kind regards

Looking after the little people

Amin is a Saisiyat tribe member who lives near caves said to have been inhabited for millennia by a race of black pygmies
By Jules Quartly
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Dec 05, 2004,Page 18

Saisiyat tribe member Amin lives close to a former settlement of black pygmies in Hsinchu County.
PHOTOS: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES

After celebrating the Ritual of the Short Black People (¸GÆF²½) we collected the next morning in the sunlight on a porch overlooking the dappled mountains of Wufeng Township in Hsinchu. Saisiyat tribe elder Amin (Lin Zhen-ming) looked down toward a grove of bamboo trees. Below was a valley through which a stream ran banked by cliffs where, he said, the Short Black People had lived for millennia.

The amiable 55-year-old did not know how long it had been since the last black pygmy lived in one of those caves, but there are records of these original Taiwanese people in Qing dynasty (1644 to 1911) documents. Some gathered on the porch said the ritual commemorating the Short Black People had been going on for 400 years, since the Aboriginal Saisiyat are said to have wiped them out. Another tribal elder suggested the extinction was later, some time in the last century.

Amin was like a big brother to everyone, an electrician/plumber/fix-it man and just the kind of person you could turn to when your battery was bled to death by sleeping in an air-conditioned car without the engine on. He said life in the city was exciting and he would do jobs there, but he was always glad to come home because friends and family meant more to him than money. “Here,” he said, surveying the land, a Middle-Earth-like vision of lush mountains and smoke trailing out of nearby settlements. “It’s pure.”

Amin said he was aware of and generally agreed with a study backed by the Saisiyat tribe that established the Short Black People as racially similar to groups now living in Malaysia and the Philippines. He said they were described in stories passed down by his parents as having red hair like these people. He said they were short, but not little, as they were strong.

The race is said by various out-of-Africa theorists to have arrived in Asia as long as 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. The first mythical emperor, Fu Hsi (¥ñ¿ª) was a “black dwarf,” they claim. Aborigines are thought to have migrated to Taiwan about 3,000 years ago (other estimates range from 1,000 to 10,000 years). There is another theory that Taiwanese tribes were the first Austronesians.

Though the origins of civilization in Taiwan are hotly debated, everyone seems to agree the end of the black pygmies came at the hands of the Saisiyat. The oral history has been passed on over generations by the Saisiyat, in the 16 songs and in the Ritual of the Short Black People held every two years in Nanchuang Township, Miaoli County and Wufeng. There are similar published versions, Amin acknowledged, but this was his story.

Amin said the God of the Short Black People that is prayed to at the rituals represents an advanced race that was kind, gentle and helpful but was also puckish or worse. It was because of this nature that the last of the Short Black People got into trouble with the Saisiyat. The black pygmies liked to flirt with the Saisiyat women but they went too far when they sexually molested an Aboriginal princess and her handmaidens. The Saisiyat men were angry, so they plotted their revenge and invited the pygmies to a harvest festival. On leaving the party the pygmies crossed a bridge.

It was here, Amin said, waving in the general direction of the caves below the porch on which we were sitting, where the pygmies died. He pointed to the far side of the river and described a bridge with his hands. Then he made a cutting motion to describe how the bridge was cut. The pygmies fell to their deaths and only one escaped. He taught the Saisiyat knowledge that had been handed down and before disappearing at dawn, into the sunrise, he warned them: if his race’s legends died out, then so would the Saisiyat. Amin further explained there was a small population of black pygmies before this incident and they did not have many women, so perhaps this is why they raped the Saisiyat women.

Currently, there are fewer than 5,000 Saisiyat among a population of under 400,000 Indigenous or Aboriginal people in Taiwan. Many Saisiyat marry into other tribes or Han families, so numbers are decreasing. Amin’s mother is Saisiyat but his father is Atayal. The tribe is usually but not necessarily patri-lineal. Amin described himself as part of the Lin (ªL) family or clan that is part of the Saisiyat tribe.

As for the caves below, where the black pygmies were said to live, we were asked to stay away. Amin said the cliffs to get there were too steep. He said those who had photographed the place had their film cleared. There were even curses of the Short Black People that involved memory loss and confusion for those foolhardy enough not to heed the warnings. As it happened, some photos I had taken the previous night had mysteriously disappeared and the car wouldn’t start, so the trip was a non-starter.

Amin and the Saisiyat guard the caves, hold the rituals and tell the stories that keep alive the legacy of Taiwan’s original settlers, now that they are gone.

Copyright © 1999-2006 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.

Over the weekend, the Saisiyat tribe from Hsinchu and Miaoli held its biannual events to mourn and celebrate the legacy of the Short Black People, who are thought to be Taiwan’s original inhabitants

Linked hand-by-hand to hundreds of other dancers, we whirled around like dervishes. At other times, we rhythmically rocked back and forth, or shuffled in a circle. All the time, the tribal elders were singing simple trance-like chants that rose and fell. The moon was high, bright and full above us.

