Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa

by Janet B. Montgomery McGovern

Up to this time I had always supposed that only among the “upper classes” in China were the feet of the women bound; those of the class who could afford to go always in ricksha or sedan-chair. But all the women of the Chinese-Formosans—except those of the despised Hakkas—bind their feet; rather, have them bound in infancy. A woman with unbound feet is regarded as a sort of pariah, and her chances of a “good marriage”—that goal of every Chinese woman—are almost nil.[27]

These peasant and coolie-women hobbled nearer to see the train as it stopped at the little stations between Keelung and Taihoku, especially when it was reported that there was a white woman aboard. Many of them could not walk without the aid of a stick or without resting one hand on the shoulder of a small boy, thus maintaining their balance. “Lily feet” were obviously a handicap in the carrying of such burdens as most of these women had on their backs. In some cases the bundles consisted of babies strapped Indian-papoose fashion to the shoulders of the mothers—a custom common to both Chinese and Japanese women; in other cases, of heavy bundles of food or of faggots. Unattractive as were the figures of the women—the entire leg being undeveloped, as the result of the cramping of the feet from infancy—their faces were generally attractive; sweet, with a wistful, rather pathetic expression. Only the lips and teeth of the older women were often hideously disfigured from the habit of beetle-nut chewing. The women out of doors who were not burden-bearing were kneeling at the side of the streams and canals, used for irrigating the rice-paddies, busily engaged in washing the family linen—very much in public—or pounding it between stones. As these washerwomen—and they seemed legion, for the Chinese devote as much time to the washing of their clothing as the Japanese do to that of their bodies—knelt, I saw the soles of their feet. In the case of some of the poorer and more ill-dressed women, the splashing water had displaced the rags with which their feet were bound, and the “shoes” which were supposed to cover them. The feet themselves—those members which every lily-footed woman most carefully conceals—were exposed. The sight was not a pleasant one.

I turned to watch the men, most of whom were working in the rice-paddies. Some of them were ploughing—with much the same sort of plough as those supposed to have been used by the ancient Egyptians. To these ploughs were harnessed great “water-buffaloes.” Here was picturesqueness unmarred by a suggestion of pain, even of pain proudly borne, as in the case of the women. The greyness of the “water-buffaloes” made a pleasing contrast to the vivid green of the rice-paddies and to the blue smocks and high-peaked, yellow, dried-bamboo-leaf helmets of the men. There are few things more pleasing to the eye than a carefully terraced Chinese rice-paddy in full verdure, with its graceful slopes and intricate curves of shimmering green. If one approaches too near, the olfactory sense is unpleasantly assailed. But on this first day in Formosa I was not too near. I saw only the beauty—beauty of unusual richness and variety; for, as a background to the rice-paddies, and peasant villages and multi-coloured temples, beetled the great mountain crags, all glowing in the brilliance of tropical September sunshine.

So beautiful was the scenery of the island that after I was settled in Taihoku I made frequent excursions through the country, scraping what acquaintance I could—by means of sign language and the few words of Chinese-Formosan dialect that I had learned from my servants—with the peasants, and taking “snapshots” of their houses and temples, and of their children. Attractive as are all Oriental children, these little ones seemed particularly so; perhaps because of the quaintness of Chinese children’s costume, certainly as this is still worn in Formosa.

On one of these excursions into the country I passed through Keelung. My kodak was in my hand, but the idea of taking a picture in Keelung never occurred to me. In the first place, I knew that the taking of photographs of any sort in this port was one of the many things “strongly forbidden” by Japanese officialdom. In the second place, Keelung is a squalid and dirty town, with none of the picturesqueness of the open country or of the tiny peasant-villages. There was no temptation to photograph its ugliness, or the flaunting evidences of its vice—vice of the mean, sordid type of Oriental, sailor-haunted port-towns. I was hurrying through this hideous town as quickly as possible, in order to reach a stretch of open country, which I knew lay beyond, and which commanded a beautiful view of the sea and of fantastically rearing rocky islets, when I felt my arm roughly grasped. Turning around, I beheld a Japanese policeman. Clanking his sword as he spoke, he demanded my name and address; also he peremptorily demanded to know what I meant by coming to take photographs in the great colonial port-town of his Imperial Majesty, and asked if I did not know that this made me guilty of the unspeakably abominable crime of lack of respect for his August Majesty. I explained that I was not taking pictures in Keelung, had not done so, and had no intention of so doing; that there was nothing there worth photographing.

“But the fortifications,” he began; “you may be looking——” Then he stopped, apparently rather abashed.

“What fortifications?” I asked. “I did not know that there were any. Where are they?”

“Oh no, of course,” he answered, with confusion rather curious in a Japanese policeman. “Of course there are not any now. Only there might be some, one day, and——” Suddenly his brow cleared, as if under the inspiration of an idea that would elucidate matters. “Anybody might be a German—a German spy, you know, looking for a site to build some fortifications perhaps.”

Although this was during the Great War, I knew that in Formosa the fear on the part of the Japanese Government of a “German spy” was practically nil. Also the Japanese policeman was sufficiently intelligent to be able to distinguish one to whom English was the mother-tongue (I was speaking with my secretary as I walked) from a German, even though the latter were speaking English.[28] But in those days of war-hysteria when many English-speaking people became excitedly sympathetic at the suggestion of German spies and their machinations——. Yes, it was a clever move on the part of the policeman. But it aroused my curiosity.