CHAPTER III
PERSONAL CONTACT WITH THE ABORIGINES
A New Year Visit to the East Coast Tribes—Received by the Taiyal as a Reincarnation of one of the seventeenth-century Dutch “Fathers.”
In spite of the objections of the Director, and the suspicions of the police and of the hydra-headed ‘they,’ I did not, while in Formosa, confine either my interests or my exercise to ricksha-riding[30] or to “tennis-ball.”
My chief interest lay with the mountain tribes—the aborigines; my chief exercise consisted in what my Japanese friends called “prowling” among these tribes. Sometimes accompanied by another English teacher and a servant, sometimes by my son or secretary, sometimes quite alone, I went up into the mountains; going as far as I could by “trolly” (or toro, as the Japanese call it[31])—a push-car, propelled by Chinese-Formosan coolies, on rails laid by the Japanese—rather, under their instructions—into the mountains, for the purpose of bringing camphor-wood and crude camphor down to the great camphor-refining factory in Taihoku. From the terminus of the toro line I “prowled.”
For permission to go into the mountains—and permission for almost every movement on the part of a “foreigner” is necessary in the Japanese Empire, in Formosa even more than in Japan proper—I am indebted to Mr. Hosui and to Mr. Marui, the two most courteous Japanese officials whom I met in Formosa. I wish here to express my gratitude to both.[32]
The tribe that I first studied, and of which I saw perhaps more than of any other during my residence in Formosa, was the great Taiyal tribe of the north—reputed to be the most bloodthirsty on the island, and whose territory now covers almost as much as that of all the other tribes together.[33] From Taiyal territory I sometimes “prowled” over into that of the Saisett and Bunun tribes. This was perhaps not strictly according to official permission; I was told that it was “too dangerous.” But the spice of danger—perhaps also the “forbidden-fruit” element—made these walks the more interesting; and I still have my head on my shoulders.
TWO MEN OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE BRIBED BY GIFTS OF HAT AND CIGARETTES TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN.