Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold
text by =equal signs=
AMONG THE HEAD-HUNTERS OF FORMOSA
[Illustration: MAN AND WOMAN OF YAMI TRIBE IN REGALIA WORN AT THE
SPRING FESTIVAL IN HONOUR OF THE SEA-GOD.
(_See page 149._)]
AMONG THE HEAD-HUNTERS
OF FORMOSA
_By_ JANET B. MONTGOMERY
MCGOVERN, B.L.
_Diplomée in Anthropology, University of Oxford_
WITH A PREFACE BY
R. R. MARETT, M.A., D.Sc.
READER IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
ILLUSTRATED
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
_First published in 1922_
(_All rights reserved_)
TO
W. M. M.
MY SON AND THE COMPANION
OF MY WANDERINGS
“No human thought is so primitive as to have lost bearing on our own
thought, or so ancient as to have broken connection with our own life.”
E. B. TYLOR, _Primitive Culture_.
PREFACE
To treat her as a goddess has always been accounted a sure way of
winning a lady’s favour. To the cynic, therefore, it might seem that
Mrs. McGovern was bound to speak well of her head-hunting friends of
the Formosan hills, seeing that they welcomed her with a respect that
bordered on veneration. But of other head-hunters, hailing, say, from
Borneo or from Assam, anthropologists have reported no less well, and
that though the investigators were accorded no divine honours. The
key to a just estimate of savage morality is knowledge of all the
conditions. A custom that considered in itself is decidedly revolting
may, on further acquaintance with the state of culture as a whole, turn
out to be, if not praiseworthy, at least a drawback incidental to a
normal phase of the ruder life of mankind.
The “grizzled warrior,” we are told, who made oblation to our
authoress, bore on his chin the honourable mark of the man-slayer. To
her Chinese coolie that formidable badge would have been enough to
proclaim the wearer _seban_--the kind of wicked animal that defends
itself when attacked. Thus, if it merely served to warn an invading
alien to keep his distance, this crude advertisement of a head-hunting
habit would be justified, from the standpoint of the survival of
the hard-pressed aborigines. Even had a threat of cannibalism been
thrown in, its protective value could hardly be denied; for, much as
men object to be killed, they commonly deem it worse to be killed
and eaten. Though reputed to be man-eaters, however, the savages of
Formosa are not so in fact. Indeed, the boot is on the other foot. I
remember Mr. Shinji Ishii telling us at a meeting of the Folk-lore
Society that, despite their claim to a higher form of civilization,
the Chinese of the adjoining districts will occasionally partake of
a head-hunter, chopped up small and disguised in soup: the principle
implied in the precaution being, I dare say, sound enough, namely, that
of inoculation, though doubtless the application is unfortunate.
Meanwhile, head-hunting has for these wild-folk a function and
significance that are not to be understood so long as we consider it
as a thing apart. The same canon of interpretation holds good of any
other outstanding feature of the social life. Customs are the organic
parts of a body of custom. To use a technical expression, they are
but so many elements composing a single “culture-complex.” Modern
research is greatly concerned with the tracing out of resemblances
due to the spread of one or another system of associated customs. The
method is to try to work back to some ethnic centre of diffusion;
where the characteristic elements of the system, whatever might have
been their remoter derivation, have been thoroughly fused together,
in the course of a long process of adaptation to a given environment.
Thereupon it becomes possible to follow up the propagation of influence
as it radiates from this centre in various directions outwards. Now
it may well be that the tradition rarely, or never, is imparted in
its entirety. Selection, or sheer accident, will cause not a little
to be left behind. On the other hand, the chances are all against one
custom setting forth by itself. Customs tend to emigrate in groups.
Thus head-hunting, and a certain mode of tattooing, and the institution
of the skull-shelf, and the requirement that a would-be husband must
display a head as token of his prowess, are on the face of them
associated customs, and such as are suited to have been travelling
companions. Hence it is for the ethnologist to see whether he cannot
refer the whole assortment to some intrusive culture of Indonesian or
other origin.
Yet lest one good method should corrupt the science, we should not
forget that there is another side to the study of culture; though from
this side likewise there is equal need to examine customs, not apart,
but in their organic connexion with each other. Whencesoever derived,
the customs of a people have an ascertainable worth here and now for
those who live by them. The first business, I should even venture to
say, of any anthropologist, be his sphere the study or the field, is
to seek to appreciate a given culture as the expression of a scheme
of values. Every culture represents a set of means whereby it is
sought to realize a mode of life. Unconsciously for the most part,
yet none the less actually, every human society pursues an ideal. To
grasp this ideal is to possess the clue to the whole cultural process
as a spiritual and vital movement. The social inheritance is subject
to a constant revaluation, bringing readaptation in its train. There
is a selective activity at work, and to apprehend its secret springs
one must keep asking all the time, what does this people want, and
want most? unconscious though it may largely be, the want is there.
Correspondingly, since it is a question of getting into touch with a
latent process, the anthropologist must employ a method which I can
only describe as one of divination. He must somehow enter into the
soul of a people. Introjection, or in plainer language sympathy, is
the master-key. Objective methods so-called are all very well; but
if, as sometimes happens, they lead one to forget that anthropology
is ultimately the science of the inner man, then they but batter at a
closed door.
A sure criterion, then, by which to appraise any account of a savage
people consists in the measure of the sympathy shown. A summary sketch
that has this saving quality will be found more illuminating than
many volumes of statistics. Literally or otherwise, the student of
wild-folk must have undergone initiation at their hands. Having become
as one of themselves, he is qualified to act as their spokesman,
putting into such words as we can understand the felt needs and
aspirations of a less self-conscious type of humanity. Here, for
instance, Mrs. McGovern, though writing for the general public, and
reserving a full digest of her material for another work, has sought
to present an insider’s version of the aboriginal life of Formosa. She
was willing to become an initiate, and did in fact become so, almost
overshooting the mark, as it were, through translation to a super-human
plane. So throughout she tries to do justice to the native point of
view. She says enough to make us feel that, despite certain notions
more or less offensive to our conscience, the ideal of the Formosan
tribesman is in important respects quite admirable. He is on the whole
a good man according to his lights. Allowance being made for his
handicap, he is playing the game of life as well as he can.
Having thus dealt briefly with principles of interpretation I perhaps
ought to stop short, since an anthropologist as such has nothing
to do with the bearing of his science on questions of political
administration. Mrs. McGovern, however, has a good deal to say about
the means whereby it is proposed to convert head-hunters into peaceable
and useful citizens. Without going into the facts, upon which I am
incompetent to throw any fresh light, I might venture to make some
observations of a general nature that depend on a principle already
mentioned. This principle was, that to understand a people is to
envisage its ideal. The practical corollary, I suggest, is that, to
preserve a people, one must preserve its ideal so far as to leave its
vital and vitalizing elements intact. In other words, in purging that
ideal, as may be done and ought to be done when it is sought to lift
a backward people out of savagery, great care should be taken not to
wreck their whole scheme of values, to cause all that has hitherto
made life worth living for them to seem cheap and futile. Given
sympathetic insight into their dream of the good life--one that is,
probably, not unlike ours in its main essentials--it ought to prove
feasible to curtail noxious practices by substituting better ways of
satisfying the same needs. Contact with civilization is apt to produce
among savages a paralysis of the will to live. More die of depression
than of disease or drink. They lose their interest in existence. Their
spirit is broken. When the policy is to preserve them, the mere man of
science can lend a hand by pointing out what indeed every experienced
administrator knows by the time he has bought his experience at other
people’s expense. Given, then, the insider’s point of view, a sense
of what the savage people itself wants and is trying for, and given
also patience in abundance, civilization may effectively undertake to
fulfil, instead of destroying.
R. R. MARETT.
INTRODUCTION
_Among the Head-hunters of Formosa_ contains the substance of
observations made during a two-years’ stay in Formosa--from September
1916 to September 1918. The book is written for the general reader,
rather than for the specialist in anthropology or ethnology. Hence
many details--especially those concerning minor differences in manners
and customs among the various aboriginal tribes--have been omitted;
for these, while perhaps of interest to the specialist, would prove
wearying to the layman.
Inadequate as the treatment of the subject may seem to the
anthropologist, I venture to hope that such information as the book
contains may stimulate interest, and perhaps encourage further
investigation, before it is too late, into the tribal customs and
habits of a little-known, and rapidly disappearing, people.
A writer--signing himself “P. M.”--discussing the aborigines of
Formosa, in the _China Review_ (vol. ii) for 1873, says: “Decay and
death are always sad sights to contemplate, and when decay and death
are those of a nation or race, the feeling is stimulated to acuteness.”
If this feeling in connection with the aborigines was aroused in
a European resident in Formosa in 1873, how much more strongly
is this the case to-day--nearly half a century later--when the
aboriginal population has dwindled from approximately one-sixth of
the population of the island (an estimate given by Keane in his
remarks on Formosa, in _Man Past and Present_) to about 3 per cent.
of the entire population--a decline of 15 per cent. in less than
fifty years. Under the present system of “benevolent assimilation” on
the part of the Japanese Government the aboriginal population seems
declining at an even more rapid rate than it did under Chinese rule,
which ended in 1895. Hence if the mistake which was made in the case
of the Tasmanians--that of allowing them to die out before definite
or detailed information regarding their beliefs and customs was
gained--is to be avoided in the case of the Formosan aborigines, all
anthropological data available, both social and physical, should be
gained without further delay. Up to this time apparently but little
has been done in the way of scientific study of these people, in spite
of the fact that, as Keane points out, Formosa “presents a curious
ethnical and linguistic connecting link between the continental and
oceanic populations of Asia.”
