This kindling of the sacred fire by the Taiyal priestesses occurs at the time of the celebrations in honour of the spirits of the ancestors of this tribe. These celebrations take place on the night of the full moon at seed-time and at harvest-time. The day before “full-moon night,” on these semi-annual occasions, the people hang balls of boiled millet, usually wrapped in banana leaves, from the branches of trees, in or near their respective villages. These are to feed the ancestral spirits, which are supposed to descend through the air that night, from the high mountain on which they usually reside, into the trees at the moment of the kindling of the ceremonial fire. This fire lights the spirits on their way to the trees, from which the food is suspended—though moonlight also, it would seem, is necessary, since these “spirit-feeding” celebrations among the Taiyal occur always at full-moon time.
In this connection I was much touched on one harvest-time occasion, when among the Taiyal, at being presented—by a grizzled warrior, tattooed with the successful head-hunter’s mark—with a mass of boiled millet carefully wrapped in a large banana leaf. This, he explained, was because he regarded me as a reincarnation of one of the Dutch “spiritual protectors” of his ancestors.
Reverence for ancestors constitutes almost the whole of Taiyal religion. None of the people of this tribe—or “nation”—seem to hold a belief in creators of the universe, such as is held by the Ami. The only deity—other than deified ancestors—whom the Taiyal apparently take into account is the rain-god, or rather, rain-devil. He, however, is a being very much to be taken into account in a country like that in which the Taiyal live—the mountainous part of the island—where torrential downpours of such violence sometimes occur during the rainy season that the bamboo and grass huts of the people are washed away. The Taiyal are not a people who cringe for mercy at the feet of deity or devil, any more than at those of Chinese or Japanese. Therefore, instead of prayers and offerings to propitiate the wrath or evil temper of the rain-devil, who is supposed to be responsible for the downpour, the chief priestess and assistant priestesses of the tribal group that is being inundated gather together, with long knives in their hands—these of the sort that are used by the men in head-hunting—and begin to dance and gesticulate. The dancing becomes wilder and more frenzied as it goes on, the gesticulations with the knives—thrusting and slashing at imaginary figures—more violent; the priestesses cry or chant in a threatening manner, while the people, both men and women, standing about, howl and wail. Often the priestesses foam at the mouth in their excitement, their eyes look as if they would start from their heads, and this knife-dance usually ends with their falling exhausted in a swoon, throwing their knives from them as they fall. At this climax the people shout with joy, declaring that the rain-devil has been cut to pieces; or, sometimes, that because he has been cut with the knives of the priestesses, he has fled away and been drowned in one of the ponds that he has been responsible for creating—being thus destroyed in the “pit which he had digged for himself.” Whenever the rain ceases—as in course of time it inevitably must—this is attributed to the warfare which the priestesses have waged against the rain-devil.[75]
After having witnessed the almost maniacal madness of some of these sacred dances and ceremonies of exorcism on the part of aboriginal Formosan priestesses, one comes to the conclusion that the so-called “arctic madness,” of which some anthropologists speak (in connection with dances and other religious rites of shamans and medicine-men of the North) is not peculiar to Hyperborean peoples, but is characteristic of all Mongol and Malay races, when under stress of religious fervour or other strong excitement. The same habit of almost hypnotic imitation, one of another, when under stress of terror or excitement that is said, by those who have been among them, to be common to sub-arctic peoples, also characterizes the Malay aborigines of Formosa, this being perhaps particularly noticeable among the Taiyal tribe.
All groups of the Taiyal hold sacred the small bird to which reference has already been made in connection with head-hunting customs—whose cry is regarded as an omen of good or evil, according to the note, and followed accordingly. The flight of this bird is also noted when starting on either a hunting expedition or on one of warfare (head-hunting). The warriors or hunters will stop on the spot at which the bird is seen to alight, and there lie in wait for either enemy or game, according to the nature of the expedition. This bird cannot, I think, in spite of the reverence in which it is held, be regarded as the totem of the Taiyal people. Rather, the tribes-people seem to regard it as the spokesman of some ancestor—one who was in his day a famous warrior, and who thus, through the medium of the bird, continues to guide his descendants, and all members of the tribal group to which during his lifetime he had belonged. Sometimes it is the spirit of a priestess which is supposed thus to continue to guide and guard her people.
The Taiyal word for spirit, or ghost—often used in the sense in which the Christian would use guardian angel—is Ottofu. This seems to correspond with the Atua of the Polynesians. Sometimes, however, it seems to be used much as Mana is used by other Oceanic peoples. Unless one understands really thoroughly the language of a primitive people (and I do not pretend so to understand Taiyal) it is difficult always to trace the association of ideas; but apparently, in this connection, the association is that when a man is guided minutely by the spirit of some powerful ancestor, he himself becomes imbued with more than human power and wisdom and strength.
The heart and the pupil of the eye seem closely associated by the Taiyal with the spirit of each individual and are sometimes spoken of, separately and together, as Ottofu. The spirit of oneself is thought to separate itself from one’s body during sleep; also it is liable to jump out suddenly if one sneezes, and in this case perhaps be lost permanently; hence a sneeze is considered to portend bad luck.
As regards life after death, the Taiyal believe that only the good spirits go to the “high mountain,” to which reference has been made. This local Mount Olympus seems to be situated on one of the high peaks of the great central mountain range of the island. In order to reach it—or to attempt to reach it—each spirit, after death, must pass over a narrow bridge spanning a deep chasm. The men who have been successful as warriors and as huntsmen pass over in safety; also the women who have been skilful at weaving. Men who have been unsuccessful in war or in the chase, and women who have lacked skill at the loom, or have been idle, fall from the bridge down into the dirty water that lies at the bottom of the chasm.
Most of the Taiyal tribal groups believe—as do the majority of the other tribes of the island—that their ancestors sprang from the bamboo. But one of the Taiyal sub-groups—the Taruko, the “High-cliffs people,” to whom I have already referred as being of lighter colour and more regular feature than most of the Taiyal tribes-people—have a curious legend as to their origin. They believe that they are the descendants of a princess who was married to a dog “somewhere over the mountains.” A similar legend is said to be current among some tribes in Java and Sumatra, which is not surprising; nor is it surprising that the same belief should be held by many of the Lu-chu Islanders—these being obviously kindred peoples. But an interesting point is that the same folk-tale is said to exist among certain tribes in Siberia.
The few remaining members of the Saisett tribe have adopted most of the practices, religious and otherwise, of their powerful neighbours, the Taiyal; so these need not be considered separately.