So much, then, for the religious beliefs and observances of the aborigines of the main island.
The Yami—the tribe living on the tiny thirty-mile-in-circumference island of Botel Tobago (or “Koto Sho,” as the Japanese call it), about thirty-five miles south of Formosa proper—differ somewhat in religion, as in other matters, from their neighbours of the large island. The Yami also observe a semi-annual religious festival; but in their case the celebration is in honour of the “Sea God,” offerings of fruit, of food, and of flowers being cast into the sea on these occasions. No offering of wine is made, as is the case with the other tribes at their religious festivals, for the reason that the Yami seem to know nothing of either the making or the drinking of wine—one of the few primitive peoples of whom this is true. They have a tradition that their ancestors “came up out of the sea”; hence their worship of the “Sea God”—a reminiscence probably of the fact that their ancestors came across the sea from some other island, possibly from one of the Philippine group, judging from the resemblance of the Yami, generally speaking, to a Philippine tribe—that of Batan island.[76]
At the time of their celebrations in honour of the “Sea God” the Yami wear wonderful hats, or helmets, made of silver coins, beaten thin. These coins they obtain from the Japanese, in exchange for the products of their own marvellously fertile little island, when the Japanese boats stop at Botel Tobago, which they now do once a month. The beaten coins are pierced and strung together on grass fibres—or on wires, when these can be obtained from the Japanese. The stiff bands thus made are built up into enormous pyramid-shaped head-pieces, worn by both men and women.[77] These constitute the chief article of dress, the Yami being less skilled in weaving than the aborigines of the main island, although the women wear garlands of flowers and of shells.
As the spring festival in honour of the “Sea God” comes at the time of the vernal equinox, coinciding approximately with the Christian Easter, the great silver helmets of the Yami can but remind one of the Easter hats of more civilized lands. And now that the fact is generally accepted by students of comparative religion and folk-lore that “Easter” is a pre-Christian festival—common to many lands and races, only, at the present time in the Western world, given an Anno Domini interpretation, as is the case with Christmas and the other festivals of the Church—it is perhaps justifiable to wonder whether the custom of donning gala attire at Easter may not have a very ancient origin, as many centuries pre-Christian as the festival itself in celebration of the awakening of the earth to renewed life.
With the Yami—the Botel Tobago folk—the New Year is reckoned from the great spring festival. Most of the tribes on the main island of Formosa count the New Year as beginning at the time of the harvest festival in the autumn.
Before leaving the subject of Religion as this is counted among the aborigines, it may be mentioned that the seventeenth-century Dutch writers—Father Candidius and others—speak of numerous temples—“one to every sixteen houses”—as existing among the aborigines. They do not mention which tribe, or tribes, had these temples, but the context would seem to imply the Paiwan, or perhaps the Ami. While these temples doubtless existed at the time that the Dutch Fathers wrote, they no longer do so. The nearest approach to a temple is the house of chief or priestess, especially among the Paiwan, where such carvings as have been described are found. These carved tablets perhaps represent a system of temples and temple-worship which once existed.
CHAPTER VIII
MARRIAGE CUSTOMS
The Point of View of the Aborigines regarding Sex—Courtship preceding Marriage—Consultation of the Bird Omen and of Bamboo Strips as to the Auspicious Day for the Wedding—The Wedding Ceremony—Mingling by the Priestess of Drops of Blood taken from the Legs of Bride and Groom; Ritual Drinking from a Skull—Honeymoon Trips and the setting-up of House-keeping—Length of Marriage Unions.