Dr. W. Campbell, writing in _Hastings’ Encyclopædia of Religion and
Ethics_ (vol. vi) remarks: “The first thing to notice in making any
statement about the savages of Formosa is the extreme paucity of
information which is available.” If anything which I--the first white
woman to go among certain of the tribal groups of these savages--am
able to say will make less this “extreme paucity of information,” then
I shall feel that the time spent in writing this book has not been
wasted.
I must add that I am deeply indebted to Dr. Marett, of Oxford, who most
kindly read the greater part of the book in manuscript form; and again
in proof.
JANET B. MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN.
Salzburg, Austria.
_March 1922._
NOTE
Among other valuable suggestions, Dr. Marett has called my attention
to the fact that the word “caribou” (sometimes spelt carabao) is used
in this book to describe an animal other than the American reindeer.
It is quite true that no dictionary would define “caribou” as meaning
the hideous, almost hairless, beast of the bovine species used in
certain parts of Indonesia for ploughing the rice-paddies, and whose
favourite recreation--when not harnessed to the plough--is to lie,
or to stand, buried to its neck in muddy water; yet this beast is so
called both in the Philippines and in Formosa; that is, by English and
Americans resident in these islands. By the Japanese the animal is
called _sui-gyu_; by the Chinese _shui-niu_ (as nearly as the sound can
be imitated in English spelling); the characters being the same in both
languages, but the pronunciation different.
In connection with the pronunciation and the English spelling of
Chinese and Japanese words, the spelling is of course phonetic. This
applies to the names of places, as well as to other words. As regards
Formosan place names, the difficulty of adequate transliteration is
aggravated by the fact that the Chinese-Formosans and the Japanese,
while using the same written characters, pronounce the names quite
differently. In spelling the names of places, I have followed that
system usually adopted in English books. There can, however, be no
hard and fast rules for Sino-Japanese spelling; therefore the Japanese
gentleman to whom I am indebted for the map who has spelled Keelung
with a single “e,” is quite “within his rights” from the point of view
of transliteration.
J. B. M. M.
CONTENTS
PREFACE pp. 9-14
INTRODUCTION pp. 15-18
PART I
_DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND AND ITS INHABITANTS_
CHAPTER I
IMPRESSIONS FROM A DISTANCE
Scepticism regarding the Existence of a Matriarchate--Glimpse of
Formosa from a Steamer’s Deck in passing--Hearsay in Japan concerning
the Island Colony--Opportunity of going to Formosa as a Government
Official pp. 27-35
CHAPTER II
IMPRESSIONS AT FIRST-HAND
The Voyage from Kobe to Keelung--The History of Formosa as recounted by
a Chinese-Formosan--A Visit to a Chinese-Formosan Home--The Scenery of
Formosa--Experience with Japanese Officialdom in Formosa pp. 36-68
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.”
pp. 69-85
CHAPTER IV
THE PRESENT POPULATION OF FORMOSA
Hakkas and other Chinese-Formosans, Japanese, Aborigines pp. 86-92
PART II
_MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES_
CHAPTER V
RACIAL STOCK
Physical Appearance pointing to Indoneso-Malay Origin--Linguistic
Evidence and Evidence of Handicraft--Tribal Divisions of the
Aborigines--Moot Question as to the Existence of a Pigmy People in the
Interior of the Island pp. 95-108
CHAPTER VI
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Head-hunting and associated Customs--“Mother-right” and Age-grade
Systems--Property Rights--Sex Relations pp. 109-129
CHAPTER VII
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND PRACTICES
Deities of the Ami and Beliefs of this Tribe regarding Heaven and
Hell--Beliefs and Ceremonials of the other Tribes of the South--Descent
from Bamboo; Carved Representations of Glorified Ancestors and of
Serpents; Moon Worship; Sacred Tree, Orchid, and Grass--The Kindling of
the Sacred Fire by the Bunun and Taiyal Tribes--Beliefs and Ceremonials
of the Taiyal--Rain Dances; Bird Omens; Ottofu; Princess and Dog
Ancestors--Yami Celebrations in Honour of the Sea-god pp. 130-151
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 pp. 152-162
CHAPTER IX
CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH ILLNESS AND DEATH
Belief that Illness is due to Evil Ottofu--Ministrations of the
Priestess--A Seventeenth-century Dutch Record of the Treatment of
the Dying by the Formosan Aborigines--The “Dead Houses” of the
Taiyal--Burial of the Dead by the Ami, Bunun, and Paiwan Tribes beneath
the Hearth-stone of the Home--“Green” and “Dry” Funerals pp. 163-172
CHAPTER X
ARTS AND CRAFTS
Various Types of Dwelling-houses peculiar to the Different
Tribes--Ingenious Suspension-bridges and Communal Granaries
common to all the Tribes--Weapons and the Methods of their
Ornamentation--Weaving and Basket-making--Peculiar Indonesian Form of
Loom--Pottery-making--Agricultural Implements and Fish-traps--Musical
Instruments: Nose-flute; Musical Bow; Bamboo Jews’-harp--Personal
Adornment pp. 173-185
CHAPTER XI
TATTOOING AND OTHER FORMS OF MUTILATION
Cutting away of the Lobes of the Ears and knocking out of the
Teeth--Significance of the Different Designs of Tattoo-marking among
the Taiyal--Tattooing among the Paiwan pp. 186-192
CHAPTER XII
METHODS OF TRANSPORT
Ami Wheeled Vehicle resembling Models found in early Cyprian
Tombs--Boat-building and the Art of Navigation on the Decline.
pp. 193-197
CHAPTER XIII
POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE
“Decadent” or “Primitive”--A Dream of White Saviours from the West
pp. 198-199
CHAPTER XIV
CIVILIZATION AND ITS BENEFITS
To “wonder furiously”--Better Government, or Worse?--Comparison of
Standards--A Conversation with Aborigine Friends--The Question of
Money--Tabus pp. 200-215
INDEX pp. 217-220
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
MAN AND WOMAN OF YAMI TRIBE IN REGALIA WORN AT THE SPRING FESTIVAL
IN HONOUR OF THE SEA-GOD _Frontispiece_
FACING PACE
ANTHROPOLOGICAL MAP OF FORMOSA 27
GATEWAY OF THE OLD CHINESE WALL FORMERLY SURROUNDING THE CITY OF
TAIHOKU 36
“CARIBOU,” OR WATER-BUFFALO, USED BY THE CHINESE-FORMOSANS 52
MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE ON A STATE VISIT TO THE
CITY OF TAIHOKU 52
AUTHOR IN RICKSHA IN THE CITY OF TAIHOKU 66
USUAL FORM OF _TORO_ (PUSH-CAR) 66
TWO MEN OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE BRIBED BY GIFTS TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE
TAKEN 70
AUTHOR IN _TORO_ GOING UP INTO TAIYAL TERRITORY 70
“FACTORY” FOR EXTRACTING CAMPHOR IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FORMOSA 90
MEN OF THE BUNUN TRIBE 98
YAMI TRIBESPEOPLE OF BOTEL TOBAGO IN FRONT OF “BACHELOR-HOUSE” 98
TAIYAL WOMAN, AND A WOMAN LIVING AMONG THE TAIYAL BELIEVED TO BE
PART PIGMY 102
WOMAN OF YAMI TRIBE OF BOTEL TOBAGO 102
MAN OF TAIYAL TRIBE AND WOMAN LIVING AMONG THE TAIYAL SUSPECTED
OF HAVING A STRAIN OF PIGMY BLOOD 108
AUTHOR’S SECRETARY MAKING NOTES OF TAIYAL DIALECT 108
TAIYAL TRIBESPEOPLE 114
SKULL-SHELF IN A TAIYAL VILLAGE 114
TWO PAIWAN MEN AND A YOUNG WOMAN IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE OF A
PAIWAN CHIEF 120
FAMILY OF THE AMI TRIBE 134
GLORIFIED ANCESTOR OF THE PAIWAN TRIBE CARVED ON A SLATE
MONUMENT 134
AUTHOR WITH TWO TAIYAL GIRLS IN FRONT OF TAIYAL HOUSE 172
TAIYAL WARRIOR IN CEREMONIAL BLANKET 172
PAIWAN VILLAGE OF SLATE 176
AUTHOR IN THE DRESS OF A WOMAN OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE 180
A TAIYAL WOMAN AT HER LOOM 184
WOMAN OF AMI TRIBE MAKING POTTERY 184
PART I
_DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND AND ITS INHABITANTS_
[Illustration: ANTHROPOLOGICAL MAP OF FORMOSA.
Scale 1:2,000,000. Heights in feet]
CHAPTER I
IMPRESSIONS FROM A DISTANCE
Scepticism regarding the Existence of a Matriarchate--Glimpse of
Formosa from a Steamer’s Deck in passing--Hearsay in Japan concerning
the Island Colony--Opportunity of going to Formosa as a Government
Official.
