Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa

by Janet B. Montgomery McGovern

I am aware that the evidence of linguistic affinity as in any way indicating that of race is rather disregarded by many anthropologists, on the ground that contact—commercial or otherwise—between peoples often affects linguistic interchange, or results in the introduction of words from the language of one people into that of another. With this I strongly agree, as regards different races living on the same continent (the different races of Africa being a case in point); or even as regards people living on neighbouring islands. With the Formosan aborigines, however, there has been no contact within historic times between themselves and other branches of the Malay or Indonesian race. They themselves are not a seafaring folk, and the people who have invaded their island—certainly since about the sixth century A.D., when Chinese records first speak of it, during the Sui Dynasty—have been successive waves of the Chinese themselves, the Dutch, the Spanish, possibly the Portuguese, and the Japanese. In spite of this fact, the language to which the Formosan dialects show closest affinity is Malay proper, that spoken on the Malay Peninsula, although there is some resemblance to that spoken in Java, judging from Malayan and Javanese words given in books, such as Wallace’s Malay Archipelago.

It has been estimated that about one-sixth of the words of the various Formosan dialects, i.e. those spoken by the different tribes, have a direct affinity with the Malayan language—that spoken by the Malays proper. With so large a proportion of words bearing a close resemblance, and taking into account the centuries-long isolation of the Formosan tribes—as regards contact with other Malay or Indonesian peoples—there can be little reasonable doubt that the languages have sprung from a common stock, as probably the races have done.

Regarding the tribal divisions of the aborigines, I shall mention the nine tribes into which they are now usually grouped—in the spelling of the names following the Japanese, rather than the Chinese, pronunciation, viz.: Taiyal, Saisett, Bunun, Tsuou, Tsarisen, Paiwan, Piyuma, Ami, and Yami. This is as nearly as the Japanese—or, for that matter the English—can imitate the pronunciation of the respective names by which these tribes-people call themselves. Each name seems merely to mean “Man” in the dialect of the tribe using it, except Ami (sometimes pronounced by themselves “Kami”), which means “Men of the North.” This is the tribe which has the tradition of having originally come from “somewhere in the south, across a great water.”

Mr. Ishii—the Japanese writer and lecturer on Formosa—mentions only seven tribes of aborigines, omitting the Tsarisen and Piyuma. This is according to the present Japanese system of grouping. They (the Japanese) say that it is because of “linguistic affinity,” i.e. because the dialects spoken by the Piyuma and Tsarisen resemble the tongue spoken by the Paiwan, that they group these tribes together. Perhaps! Certainly it is a fact that the tribes omitted from Japanese enumeration are rapidly disappearing; and their conquerors scarcely like to call attention to that fact. At any rate, Mr. Ishii is honest enough to admit that “the Piyuma possess a peculiar social organization and should be treated as separate from the Paiwan.” The Saisett is another tribe that is rapidly disappearing. Soon there will be only six tribes left to enumerate—that is, very soon. Soon, as history goes, there probably will be none.

The ethnological—or rather, ethnographical—map included in this book indicates the various areas in which the different tribes live, or over which they roam. However, the “Aiyu-sen” (military guard line) of the Japanese is gradually, but steadily, being drawn closer about the territory supposed to belong to the aborigines; and well within this territory—even in the mountain range, in which the aborigines were left undisturbed during the Chinese rule of the island—the Japanese Government has now established stations for cutting down camphor trees, and at some points machinery for extracting crude camphor, to be refined later in the great factory in Taihoku. The work at the “camphor stations” or “factories” in “savage territory” is done by Chinese-Formosan coolies under the direction of Japanese overseers. It is through this territory that the trolly (or toro) lines—referred to in Part I, page [69]—have been constructed, over which the man-propelled cars are pushed up the steep mountain-sides.

As the tribes now exist, I should consider the Taiyal, of the north, the largest, both in population and also as regards the territory over which its members roam.[51] Next to the Taiyal, the Ami, of the east coast, is the largest tribe, both in population and in extent of territory; next, the Paiwan, of the south. On this point—that of the relative size of population of the aboriginal tribes—I should be inclined to agree with the Bureau of Aboriginal Affairs (Japanese), of Formosa, rather than with Mr. Ishii, who considers the Paiwan the largest of the aboriginal tribes as regards population.

The Japanese usually speak of the “Savages of the North” and the “Savages of the South”; those “of the North” being the Taiyal—or “tattooed tribe,” so called because of the rather remarkable way in which the faces of these people are tattooed, of which I shall speak more in detail under another heading—together with the few remaining members of the Saisett tribe. In speaking of the Taiyal tribe, the “Report of the Control of the Aborigines in Formosa,” issued by the Japanese Government, says: “Their district [that of the Taiyal] comprises an area of about 500 square ri (2,977 square miles), with a population of about 30,000; but on account of the advancement of the guard-line in recent years, their district is gradually becoming less” (italics my own).

This statement as to the district of the Taiyal “gradually becoming less” (something which is acclaimed as being to the credit of the Japanese Government) might with equal truth be made regarding the territory of the other aboriginal tribes, those who are grouped together by the Japanese under the general term “Savages of the South,” about all of whom the cordon is gradually being drawn tighter.

The Taiyal is not only the largest and most powerful aboriginal tribe on the island, but it is also—perhaps for this reason—the boldest and least submissive. Most of the adult men of this tribe have upon their faces the tattoo-mark signifying that they have at least one human head to their credit. The other head-hunting tribes of the island are the Bunun and the Paiwan.