In the amphitheater’s stands, at the staging area for the biannual “Ritual of the Short Black People” (¸GÆF²½) in Wufeng Township, Hsinchu County, the multi-colored dancers looked like a single entity, a dragon prowling around the ground beneath.
The ritual was festival-like, even ecstatic at times. It was staged like an open-ended concert in that the audience members were also performers in a drama that has been re-enacted for ages. You could watch the action from the gallery and buy hongs or share rice wine, beer, cigarettes and betel nut; or take a stroll around the arena, to the stalls selling local crafts, roasted wild white pig and other delicacies; or join the dance.

There were around 4,000 people of all ages at the site, perched at an elevation of 1,500m in the Central Mountain Range. There were no amplifiers, except for the tannoy that occasionally broadcasted information. Around 80 percent of those present were from Aboriginal tribes, mainly Saisiyat and Atayal. There were some Chinese businessmen supplying arcade machines or roadside stalls, students and local tourists, some Japanese (mainly media) and 10 or so foreigners.

Before the dancing on Saturday that began at 6pm, there was a ritual held in private by Saisiyat tribal leaders, of which there were six main families, led this year by the Zhu family. Then the tribal members danced and later everyone who wanted joined in. This went on until 12:30am or so, when the main event wound down and people made their way home, or to hundreds of houses in the vicinity to carry on celebrating.

I was staying at a hospitable Zhu family home in the area and the next morning the sounds of parties going on in the surrounding hills filled the air. Gradually, these sounds were submerged by the trill of karaoke sessions that lapped over a lazy Sunday afternoon, as people ate and rested and toasted each other.

The Saisiyat tribe — which is said to have killed off the last of the black pygmies that were likely the earliest settlers of Taiwan — has held the Ritual of the Short Black People for around 100 years, ever since their extermination is believed to have happened.

The Saisiyat have held similar kinds of dances for millennia, often with the pygmies. They were possibly performed many thousands of years earlier by that ancient race which, until relatively recently, lived in caves at the bottom of one of the mountains in the area, by a stream.

The previous night in Nanchuang Township, Miaoli County, starting around 10pm for outsiders, there had been a cycle of rituals held every two years to commemorate the Short Black People.

Two connected Saisiyat tribes, those from Hsinchu and Miaoli, hold complementary rituals and sometimes the same rituals in different sites. The god of the Short Black People was transported between the two staging areas, from Nanchuang to Wufeng for Sunday night’s dances. Yesterday morning and early afternoon was a final ceremony involving chopping down a sacred tree.

The Nanchuang ritual was held near Xiangtian Lake, in the mountains of Miaoli, about an hour’s drive from Wufeng over the ragged peaks. It began by welcoming the god of the Short Black People. There was no amphitheater, just a staging ground, a private ritual room, basic changing areas and hundreds of stalls or makeshift shops that spilled over an area that was bounded by woods. Small tent cities had mushroomed and the four-day event had just begun.

It was colder, darker, open to the elements and had a more mournful feel. A man stood in the middle of swaying dancers cracking a whip. The elders’ singing seemed more trancelike, more like a dirge. They had microphones that made them sound like muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

The dancing seemed slower and more ponderous, compared to the feeling of celebration at Wufeng. The dancers were directed by senior tribal members and some carried poles decorated in silk and tinsel. Others stewarded the dancing, stopped people getting in the way and prevented photographers from taking shots from inside the dance. Taking photos was prohibited in the 11 rules that were handed out with the shuttle bus ticket to the site.

In addition, visitors had to enter with a “sincere heart,” show respect, not fight or argue, not go in the private ritual area, and follow the steps and lyrics as directed, not make up your own. The rules did not mention that a mangtsao, a long leaf similar to bamboo, needed to be tied to your arm to prevent trouble from the spirits of the awakened Short Black People. The stewarding was friendly, but firm, often ending in a shared drink of rice wine.

As to my feeling that the mood of the two events had been different, several Aboriginal elders assured me the dances and 16 songs were the same and the ritual is basically similar at both places. They looked quizzical and amused, though one said the Wufeng festival was more “modern.”

As we watched the dancers sway and circle, Mwa, who is in his 80s, looked healthy and was happy with the drink and excitement. He said that three generations of his family have taken part in the Ritual of the Short Black People. When he was young, he said, there were slightly fewer people compared with the 5,000 or so who turned up in Nanchuang on Friday. But, he said there were more Saisiyat then, fewer Atayal (the neighboring tribe), Chinese and foreigners.

The Saisiyat are said to number approximately 5,000. They are dwindling in number and many marry into Atayal or Han families.

Mwa offered no opinions but gave me a drink instead and we toasted each other, as did those in the same place for a similar ritual long ago