As to the actual existence of matriarchates I had always been
sceptical. Matrilineal tribes, and those matrilocal--that was a
different matter. The existence of these among certain primitive
peoples had long been substantiated. But that the name should descend
in the line of the mother, or that the newly married couple should
take up its residence in the tribe or phratry of the bride, has not
of necessity meant that the woman held the reins of power. Quite
the reverse in many cases, as actual contact with peoples among
whom matrilineal and matrilocal customs existed has proved to every
practical observer.[1]
Those lecturers in the “Woman’s Cause” who boasted of the “great
matriarchates of old” I thought weakened, rather than strengthened,
the cause they would advocate by attempting to bring to its aid
evidence builded on the sands. The great “matriarchates of antiquity”
I was inclined to class with the “Golden Age” of the Theosophists, as
representing a state of affairs not only “too good to be true,” but
one in which the wish was--to paraphrase--father to the belief. And
as to prehistoric matriarchates, representing a highly evolved state
of civilization--in anything like the present-day significance of
that word--I am still sceptical; as sceptical as I am of a Golden Age
preceding the day of _Pithecanthropus_ and his kind.
But a land which is, as regards its aboriginal inhabitants--now
confined to a few tribes, and those fast diminishing, in its more
mountainous and inaccessible portions--sufficiently matripotestal
to justify its being called a matriarchate, I have found. And this,
as is often the case with a quest of any sort, rather by accident.
Residence among the American Indians of New Mexico, of Arizona, and of
Nevada, and a slight knowledge of the natives of certain of the Pacific
Islands--particularly those of Hawaii and of the Philippines--had
led me to give up the idea of finding a genuine matriarchate even
among primitive peoples. Too often I had found that where those who
had “passed by” had spoken of a “matriarchal state” as existing,
investigation had proved one that was only matrilineal or matrilocal.
It was in Formosa that I found these matriarchal people; Formosa, that
little-known island in the typhoon-infested South China Sea, so well
called by its early Portuguese discoverers--as its name implies--“the
beautiful.” Indeed, it was the beauty of Formosa that first attracted
me. I shall never forget the first glimpse that I caught of the island
as I passed it, going by steamer from Manila[2] to Nagasaki. There
it lay, in the light of the tropical sunrise, glowing and shimmering
like a great emerald, with an apparent vividness of green that I had
never seen before, even in the tropics. During the greater part of the
day it remained in sight, apparently floating slowly past--an emerald
on a turquoise bed. For on that day there was no typhoon or threat
of typhoon, and on such a day the China Sea can, with its wonderful
blueness and calm, make amends for the many other days on which, like
the raging dragon that the Chinese peasants believe it veritably to be,
of murky green, spitting white foam, deck-high, it threatens--and often
brings--death and destruction to those who venture upon it. Nor was
the emerald island a jewel in the rough. The Chinese call it Taiwan, a
name which means, in the characters of their language, Terrace Beach,
[Illustration].[3] This name the Japanese--the present masters of the
Island--have adopted; and it is not an inappropriate one. Nor do the
terraces refer to those small, low-lying ones of the rice-paddies which
for some centuries Chinese coolies have cultivated on the fertile east
coast of the island; but rather to those bolder mountain terraces,
carved by the hand of Nature, and covered with that wild verdure which
only tropical rains, followed by tropical sunshine, can produce.[4]
These terraces--gleaming brilliant green, and seeming to refract the
sunlight of that April day, as we sailed across the Tropic of Cancer,
which cuts Formosa through the middle--were curiously like the facets
of a great emerald, polished and carefully cut.
The glimpse which I caught that day of the shining island with its
vivid colouring, and seemingly wondrously carved surface, remained with
me as a pleasant memory during the several years that I spent in Japan.
Although Formosa is now a Japanese colony--has been since 1895--one
is able to get curiously little definite information in Japan
regarding the island. From the Japanese themselves one hears only
of the marvellous energy and skill of the Japanese in exploiting the
resources of the island--sugar, camphor, tea--and the manufacture of
opium, a Government monopoly. From the English, Scottish, and Canadian
missionaries stationed in Formosa, who sometimes spend their summers in
Japan, one hears more of the exploiting, on the part of the Japanese,
of the Chinese population of Formosa--a fact which later I found to be
cruelly true.
Now and then, while I was in Japan, I heard vague rumours of
head-hunting aboriginal tribes in the mountains of Formosa, but
regarding these I could gain little exact information. The Japanese,
when questioned about the aborigines, were either curiously
uncommunicative, or else launched at once into panegyrics concerning
the nobility of the Japanese authorities in Formosa in allowing dirty,
head-hunting savages to live, especially as some of these dirty
head-hunters had dared to rebel against the Japanese Government of the
island. Of the manners and customs of the aborigines, however, the
Japanese seemed wholly ignorant. Nor were the missionaries from Formosa
much better informed, as far as the aborigines were concerned. Their
mission work, they said, was confined to the Chinese population of the
island, with now and then tactful attempts at the conversion of the
Japanese. But as for the aboriginal tribes--yes, they believed there
were such people in the mountains; one of their number, when going
from one Chinese village to another in the interior of the island, had
seen a queen or “heathen priestess” of the aborigines carried on the
shoulders of her followers. More they did not know--yes, probably it
was true that these savages cut off people’s heads whenever they had a
chance. They were heathen--what could one expect?...
While failing to get much accurate information regarding the aborigines
of Formosa, I managed, on the other hand, to get a good deal of
misinformation. One book in particular, I remember, written obviously
by one who had never been there, gave the impression that the whole
island was inhabited by savages, with a “small sprinkling at the ports
of Japanese, Chinese, English, and Filipinos.”
The most trustworthy information concerning Formosa--as I later
learned, after I myself had been to the island--was that obtained
through the columns of the _Japan Chronicle_, an English newspaper
published in Kobe. This information was in connection, particularly,
with “reprisal-measures” of extraordinary severity taken by the
Japanese Government of Formosa against certain of the aboriginal
tribes, some members of which had risen in revolt against the Japanese
gendarmerie (_Aiyu-sen_) placed in authority over them. This curiously
cruel strain in the Japanese character was at that time difficult for
me to believe[5] (I had not then been in Korea, or in any of the other
Japanese dependencies). But what was said of the Formosan aborigines
aroused my interest to such an extent that I was anxious to study them
at first-hand.
Circumstances, however, prevented my going to Formosa for some time.
A “foreigner”--American or European--anywhere in the Japanese Empire
is always more or less under surveillance; in the colonies--Formosa
and Korea--more rather than less. Any attempt to go to Formosa to
carry out independent investigation of the aborigines would, I knew,
have been politely thwarted by the Japanese authorities. A “personally
conducted tour” could, finances permitting, have easily been arranged.
I would have been most politely received by the Japanese officials of
the island, and escorted by them to those places which they wished me
to see, and introduced to those people whom they wished me to meet.
Such had been the experience of several “foreigners” who had gone
to visit the island and “study its people.” To live for any length
of time in Formosa one must satisfy the Japanese authorities that
definite business demands one’s presence there. At that time I had no
“definite business which demanded my presence” in Formosa. Nor had
a “bradyaga”[6] like myself the capital to start a business in tea
or sugar, which would have given a credible excuse for living in the
island. Besides, a _woman_ tea-exporter!--the Japanese authorities
would scarcely have been satisfied.
My desire to learn at first-hand something of the aborigines of Formosa
remained, therefore, more or less an inchoate inclination on my part,
and I turned my attention to other things. Then, curiously enough, as
coincidences always seem curious when they affect ourselves, a few
months later, when I was in Kyoto, studying Mahayana Buddhism,[7] came
an offer from a Japanese official to go to Formosa as a teacher of
English in the Japanese Government School in Taihoku, the capital of
the island.[8]
I had taught English in Japan--both in Tokyo and Kagoshima[9]--and
I knew that however Japanese people in different parts of the
empire might vary in other respects, on one point, at least, they
were singularly alike; that is, in their incapacity for the ready
assimilation of a European tongue. This in rather curious contrast to
their ability for imitation in other respects. No; teaching English
to Japanese was no sinecure. But it opened for me the way to go to
Formosa; it gave me an “excuse for being,” as far as existence on that
island was concerned. Consequently I accepted the offer to teach in
the school which had been built for the sons of Japanese officials
in Formosa,[10] and in September 1916 I sailed from Kobe, Japan, for
Keelung, the northernmost port of Formosa.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is but fair to add, however, that among tribes with whom the
matrilocal custom exists, the position of the woman is apt to be better
than among those that are patrilocal. This particularly as far as the
treatment of the wife is concerned. The husband is regarded always more
or less as a visitor--an “auslander”--among his wife’s people; one
over whom the influence of his father-in-law and brothers-in-law has
a chastening effect. In matrilocal tribes the real power lies usually
in the hands of the father and the elder brother of the wife, who have
absolute authority over her and over her children.
[2] Formosa is only 225 miles (approximately) north of Cape Engano, the
northernmost point of the Philippine Islands, of which Manila is the
capital.
[3] Some Chinese scholars maintain that Terrace Bay (i.e. a bay
surrounded by terraces) is a more accurate translation than Terrace
Beach.
[4] There is some difference of opinion as to the origin of the name.
