long been relatively isolated with limited resources, Lin reminded. Knowing this harsh existence would prevent people from romanticizing the indigenous group, which would definitely not help with mutual understanding, he suggested.
"Many people thought we ignored taboos and broke tribal rules along the way. Some Taiwanese critics even said that our project marketed the Tao culture like a commodity. These accusations are not true," Lin said. "Any decision concerning boats has to be made with permission from each and every Tao participant." Lin explained that it took a great deal of time and social skill to put the idea into reality. Lin said he and his team learned in the process the Tao way of doing things, which shows a great respect for nature and for every individual.
Vengayen confirmed that over the years he had noticed a certain degree of progress in Taiwanese people in terms of respect and appreciation of different cultures. Everybody should try to learn something from indigenous peoples' method of managing resources in their hunting grounds, he said. As an example, he cited the Tao's ban on catching other kinds of fish during the flying-fish season.
In many cultures, the sea is something to be afraid of. Yet for the Tao, the ocean is like a road--a passage that connects people, experiences and cultures. To emphasize the point, Vengayen explained how several participants had even written accounts of what they had seen. "They put the colors of the waves, shapes of the cliffs and bays on Taiwan's east coast into words," the activist said. Their compositions will be sung in tribal ceremonies and thus passed from generation to generation. In that sense, the ocean had indeed brought together, as it was proposed, "the Tao and the Taiwanese, the traditional and modern, the oceanic and the terrestrial cultures."
This article was published in Taiwan Journal March 6, 2008.
An earlier report on June 29, 2007
Tao aborigines paddle fishing canoe to Taipei
By June Tsai
Boats are integral to traditional life on Taiwan's outlying Orchid Island, home to the Tao people--also known as the Yami--who lived primarily by fishing and farming. Their white, red and black wooden boats, symbolic of this lifestyle and surrounded by ritual, are still made by hand according to methods passed down orally from their ancestors.
Over the last few years, a dream coalesced among some Tao tribespeople to build a boat and make an ocean voyage to, or perhaps even around, Taiwan. The journey would showcase the group's boat-making and navigation skills and raise awareness of its vanishing culture and customs. Furthermore, it would highlight the diminishing connection between humankind and the sea for all Taiwanese living on the main island. Drawing on these concepts, they proposed a project and applied to the Johnnie Walker "Keep Walking Fund" for sponsorship, which subsequently awarded them around US$36,000.
According to this proposal, the project was the brainchild of Tao social and political activist Shyaman Vengayen. He was supported by Lin Chien-shiang, a Han Taiwanese filmmaker who had worked closely with Orchid Islanders in the past on documentary films. Vengayen was also backed by five of the island's fishing clans, kinship organizations based around fishing teams unique to Tao society. Last November, they started to build a traditional Tao fishing boat, Lin said June 23.
This particular boat, composed of 60 wooden planks and measuring 10 meters in length, 1.7 meters in width and 2.7 meters in height, was the largest in living memory, Lin said. Nevertheless, it was made using traditional skills.
This reflected one of Vengayen's concerns: the preservation and revival of Tao culture. The fishing-clan social structure and the manufacture of wooden boats by hand and without the use of nails were at the core of Tao tribal tradition, Vengayen said in a June 6 CNA report. Following the introduction of motorized boats in the 1970s and encroachment of Taiwanese fishermen with modern technology on traditional Tao fishing grounds, the skills were starting to be lost.
In a move to help conserve these traditions, in 2001 a group of Tao people from different fishing clans were commissioned by the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung to build a big boat inside the museum. This broke a number of taboos surrounding boat construction, which, for one thing, is normally undertaken by a single clan. Permission was received from tribal elders, however, and the project was so successful it led to commissions from other organizations. Nine more were made, but some people felt that the boats were losing their significance in the process, the proposal stated. They therefore suggested making an 11th large boat using inter-clan cooperation, only this time it would take to the water, Lin said.
The boat would be called "Ipanga na 1001," the number meaning it was more than 1,000 centimeters in length and the words meaning "crossing over." This represented the trip it would make, Lin said June 23, "as well as a crossover between the Tao and Taiwanese, the traditional and modern, and the oceanic and terrestrial cultures."
Finally, with the money secured from Johnnie Walker, more promised by the central government, and a remaining sum of US$15,000 donated from a number of private individuals, the boat was finished. The 12 Tao tribespeople began June 19 the "Keep Rowing" journey that will take them and other islanders from Langdao Village on Orchid Island to Taipei in northern Taiwan. Even at the last moment they were delayed for a week by inclement weather but, once it improved, the boat was able to make the 49-nautical-mile crossing to the coast of Taitung County. The fast-flowing Kuroshio Current meant they had to take a somewhat circuitous route, however.
From Taitung the rowers will take about 30 to 35 days to travel up the east coast, stopping at Hualien, Yilan and Keelung. They will then round the north coast, and enter Taipei City via Danshuei River in time for the Tao representatives to attend the creation of a forum of Austronesian indigenous groups, scheduled for Aug. 1.
According to the original proposal, four teams of rowers would take turns in the boat but, to date, only two teams had volunteered. The project was open to people from Taiwan's main island, Lin explained, so that they could also get a taste of Tao fishing life.
After arriving in Taipei, he continued, the boat would be exhibited in front of the National Taiwan Museum. "We thought about exhibiting it in front of Taipei 101 to see what sparks it would ignite; placing the most traditional thing face-to-face with the most modern."
The boat would eventually be sold to a collector, and the money made would be distributed among the different clans "in accordance with the Tao culture of 'distributing fishes.'" The private investors would also get their monies back, Lin estimated.
Another reason for making the trip was to show how the Tao's ancestors had been able to journey from island to island across the Pacific Ocean. The next project for Vengayen and his team, once funds were raised, Lin said, would be to travel to the Batan Islands to the north of the Philippines, to meet the local Ivatan inhabitants with whom the Tao share much of the same language, culture and origins.
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