Only around 30 of the Tao aborigines still know how to engage in a traditional mikarayag, or hand-clapping singing party. (Photos Courtesy of Lin Chien-hsiang)
By June Tsai
“The story passes from one generation to the next, embracing the island like ocean water.”—mikarayag song
The indigenous Tao of Lanyu, or Orchid Island, off Taiwan’s southeast coast, are famous for their oceanic culture. The iconic shape of their distinctive white, red and black wooden fishing boat even serves as a symbol of Taiwan’s multiculturalism. Their musical traditions, however, are less well-known and in danger of disappearing.
In fact, few people would associate the group with any special musical form or instrument, unlike other indigenous groups such as the Bunun, known for their polyphonic singing, or the Atayal, with their jew’s-harps.
An all-night event at Taipei National University of the Arts Oct. 30 to 31 showed just how wrong that impression is.
Thanks to efforts by younger Tao, music professionals and cultural activists, the fading tradition of the “mikarayag”—or hand-clapping singing party—was brought to life on stage, giving the audience a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The happening, put together by Shyaman Ferngayin, a Tao cultural activist, is part of a team project to rescue the practice from extinction.
According to Shyaman Ferngayin, the Tao are one of the few aboriginal groups in the world who do not use any musical instruments. Yet they do sing on various occasions, and the mikarayag is an important one. He remembers as a boy falling asleep on his father’s lap amid the clapping and singing.
Traditionally, the mikarayag takes place following the completion of a “mikarang”—the ground-level working room of a Tao house that also functions as a gathering space. A standard Tao dwelling consists of a mikarang, an underground main room known as the “vahay,” and the “tagakal,” or veranda.
The mikarayag party usually begins at dusk, with participants sitting next to each other in a half circle, singing and clapping until “the wee hours when the cock crows for the third time.”
Mikarayag is practiced only in certain months, normally between June and September, Shyaman Ferngayin said. In the Tao calendar, June marks the end of the flying fish season, while September is the beginning of the harvest.
The average age of the 18 singers in Taipei was 78. These elders, 11 men and seven women, felt somewhat uncomfortable on the well-lit stage, but managed to make themselves at home after doing a few pieces.
The mood at a mikarayag is casual and relaxed. Each song is begun solo, with the others listening. At a certain point they join the leader, clapping and repeating the lyrics. Any participant can begin the next song.
There is no evident harmony, with each singer using a different pitch, forming what musicologists call tone clusters.
Indeed, the lyrics of a mikarayag song are more important than its melody. “A song could be describing the tribe’s hard work and its achievements, or be used for courting. After all, these parties come only after the fishing season is over,” Shyaman Ferngayin said.
There are competing theories regarding the origin of the mikarayag. Oral histories trace it back to the middle of the 17th century when the Tao and the Ivatan, indigenous inhabitants of the Batanes Islands of the Philippines, joined in a historic exchange on Batan Island. Others have it that the ancient Tao learned it from a half-man-half-ghost.
Today, only some 30 of the 4,000 Tao people know how to conduct a mikarayag, and all of them are over 70.
Taos under 50 have difficulty understanding what is sung because of the extensive use of archaic expressions, metaphors and puns. Even Shyaman Ferngayin, who translated the songs into Mandarin Chinese at the Taipei mikarayag, admitted he did not understand all the words.
The 46-year-old only belatedly became aware of the cultural and musical significance of the mikarayag. Beginning in 2004, he set out to do field research, documenting lyrics and collecting oral histories. He coauthored a book on mikarayag with music professor Lu Yu-hsiu, published in 2007.
“This mikarayag is the first ever outside Lanyu, and what we are attempting to do is reconstruct the rhythm of island life, in which people relax after months of hard work,” he told the audience at TNUA.
“But this is not something staged—what appears before you is something very true to life.”
Documentary filmmaker Lin Chien-hsiang, who helped bring the singing party to Taipei, expressed a similar idea. “A mikarayag is an event that depends on the context and the interaction among participants, to such an extent that it can hardly be reproduced in a performance.”
For instance, Lin explained, the Oct. 30 activity was planned for an outdoor venue, but inclement weather forced it inside to the university’s concert hall. The change bothered the seniors for some time before the mikarayag began, though they recovered after food and beverages were eventually allowed on stage.
“Participants in a mikarayag do not just sing and clap their hands. They also eat, chat and comment on a song,” Lin said.
“During a mikarayag, singers recite old texts as well as creating new ones, and all are poetic.”
At the Taipei performance, the group sang a song expressing fear of an avalanche when thunder approaches, with a cry for mercy and wisdom to live peacefully with nature.
In another song, the tribal elders narrated a historic voyage of three years ago, when a group of Tao men braved the Kuroshio current on a 10-man fishing boat, the largest in their memory, paddling to the island of Taiwan and up the east coast all the way to Taipei.
In still another, a traditional tune of unknown origin, members from two different families bantered and tried to outperform each other.
“The Tao have a rich vocabulary taken from nature and their experience with the supernatural,” Lin, himself a learner of the language, remarked. “Mikarayag lyrics are born from the tribe’s talent in aesthetically transforming daily routines, labor and social life,” Lin said.
“One distinctive example is the image of dying fish, used to refer to nuclear waste,” he said, reminding the audience that the government built Taiwan’s first nuclear waste storage facility on Lanyu back in 1982. The waste remains there today, despite a new law in 2006 requiring its removal.
Based on his efforts to document this musical heritage, Shyaman Ferngayin said it is impossible for the mikarayag to be passed down to future generations solely by learning its rules and memorizing lyrics.
First of all, changes in Tao life in recent decades have put the tradition on its last legs. People seldom build mikarang now, as concrete structures have replaced traditional architecture, leaving few occasions for a mikarayag.
Although Lin has worked with the Tao for 20 years, he has only twice seen mikarayag on Lanyu. The second time was when “a Catholic church was completed, and a mikarayag was convened as a special event.”
Another reason might be the Tao’s own attitude toward this form of singing party. “Mikarayag lyrics have been regarded as of lower status than those of other forms of singing, and the elders felt the mikarayag was merely a leisure activity, something not really worth mentioning,” Shyaman Ferngayin said.
Furthermore, he said, “Learning the art requires participation in the seasonal work of the group and full involvement in Tao cultural life, in addition to mastery of its musical customs and language.”
“We know it is disappearing, and possibly irrevocably, and so we are duty bound to try to revive it,” he said. “Bringing the mikarayag to the outside world cannot in itself rejuvenate the tradition, but at least it is a beginning.” (THN)
This article first appears in online Taiwan Today Dec. 2.
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