Shinji Ishii, the Japanese writer, suggests that the Chinese name,
Taiwan, is a corruption of _Paiwan_, the name of one of the aboriginal
tribes of the island. In this connection it must be remembered that the
Japanese, generally speaking, are prone to deny to the Chinese capacity
for poetic conception, or appreciation of beauty. I, however, who have
lived among the Chinese, and know their genuine appreciation of the
beautiful in nature, and their habit of fixing the poetic concept of a
moment by crystallizing it in a word or phrase, think “Terrace Beach”
or “Terrace Bay” the more probable meaning of _Taiwan_.
[5] I had gone to Japan under the glamour of the writings of Lafcadio
Hearn.
[6] Vagabond--or wanderer--as nearly as that expressive Russian word
“бродяга” can be translated into English.
[7] To be exact, I was, when in Kyoto, devoting my attention chiefly
to the study of _Shin-shu_ (not to be confounded with Shinto)--one of
the many sects into which Mahayana Buddhism is now divided, the sect
associated with the two great Hongwanji temples of Kyoto--and comparing
these teachings with those of _Zen-shu_, another sect of Mahayana
Buddhism, which I had previously studied in a Zen monastery in Kamakura.
[8] As a teacher in this school I ranked as a “two-button” official
(_sōninkan_) of the Japanese Government, and thus technically
entitled to wear two buttons on the sleeve of my coat, and to carry
a short sword with a white handle. The Director of the school, the
Head Master and the heads of one or two departments and the other
“foreign” teachers were also “two-button” officials. The majority
of the teachers were “one-button” officials (_hanninkan_), entitled
to wear only one button on the sleeve of their coats and to carry a
black-handled sword. The “two-button” officials were “invited”--i.e.
practically commanded--to attend official government banquets and
similar functions, and to meet visiting princes and other notables from
the “mother-country.” The “one-button” officials escaped these honours.
[9] The picturesque and interesting--because still untouristized--city
in the extreme south of Japan, situated under the shadow of Sakurajima,
the still active volcano, which early in 1914--the year that I was in
Kagoshima--destroyed a portion of the city, and killed several hundred
of its inhabitants.
[10] A school for the daughters of Japanese officials has also been
established in Taihoku; but it is an interesting commentary upon the
position of women in Japan, even at the present time, that while
several “foreign” (English and American) teachers are engaged for the
boys’ school, no “foreign” teacher is employed for the girls’ school.
That would be “too expensive for a girls’ school,” the Japanese say.
Also, while the curriculum of the two schools is--with the exception of
English--practically the same, yet the boys’ school is called a Middle
School (Chu Gakkō), because the boys are expected to go later to a
Higher School, for the completion of their education; while the girls’
school is called a Higher School (Kōtō Gakkō) because the education of
girls is supposed to be completed with the completion of the course in
this school.
CHAPTER II
IMPRESSIONS AT FIRST-HAND
The Voyage from Kobe to Keelung--The History of Formosa as recounted by
a Chinese-Formosan--A Visit to a Chinese-Formosan Home--The Scenery of
Formosa--Experience with Japanese Officialdom in Formosa.
Formosa lies about a thousand miles south of Kobe--six hundred and
sixty miles, it is estimated, south of Kagoshima, the southernmost
point of Japan proper--and the voyage of four days down through
the Tung Hai (Eastern China Sea) was a warm one, the latter part
especially. Before Keelung was reached, the wraps that had been
comfortable when leaving Japan were discarded in favour of the
thinnest clothing that could be unpacked from bags or steamer-trunk.
Two Scottish missionaries, returning to their work among the
Chinese-Formosan in the southern part of the island, were the
only other foreigners[11] (white people) on board. The other
passengers--certainly of first and second class--were, with one
exception, Japanese; chiefly Japanese officials, who, with their
families, were going to take up their duties in the island colony of
the empire; or to resume these duties after a summer vacation spent
in Japan. The one exception was--as exceptions usually are--the most
interesting person on board. This was a Chinese-Formosan; one who,
in the days before the Japanese possession, had belonged to one of
the “old” families of the island--as people all over the world are
accustomed to reckon age in connection with “family” (_au fond_,
how curiously alike are we all--Oriental and Occidental--in the
little snobbishnesses that make up the sum of human pride--and human
childishness).
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE OLD CHINESE WALL
_Formerly surrounding the city of Taihoku, the capital of Formosa._]
At any rate, in the days when “old” families in Formosa meant also
wealthy families, this Chinese-Formosan, then young, had been
sent to Hongkong, to be educated in an English college there.
Consequently it was in excellent English that he told me something
both of the early history of Formosa, as this had been recorded in
old Chinese manuscripts, and also something of the traditions of
the Chinese peasantry regarding the origin of the island. This--the
origin--was connected, as are almost all things else in China, in the
minds of the people, with the dragon. It seems that, according to
popular legend--which the early Chinese geographers repeated in all
seriousness--the particular dragon which was responsible for the origin
of Formosa was one of more than usual ferocity. The home of this
prince among dragons was Woo-hoo-mun (Five Tiger Gate), which lies
at the entrance of Foochow, a town on the South China coast. One day
his dragonship, being in a frolicsome mood, went for a day’s sport in
the depths of the ocean. In his play he brought up from the ocean-bed
sufficient earth to mould into a semblance of himself; Keelung
being the head; the long, narrow peninsula, ending in Cape Garanbi,
the southernmost point of the island, being the tail; the great
mountain-range running from north to south--of which Mt. Sylvia and
Mt. Morrison[12] are the two highest peaks--representing the bristling
spines on the back of the dragon.
Thus according to tradition was created the island of Formosa, or
Taiwan, which is in area about half the size of Scotland, but is in
shape long and narrow, being about 265 miles long[13] and--at its
widest point--about 80 miles wide. It is separated from China by the
Formosa Channel, sometimes called Fokien Strait, which is at the widest
about 245 miles, but at the narrowest only 62 miles; the dragon seeming
to prefer to build this memorial of himself almost within sight of his
permanent abiding-place. Indeed the Chinese-Formosan fishermen declare
that on a clear day the coast-line of China may be discerned from
the west coast of Formosa. But this I, myself, have never seen--the
curve of the earth, alone, would, I think, prevent its being actually
seen--and I am inclined to think that the fishermen mistake the outline
of the Pescadores, small islands lying between China and Formosa, but
nearer the latter, for China proper. That is, if their imagination
does not play them false altogether, and build for them out of the
clouds on the horizon a semblance of the coast-line of the home of
their ancestors--something sacred to every Chinese, whatever the
conditions of starvation or servitude which drove his ancestors from
the motherland.
Something of the early historical, or pseudo-historical, records of
Formosa my Chinese-Formosan fellow-voyager on the Osaka Shosen Kaisha
steamer also told me. It seems that the first mention in Chinese
records of the island is in the _Sui-Shu_--the history of the Sui
Dynasty, which lasted from A.D. 581 to 618, according to Occidental
reckoning. At that time Chinese historians and also geographers
believed Formosa to be one of the Lu-chu ([Illustration]) group;
that long chain of tiny islands which dot the sea from the south of
Japan to the north of Formosa, like stepping-stones, or--as they more
strongly reminded me when I first saw them--like the stones which
Hop-o’-my-Thumb dropped from his pocket when he and his brothers were
carried away into the forest, that they might find their way back home.
According to early Chinese historians the aboriginal inhabitants of
Formosa up to about the sixth century A.D. were a gentle and peaceable
people, making no objection to Chinese settlements on the coast of the
island. Then in about the second half of the sixth century--as nearly
as Oriental and Occidental systems of reckoning time can be correlated
(the beginning of the Sui dynasty) there swept up from “somewhere in
the south” bands of fierce marauders who conquered the west coast of
the island and drove the surviving aboriginal inhabitants into the
central mountains. A little later--in about the seventh century--the
Chinese historian, Ma Tuan-hiu, says a Chinese expedition went to
Formosa, with the intention of forcing the new inhabitants to pay
tribute to China. This, however, these “new inhabitants”--of Malay
origin presumably--refused to do. Consequently great numbers were
killed by the Chinese, who also burned many native villages, and used
the blood of the slain inhabitants for caulking their boats. To one
who knows the peculiar reverence with which blood is regarded by all
primitive peoples, and the many ceremonies, religious and social,
in which the use of blood makes the ceremony sacred, it is easily
comprehensible that the caulking of Chinese boats with the blood of
their kinsmen caused greater consternation among the Formosan savages
than the mere slaughter of a greater number of their people would have
done.
In spite, however, of the ruthless measures taken by the Chinese in
their efforts to extort tribute, the “wild men of the South” held
their ground, and the Chinese were at last obliged to leave the island
without tribute, and without having exacted the promise of it. This,
according to Chinese records, was an unprecedented occurrence when sons
of the Flowery Kingdom were dealing with barbarians.
For several centuries Chinese records seem to have made little or no
mention of Formosa; then in the twelfth century occurred an event even
more extraordinary, as far as the relations between China and Formosa
were concerned. This was the appearance in the sea-coast villages of
Fokien Province, China, of a band of several hundred Formosans. These
men came, it is said, for the purpose of pillaging iron from the homes
and shops of the Chinese. This metal they valued above anything else
in the world,[14] because they had learned that it could be made into
spear-heads and arrow-heads, also into knives, more serviceable than
those made of flint. They were not able, apparently, to smelt the crude
ore, but they understood the building of forges, and were skilful in
“beating ploughshares into swords”--to paraphrase. Locks, bolts, nails,
from the houses of the Chinese villagers, were grist to the mill of
these Formosans, as was anything else made of iron on which they could
lay their hands. It is said that before they could be driven away they
had secured a large store of iron, in various forms, much of which they
succeeded in carrying off in their boats. This is the only occasion on
record on which the Formosan “barbarians” ventured to cross the channel
which separates their island from China; or at least the only one on
which they succeeded in doing so.
It was not until the Yuan dynasty (in the early part of the fourteenth
century), during a war between China and Japan, that a Chinese
expedition proved that Formosa did not belong to the Lu-chu group; this
with tragic consequences to an eminent Chinese scholar of the day. The
history of the Yuan dynasty records that “a literate of Fokien Province
advised attacking Japan through the Lu-chu Islands.” This literate,
believing Formosa to be one of the Lu-chu group, begged the Chinese
admiral, Yangtsian, to set sail first for that island. It seems that it
had been the intention of Admiral Yangtsian to sail from North China
directly to Japan, but, with that respect for reputed scholarship
characteristic of the Chinese, the admiral listened to the advice of
the literate; the latter being promoted to naval rank, and asked to
join the expedition as adviser.
This expedition proved that the principal island of the Lu-chu group
lay many _li_ to the north of Formosa. China was the gainer in
geographical knowledge; but the admiral lost the advantage which he
probably would have gained had he sailed from North China, and his
adviser, the literate, lost his head--not figuratively, but literally.
Even after this expedition, however, Formosa was still called “Little
Lu-chu.”
It was not until the time of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) that the
island seems to have been called Taiwan. In Chinese records of this
period the name “Taiwan,” as applied to the island, appears for
the first time. Indeed, for some reason, Chinese authorities seem
to consider that the “authentic history” of the island begins from
the time of the Ming dynasty. The event which in Chinese chronicles
dates the beginning of this “authentic history” was the visit--an
unintentional one--in about 1430, of the eunuch, Wan San-ho, an officer
of the Chinese Court. Wan San-ho had been on a visit to Siam, and
was on his way back to China, when the boat on which he was sailing
was struck by a typhoon and blown so far out of its course that the
captain was obliged to take refuge in the nearest port, which happened
to be on the south-west coast of Formosa, near the present town of
Tainan.[15] It is recorded that Wan San-ho remained for some time on
the island, and when he eventually returned to China took back with
him herbs and plants of high medicinal value. It is said that the
Chinese still use in their pharmacopœia herbs grown from the seeds of
those brought from Formosa by Wan San-ho in the fifteenth century. For
the accuracy of this statement I, of course, cannot vouch; nor could my
Chinese-Formosan friend who first told me the story of Wan San-ho. He,
however, evidently believed it to be true.
It was also during the Ming dynasty that the first association of the
Japanese with Formosa is recorded. This was about the close of what is
known in Japanese history as the Ashikaga dynasty, which lasted from
1336 to 1443. At this time the Japanese Empire was torn by internal
conflict, and was the scene of constant strife between contending
political parties, the followers of the Great Daimyos. During this
period of disorder Japanese pirates, under the banner of _Hachiman_
(the Japanese God of War), plundered the villages on the coast of China
and established headquarters, first on the Pescadores--the small group
of islands off the west coast of Formosa--and later at the port that is
now known as Keelung, on Formosa proper.
This seems to have been a harvest-time for Japanese pirates.
Unrestrained by authority at home, and finding no enemy stronger than
themselves on the sea, they made raids not only on the towns of the
China Coast, but made successful plundering expeditions even as far
south as Siam. The booty from these raids, it seems, was first brought
to Keelung, then sent to Japan, where it was sold at a high profit.
Those were days in which bold buccaneers waxed fat.
Nor were the Japanese pirates allowed to reap the harvest alone. At
the same time that these men had headquarters at Keelung, in the north
of Formosa, Chinese pirates had established headquarters near Tainan,
in the southern part of the island. If the records report truly, the
intercourse between the Chinese and Japanese pirates does not seem to
have been unfriendly, even while their respective nations were at war
with each other--outlaws presumably being absolved from the obligations
of patriotism. This state of affairs lasted for over a hundred years.
During the sixteenth century Formosa, which was then known to the
Japanese as “Takasago,” seems to have become a sort of “clearing-house”
between China and Japan--a link between nations the “respectable”
portions of whose populations were estranged. In the early part of that
century the Chinese pirates were united under the leadership of Gan
Shi-sai, grandfather of the famous Koksinga, shrines to whose memory
recently erected by the Japanese--because it has been learned that his
mother was a Japanese--one sees everywhere in Formosa at the present
time.[16]
The sixteenth century was a rather noteworthy one in the history of
Formosa. It was during this century that the Hakkas--the outcaste class
of China--fled to Formosa to escape persecution in the mother-country.
And more important, at least from the European point of view, it was
in the sixteenth century that Europeans first learned--as far as
there is any record--of the existence of the island. It is sometimes
said that the Portuguese had a fort in Keelung about 1590. Of this
there seems to be no definite proof. Not only was this the opinion of
the Chinese-Formosan who first gave me in outline the history of the
island, but later investigation on my own part failed to find proof, or
even trustworthy evidence, of the existence of such a fort. However,
there can be little doubt that the Portuguese navigators, sailing down
the west coast of the island, gave to it the name by which it is known
to-day to Europeans--“Ilha Formosa” (Beautiful Island).[17] The Dutch
navigator Linschotten, in the employ of the Portuguese, so recorded it
in his chart in the latter part of the sixteenth century.
It was early in the next century that the Dutch, as a nation, first
came into touch with Formosa. In 1604 the Dutch admiral, Van Narwijk,
sailed for Macao, in the south of China; but a typhoon--that frequent
occurrence in the China Sea--drove him to the Pescadores. While there
he gained a knowledge of the near-by large island of Formosa, which
knowledge, it is said, was responsible for the later--temporary--Dutch
dominance of the island. Another typhoon, however, resulting in another
wreck, brought about the actual first landing of Dutchmen on Formosa
proper. This was in 1620, when a Dutch merchant ship was wrecked near
the present town of Tainan.
At that time a Japanese colony was, with the permission of China,
established at this point. The Dutch captain, after having first
been refused by the Japanese land on which to build a depôt for his
goods--or that portion which he had saved from the wreck--at last
persuaded the men from Dai Nippon to allow him to build a depôt “if
this could be built on ground no larger than that which could be
covered with an ox-hide.” The “heaven-descended”[18] thought the
_Ketto-jin_ (hairy barbarian) mad. They naturally were not familiar
with the European classics. The Dutch captain apparently was, since he
repeated the famous manœuvre--said to have been responsible for the
founding of Carthage[19]--of cutting the ox-hide into very thin strips.
With the raw hide rope thus made he succeeded in encircling a piece of
ground amply large for the building of a goods depôt.
The Chinese-Formosan, in relating this story, was so convulsed with
laughter that, in spite of his excellent English, it was at first
difficult to understand him. It seemed that what especially excited
his risibility was the idea--to him ludicrous--that a man of any other
nationality should be able to outwit a Japanese in a “sharp deal.”
He declared the story “too good to be true,” but in the accounts of
the early history of Formosa which I have read since hearing the
Chinese-Formosan recount the story, there seems evidence for its verity.
At the time, however, when this incident is supposed to have
occurred--the early part of the seventeenth century--the Chinese were
really the masters both of the Pescadores and of Formosa proper. It
was they who, in 1622, gave the Dutch permission to establish a fort
on one of the Pescadore islands. This was done under the command of
Admiral Cornelius Reyersz, who wished to have a stronghold from which
he could sally forth to attack the Portuguese at Macao. The next year
an agreement was reached between Holland and China by which the Dutch
were to remove from the Pescadores to Formosa. In 1624 the Dutch built
Fort Zelandia, the ruins of which are still to be seen at Anping, the
harbour-town near Tainan.
The building of Fort Zelandia marked the beginning of Dutch dominance
in Formosa, a period which, though lasting less than forty years, is
one that has never been forgotten by the aboriginal inhabitants of the
island, as I found later, when I went among them. During this time,
however, the Dutch were not left in undisturbed control of the island.
Another European nation cast covetous eyes upon the “Ilha Formosa.”
Spain organised an expedition under the command of Don Antonio de
Careño de Valdez, which in 1626 set forth from Manila, then a Spanish
possession, and sailed north to the “Beautiful Island.” The Spaniards
succeeded in establishing a colony at Keelung, which they called
Santissima Trinidad, and afterwards built a fort--San Domingo--at the
other northern port of the island, called by the Chinese and Japanese
Tamsui.
For some years it seems there was a struggle between the Dutch and
Spanish for the domination of the island. Then in 1641 the greater
part of the Spanish troops in Formosa were recalled to Manila, in
order to take part in an expedition against the Moors[20] in Mindanao,
the southernmost island of the Philippine group. This gave the
Dutch an opportunity of which they were not slow to take advantage.
They renewed their attacks upon the Spanish garrison, now greatly
weakened. The following year--1642--this surrendered, and the last
Spaniard--including the priests and the Dominican Friars, who had come
over with Don Careño de Valdez--left the island.
The Dutch were now left for a time undisputed masters of Formosa. They
built forts on the ruins of those evacuated by the Spanish at Tamsui
and Keelung. The old Dutch fort at Tamsui is still standing, and is in
a good state of preservation. It has walls eight feet thick, and is
used to-day as the British Consulate of the island.[21]
For about twenty years after the Spanish surrender in Formosa, Dutch
prosperity in the island was at its height. It is said that during this
time there were nearly three hundred villages under Dutch jurisdiction,
divided for convenience of administration into seven provinces. The
population of these villages, while recorded as being “native,”
evidently consisted of Chinese-Formosans. Finding that agriculture
was not progressing among these people, the Dutch minister, Gravius,
is said to have sent to the East Indies for “water-buffaloes,” the
so-called caribou, and when these arrived he distributed them among the
Chinese population of the island. “Water-buffaloes”--descendants of
those imported by the seventeenth-century Dutch--are used to-day by the
Chinese-Formosans for ploughing their rice-paddies (see illustration).
[Illustration: “CARIBOU,” OR WATER-BUFFALO, USED BY THE
CHINESE-FORMOSANS.
_This is said to be a descendant of those introduced by the Dutch in
the seventeenth century._]
[Illustration: MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN (MEN CROUCHING, WOMEN STANDING) OF
THE TAIYAL TRIBE ON A STATE VISIT TO THE CITY OF TAIHOKU.]
Besides the Chinese population of Formosa under Dutch administration,
the aboriginal tribes in the mountains also acknowledged Dutch
supremacy, as they had never acknowledged Chinese, and as, more
recently, they have never been reconciled to Japanese. Later, when I
myself went among the aborigines, I received interesting confirmation
of the account given me by the Chinese-Formosan on the boat, as the
reason, apparently, that I was able to get into as close touch with
them as I did was because they regarded me as the reincarnation of one
of the seventeenth-century Dutch, whose rule over them, three hundred
years ago, has become a sacred tradition.
This tradition among the aborigines confirms the records made by
Father Candidius, and other Dutch missionaries of the period; although
the records, naturally, go more fully and accurately into detail. If
record and tradition are to be relied upon, the Dutch rule of Formosa
was marked by unusual benevolence, sagacity, and sympathy with the
aboriginal people; tradition in this instance carrying more weight
than record, as the former is that of the subject people. Apparently
the Dutch administrators allowed the natives much liberty regarding
their own form of government; there was no interference in the choice
of headmen or chieftains on the part of the various tribes; nor was
there interference in the administration of tribal justice by these
headmen. The chief of each of the most important tribes was invested
with a silver-headed staff, bearing the Dutch commander’s coat of
arms. This was supposed to be used as an insignia of authority. Thus
only indirectly, and in a manner appealing to the vanity of the savage
chieftains, was recognition of the over-lordship of the Dutch enforced.
As also indirect was the influence exerted over the chiefs, by a great
feast given once a year by the Dutch governor, to which it is said the
chieftain of every aboriginal tribe was invited, and where matters both
inter-tribal and intra-tribal were discussed. At the conclusion of this
feast presents were distributed, and the chieftains sent home with the
blessing of the Dutch governor.[22]
This time of peace and prosperity for the aboriginal tribes--the
memory of which has remained among them as that of a Golden Age--was
brought to an abrupt end in 1661, through the invasion of Formosa by
the Chinese pirate Koksinga, before referred to, and his followers, who
seem to have poured in hordes into the island. The Dutch made a brave
resistance; but, in all, they numbered only a little over two thousand,
and were unable to hold their own against the vastly greater number of
Chinese, who came over from the mainland in the train of Koksinga. The
latter is said to have owned three hundred boats, in which he brought
his followers from China.
In 1662 Governor Cogett, the Dutch commander, surrendered to Koksinga.
Then the Dutch who remained alive, both those who had composed the
garrison and also the settlers with their families--the latter said to
have numbered about six hundred--left the island as speedily as was
possible, most of them sailing for the near-by Dutch East Indies.
From that time until 1895--the close of the Sino-Japanese War--when
Formosa passed into the hands of the Japanese, the Chinese were lords
of the island. Of this period of Chinese dominance--over two hundred
years--I learned little from the Chinese-Formosan on the boat. He
passed on to the recounting of the sufferings of his own people--the
Chinese on the island--under Japanese rule, and the injustice to
which they had been subjected for twenty years. Of this he was still
speaking when the little steamer, rounding the rocky islet, the last
of the Lu-chu group, which lies--or rather, rears upward--as a sort
of natural fortification in front of the chief harbour of the island,
puffed noisily into Keelung bay. My Chinese friend, on bidding me
good-bye, said he hoped that while I was in Formosa I would come to his
home and meet his wives--one of whom, especially, was very intelligent
and spoke a little English.
“Bradyaga”[23] though I am, and accustomed to meeting all sorts and
conditions of--wives of men, I must, I think, for a moment have looked
startled. It was the man’s English accent and his English point of view
regarding many matters that made his casual reference to his plural
household seem incongruous. He must have noticed this (indeed it was
his remark that revealed my own _naïveté_ to myself; I thought I had
my features under better control), for he smiled and said: “I know in
Europe and in America it is different; certain things are done _sub
rosa_--and denied. It is a question which is better. But come to my
home and see for yourself how our system works.”
Later I met the wives of my Chinese-Formosan friend. There were three
of them--the intelligent one, the pretty one, and the eldest and
most honoured one, who was the mother of the eldest son and heir. At
least the last was called the “Great Wife” and the “Honourable One”
by the others; but there was no trace of shame or of dishonour in the
position of any of the women. All seemed very proud, very happy, and
curiously affectionate toward each other and--greater test of a woman’s
affection--even toward each others’ children. Nor do I think that they
were “showing off” for my benefit; it was said by all who knew them
that this was their habitual attitude. Other lands, other manners--and
morals, perhaps.
As I went away from that interview with the several Mrs.----,
I startled my ricksha-man--who thought I was giving him some
incomprehensible order--by humming, to the tune of a chant I had
learned from an aboriginal tribe in the mountains (for this was after I
had been in Formosa for several months), some words written, I think,
by Kipling:
“There are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right.”
Then I met a missionary acquaintance. So preoccupied was I with
thoughts suggested by the visit I had just paid that I almost passed
the missionary without speaking. Turning back, I apologized both for
my seeming discourtesy in not speaking, and also for the barbaric
chant, to the tune--if tune it could be called--of which I was humming
Kipling’s words.
“A visit I have just made suggested the words, I suppose,” I explained,
laughing, “or brought them up from some depth of the subconscious; I
was rather fond of quoting them once.” Then I told the missionary of
the visit from which I was returning.
“Disgusting heathen!” she exclaimed. “Besides, what have ‘different
ways of constructing tribal lays’ to do with heathen immorality?” She
frowned and looked puzzled. Then added more gently, as if explaining
to a child: “‘Lays,’ you know, means poetry, and ‘constructing tribal
lays’ just means writing poetry; nothing whatever to do with the
heathen and their horrible ways.”
When we parted she adjured me to be more careful about wearing my
sun-helmet, assuring me that it was necessary in that climate. “If one
does not,” she explained, “something might happen to one--to one’s
head, you know,” she added significantly, “and it would be a dreadful
thing in a heathen country....”
To go back for a moment to the day of my landing:
As my first glimpse of Formosa from a passing steamer, a few years
before, had fascinated me, so did my first glimpse of the island
after I had landed. Not the Formosa of Keelung quay with its hordes
of starving, skin-and-bone dogs--several of them dragging about
on three legs or with paralysed hindquarters--nosing for food
among the refuse,[24] or its crowd of screaming, guttural-voiced
ricksha-coolies and vegetable-and-fish pedlars; or the arrogant
Japanese officials--all in military uniform, with swords strapped at
their sides[25]--bullying the Chinese-Formosans. But the Formosa of the
country through which I passed in going from Keelung to Taihoku; the
Formosa of scenery surpassing that of Japan proper, both in natural
beauty and in the picturesqueness of the tiny peasant-villages, each
village protected from tornadoes by a clump of marvellously tall
bamboos, whose feathery tops of delicate green seemed to cut into the
deep blue of the tropical sky; each house protected from evil spirits
by cryptic signs--said to be quotations from Confucius--written, or
painted, in black on red paper,[26] and pasted above and at both sides
of each doorway. Every village was further protected by a temple of
brilliant and varied colouring, on the roof of which wonderfully
moulded dragons writhed or reared. The inhabitants of these villages
were, of course, Chinese-Formosans. Very picturesque were these too,
in their bright blue smocks and black trousers; men and women dressed
so much alike that at a little distance they were indistinguishable.
Only on nearer view was it clear that those who wore tinsel ornaments
in their hair and walked as if on stilts were women. When these hobbled
still nearer the cause of their queer stilted walk was obvious. Their
feet were “bound,” i.e. deformed and distorted, pathetically--and to
Western eyes abhorrently--out of shape.
Up to this time I had always supposed that only among the “upper
classes” in China were the feet of the women bound; those of the
class who could afford to go always in ricksha or sedan-chair. But
all the women of the Chinese-Formosans--except those of the despised
Hakkas--bind their feet; rather, have them bound in infancy. A woman
with unbound feet is regarded as a sort of pariah, and her chances of a
“good marriage”--that goal of every Chinese woman--are almost nil.[27]
These peasant and coolie-women hobbled nearer to see the train as it
stopped at the little stations between Keelung and Taihoku, especially
when it was reported that there was a white woman aboard. Many of them
could not walk without the aid of a stick or without resting one hand
on the shoulder of a small boy, thus maintaining their balance. “Lily
feet” were obviously a handicap in the carrying of such burdens as most
of these women had on their backs. In some cases the bundles consisted
of babies strapped Indian-papoose fashion to the shoulders of the
mothers--a custom common to both Chinese and Japanese women; in other
cases, of heavy bundles of food or of faggots. Unattractive as were the
figures of the women--the entire leg being undeveloped, as the result
of the cramping of the feet from infancy--their faces were generally
attractive; sweet, with a wistful, rather pathetic expression. Only
the lips and teeth of the older women were often hideously disfigured
from the habit of beetle-nut chewing. The women out of doors who were
not burden-bearing were kneeling at the side of the streams and canals,
used for irrigating the rice-paddies, busily engaged in washing the
family linen--very much in public--or pounding it between stones. As
these washerwomen--and they seemed legion, for the Chinese devote as
much time to the washing of their clothing as the Japanese do to that
of their bodies--knelt, I saw the soles of their feet. In the case of
some of the poorer and more ill-dressed women, the splashing water had
displaced the rags with which their feet were bound, and the “shoes”
which were supposed to cover them. The feet themselves--those members
which every lily-footed woman most carefully conceals--were exposed.
The sight was not a pleasant one.
I turned to watch the men, most of whom were working in the
rice-paddies. Some of them were ploughing--with much the same
sort of plough as those supposed to have been used by the ancient
Egyptians. To these ploughs were harnessed great “water-buffaloes.”
Here was picturesqueness unmarred by a suggestion of pain, even of
pain proudly borne, as in the case of the women. The greyness of
the “water-buffaloes” made a pleasing contrast to the vivid green
of the rice-paddies and to the blue smocks and high-peaked, yellow,
dried-bamboo-leaf helmets of the men. There are few things more
pleasing to the eye than a carefully terraced Chinese rice-paddy
in full verdure, with its graceful slopes and intricate curves of
shimmering green. If one approaches too near, the olfactory sense is
unpleasantly assailed. But on this first day in Formosa I was not too
near. I saw only the beauty--beauty of unusual richness and variety;
for, as a background to the rice-paddies, and peasant villages and
multi-coloured temples, beetled the great mountain crags, all glowing
in the brilliance of tropical September sunshine.
So beautiful was the scenery of the island that after I was settled in
Taihoku I made frequent excursions through the country, scraping what
acquaintance I could--by means of sign language and the few words of
Chinese-Formosan dialect that I had learned from my servants--with the
peasants, and taking “snapshots” of their houses and temples, and of
their children. Attractive as are all Oriental children, these little
ones seemed particularly so; perhaps because of the quaintness of
Chinese children’s costume, certainly as this is still worn in Formosa.
On one of these excursions into the country I passed through Keelung.
My kodak was in my hand, but the idea of taking a picture in Keelung
never occurred to me. In the first place, I knew that the taking
of photographs of any sort in this port was one of the many things
“strongly forbidden” by Japanese officialdom. In the second place,
Keelung is a squalid and dirty town, with none of the picturesqueness
of the open country or of the tiny peasant-villages. There was no
temptation to photograph its ugliness, or the flaunting evidences of
its vice--vice of the mean, sordid type of Oriental, sailor-haunted
port-towns. I was hurrying through this hideous town as quickly as
possible, in order to reach a stretch of open country, which I knew
lay beyond, and which commanded a beautiful view of the sea and of
fantastically rearing rocky islets, when I felt my arm roughly grasped.
Turning around, I beheld a Japanese policeman. Clanking his sword as he
spoke, he demanded my name and address; also he peremptorily demanded
to know what I meant by coming to take photographs in the great
colonial port-town of his Imperial Majesty, and asked if I did not know
that this made me guilty of the unspeakably abominable crime of lack
of respect for his August Majesty. I explained that I was not taking
pictures in Keelung, had not done so, and had no intention of so doing;
that there was nothing there worth photographing.
“But the fortifications,” he began; “you may be looking----” Then he
stopped, apparently rather abashed.
“What fortifications?” I asked. “I did not know that there were any.
Where are they?”
“Oh no, of course,” he answered, with confusion rather curious in a
Japanese policeman. “Of course there are not any now. Only there might
be some, one day, and----” Suddenly his brow cleared, as if under the
inspiration of an idea that would elucidate matters. “Anybody might
be a German--a German spy, you know, looking for a site to build some
fortifications perhaps.”
Although this was during the Great War, I knew that in Formosa
the fear on the part of the Japanese Government of a “German spy”
was practically nil. Also the Japanese policeman was sufficiently
intelligent to be able to distinguish one to whom English was the
mother-tongue (I was speaking with my secretary as I walked) from
a German, even though the latter were speaking English.[28] But in
those days of war-hysteria when many English-speaking people became
excitedly sympathetic at the suggestion of German spies and their
machinations----. Yes, it was a clever move on the part of the
policeman. But it aroused my curiosity.
Afterwards I made several trips to Keelung, but without my camera. And
once, quite by accident, I learned how strongly fortified that port is
at the present time, and with what ingenuity the fortifications are
concealed. But that forms no part of the present narrative....
The fact that I had taken a “photographic apparatus” to Keelung was
recorded against me in the police records of Taihoku, and brought
several calls of an inquisitorial nature from the police.
To inquisitorial calls from the police and from other Japanese
officials, however, I became accustomed during my residence in Formosa.
My object in going there was to devote my leisure time--that not
engaged in teaching--to the study of the aboriginal tribes of the
island. There were reports--reports confirmed and denied--of a pigmy
race among the aborigines. These reports still further stimulated
my interest. I knew there were really pigmies--the Aetas--in the
Philippines. Were there, or were there not, such people in the
mountains of Formosa? I determined to find out.
My teaching duties occupied only four days a week. The other three
days of each week, besides all the days of the rather frequent
vacations, were supposedly my own, to employ as I felt inclined. It
was supposed apparently by both school officials and police officials
(the duties of the two seem curiously interlinked in the Japanese
Empire) that inclination would lead me to devote this leisure to
attending tea-parties at the houses of the missionaries in the city and
to distributing pocket Testaments among the young men of the school.
My predecessor (who had resigned the school-post in order to take up
avowed missionary work) had, it seemed, so devoted her leisure, and
to the mind of Japanese officialdom it was incomprehensible that what
one _seiyō-jin_ woman had done all others should not, as a matter
of course, wish to do. When it was learned that my inclination lay
in another direction--that of tramping the island, especially the
mountains, and getting into as close touch as possible with the
aborigines--I received several calls from horrified officials. The
Director of Schools was especially insistent (he said he was requested
to be so by the Chief of the Police Department) in wishing to know why
I was not satisfied with ricksha-rides about the city. This after I
had made him understand that I was not a missionary and that I was not
particularly interested in either pink teas or Testament distribution.
“Why you want to walk?” he demanded. “Japanese ladies never walk; only
coolie-women walk.”
I explained that obviously I was not a Japanese, also that I was not
at all certain that I was a lady, and that if the distinction between
coolie-woman and lady lay in the fact that the one walked and the
other did not, I much preferred being classed in the former category.
He scratched his head rather violently--a Japanese habit when puzzled
or annoyed. Suddenly the light of a great idea seemed to dawn upon him.
“Ah,” he exclaimed exultantly, the recollection of some missionary
speech or sermon evidently being made to serve the occasion, “but
they will say you are immoral, and Christian ladies do not like to be
thought immoral.”
This struck me as being amusing--for several reasons.
“Yes,” I said, “and who is likely to think me immoral?”
“Oh, everybody,” he answered impressively. “And they will publish it in
the papers--all the Japanese papers in the city, and in the island,”
he emphasized, “that you are immoral. And, anyhow, you must do in Rome
as the Romans do,” he added triumphantly, evidently thinking he had
convicted me out of the mouth of one of the sages of my own Western
world. Ever afterwards this: “Do in Rome as the Romans do” was a
favourite phrase of his when he tried to insist upon my regulating my
life in every detail upon the model of that of a Japanese woman.
[Illustration: AUTHOR IN RICKSHA IN THE CITY OF TAIHOKU.]
[Illustration: USUAL FORM OF _TORO_ (PUSH-CAR).
(_Author has vacated seat by the side of Japanese policeman, in order
to take “snapshot.”_)]
I am afraid I did not conceal my amusement on this occasion as well
as I should have done. Japanese officials take themselves, and like
to be taken, very seriously. I did not wish the Director to know
that I saw through his ruse--and that of certain other of the Japanese
officials--a ruse directed towards keeping me from coming into personal
contact with the aborigines of the island and with the more intelligent
Chinese-Formosans, except when under the immediate surveillance of the
Japanese.
The Director said that it would be “all right” if he accompanied me
on my excursions into the mountains. Now the Director happened to be
a married man; his wife happened to be a Japanese lady who “of course
did not walk.” I tried to explain that if he really thought there
was danger of a scandal, the companionship of a married man on these
excursions, one whose wife was left at home, would not tend to lessen
this danger.
“I am afraid I must continue to go my wicked way without the protection
of your companionship,” I said; “and if ‘they’--whoever ‘they’ may
be--annoy you with questions as to the object of my excursions into the
mountains, or if they are inquisitive as to whether I go there for the
purpose of a romance, legitimate or otherwise, tell them that I am one
of those who like to ‘eat of all the fruit of the trees of the garden
of the world----’”
“Huh?” roared the Director. Both hands were at his head now.
“Tell them ‘Yes’ to anything they ask about me,” I said, “if that
will set their minds at rest and prevent their annoying you with
impertinent questions, as you say they annoy you.”
“I’ll tell them you are immoral, that’s what I’ll tell them; if
you don’t just go about where you can ride in rickshas, like other
ladies,” wrathily exclaimed the Director, attempting to rise and make
a dignified exit. Unfortunately, however, the Director happened to be
fat, and happened not to be accustomed to sitting in a chair.[29] Also
his sword had become entangled in the wicker-work arm of the chair, so
that, when he rose, the chair rose with him. This slightly spoiled the
effect of the dignified exit. It may have been due to the fact that it
was necessary to extricate him from the chair, that, before leaving, he
became sufficiently mollified to concede: “If you want exercise more
than other ladies, you may play tennis-ball on the school-grounds.”
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Why the Japanese should restrict the term “foreigner”
(_seiyō-jin_, or _ijin-san_, or _ketto-jin_, the last meaning literally
“hairy barbarian”) to men and women of the white race, I do not know.
A member of any other Asiatic race--liked or loathed--is not called a
“foreigner.”
[12] Mt. Morrison--called by the Japanese Niitaka-Yama--is the highest
mountain in the Japanese Empire, exceeding by nearly a thousand feet
the world-famous Mt. Fuji, in Japan proper.
[13] That is, “as the crow flies.” In actually traversing the island,
however, from northern to southern extremity, it is necessary, by the
shortest route, to travel at least 350 miles.
[14] It is said that at this time the Formosans valued iron so highly
that when throwing a spear tipped with this metal, they always pulled
it back, by means of a raw-hide line, about 100 feet long, one end of
which was held in the hand, the other attached to the spear-haft.
[15] Probably the harbour of Anping.
[16] The recent change of view-point on the part of the Japanese
regarding Koksinga throws an interesting side-light on the psychology
of that race. Previous to 1895 the name of Koksinga was in Japan held
up to universal execration. He had been a “villainous Chinese pirate;
one who had behaved in Taiwan with the usual cruelty of his race”
(i.e. the Chinese). Since 1895 when the Japanese came into control of
Formosa, and, in turn, dispossessed the Chinese, it has been discovered
“in old Japanese records” that Koksinga had a Japanese mother.
Therefore he was Japanese--and a hero. Temples have recently been
erected in honour of this “Japanese hero” by the Japanese, in several
places in Formosa. To one who knows how strictly patrilineal the
Japanese are--how little relationship through the line of the mother is
usually considered--“_c’est à rire_”!
[17] The name Formosa, as applied to the island, seems to have first
become generally known in Europe through the book, _Historical and
Geographical Description of Formosa_, by the so-called impostor,
Psalmanazar, published in London in 1704. How much credence can be
given to the statements of Psalmanazar remains still an open question.
[18] The Japanese, of even the more educated classes--teachers and
others--will say in all seriousness that their ancestors “came from
heaven.” The ancestors of all other races they consider to have
been earth-born. On this assumption they base their conception of
the superiority of the Japanese race to all other races. There is
a mountain in the southern part of Japan, near Kagoshima, to which
the Japanese point as the actual spot on which their first ancestors
alighted when they descended from heaven.
[19] Aus Brockhaus, _Konversationslexikon_: “Dido oder Elissa, die
sagenhafte Gründerin von Karthago, war eine Tochter des tyrischen
Königs Mutto und die Gemahlin von dessen Bruder Sicharbas (bei Virgil
Sichäus) einem Priester des Melkart. Ihr Bruder tötete ihren Gemahl,
worauf Dido mit dessen Schätzen, begleitet von vielen Tyriern, entfloh,
um einen neuen Wohnsitz zu suchen. Sie landete in Afrika, unweit der
schon bestehenden phönizischen Pflanzstadt Ityke (Utika) und baute auf
dem den Eingeborenen abgekauften Boden eine Burg Byrsa (das Fell). Die
Bedeutung dieses Wortes wurde durch die Sage so erklärt: Dido habe so
viel Land gekauft, wie mit einer Rindshaut belegt werden könne, dann
aber listig die Haut in dünne Streifen geschnitten und damit einen
weiten Raum umgrenzt. An die Burg schloss sich hierauf die Stadt
Karthago an. Hier ward Dido nach ihrem Tode, den sie sich selbst auf
dem Scheiterhaufen gab, um dem Begehren des Nachbarkönigs Hiarbas
(Jarbas) nach ihrer Hand zu entgehen, göttlich verehrt, wie denn ihre
mythische Gestalt offenbar derjenigen der grossen weiblichen Gottheit
der Semiten entspricht, welche auch den Namen Dido führte. Virgil
lässt, wie es schon Nävius getan, den Äneas zur Dido kommen und giebt
dessen Untreue als die Ursache ihres Todes an.”
Aus Weber, _Weltgeschichte_: “Die Sage von der Ochsenhaut bei Gründung
der Stadt (Karthago) ist bezeichnend für den Charakter der Phönizier,
deren List und Verschlagenheit schon im Altertum berühmt war.”
Nach Gustav Schwab, _Die Schönsten Sagen des klassischen Altertums_,
“War es eine Stierhaut (was dem Namen Byrsa entspricht).”
[20] The Moors captured the southern island of the Philippine Island
group--Mindanao--and converted the natives to Mohammedanism. Their
hybrid descendants now living on Mindanao are still called “Moros.”
[21] During the days of the Chinese over-lordship of the island there
were several British consulates in Formosa; one in Takao, the southern
port of the island, and one in Anping, the harbour on the west coast,
as well as the one in Keelung. Since Formosa has been a part of the
Japanese Empire, however, British trade with the island has steadily
declined. No encouragement--in fact, every discouragement--is given
it by the present masters of the island; hence there are no longer
consulates at either Takao or Anping, and the great houses formerly
occupied by the consuls, which were centres of both social and business
activity in the British colonies at Takao and Anping, respectively, are
now falling into decay, occupied only by bats, snakes, and homeless
Chinese-Formosan beggars.
[22] The records speak only of male chieftains being invited to these
feasts. It is possible that those tribal groups which have now--and
probably had then--women chiefs sent male proxies to the feasts of the
Dutch governors, as the latter would treat only with men.
[23] See footnote, p. 33.
[24] Curiously enough, this pack of starving dogs constituted my
first impression of life in Formosa, teeming though the island is
with richness of vegetable and animal life, and with all that makes
for easy and comfortable living for both man and beast. At first the
starvation and evident misery of these dogs puzzled me. I did not then
fully understand--as later I was forced to do--the callousness and
indifference of the great majority of both Chinese and Japanese to the
sufferings of animals.
[25] All the Japanese in Formosa in Civil Service, including the
teachers, wear military uniform and carry swords.
[26] All “writing” in Chinese characters is really painting, being done
with a soft brush dipped in Indian ink.
[27] During my residence in Formosa, my Chinese-Formosan house-boy came
to me, begging that _Asa_--the “sun,” or “shining lord”--in this case
“female lord” (lady does not quite express the significance) of the
household--would lend him 70 yen, with which to buy a “lily-footed”
bride. His father had said it was time for him to marry, and with
40 yen--the amount of his savings--he could buy only a “big-footed”
wife, something which would make him the laughing-stock of all his
acquaintance.
[28] In Japan the police are drawn from the educated upper-class--the
old _Samurai_.
[29] The Japanese when at home always sit, or rather kneel, on
_Zabuton_ (kneeling-cushions, or mats) on the floor.
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.
[Illustration: TWO MEN OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE BRIBED BY GIFTS OF HAT AND
CIGARETTES TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN.]
[Illustration: AUTHOR IN _TORO_ (PUSH-CAR), GOING UP INTO TAIYAL
TERRITORY.]
The southern tribes I approached by water from the east coast; my
first visit to them being during the first Christmas--rather, New
Year[34]--vacation that I spent on the island. Of this visit I retain a
somewhat vivid recollection, for two reasons. One because of the great
cliffs of the east coast, a glimpse of which I caught in passing; the
other because of the novel mode of debarkation, necessitated by stormy
weather, at Pinan,[35] a port in Ami territory, just north of that
occupied by the Paiwan and Piyuma tribes.
I embarked at Keelung, on one of the small coasting steamers, sailing
around the east coast to Takao,[36] the southernmost port of the
island. It was just south of Giran[37] that we passed the great cliffs,
said to be the highest in the world. For about twenty-five miles these
giant cliffs rise perpendicularly from the sea to a height of about
6,000 feet. This towering wall of granite--for such the rock seemed to
be--is one of the most imposing sights that in my wanderings about the
world I have seen.
The weather was grey and drizzling when we left Keelung, but it was
just after we had left Karenko,[38] the first port south of the great
cliffs--the second day out--that the storm broke. Those who have
weathered a storm in a small boat know what this means. In all the
guide-books, and other books dealing with Formosa, that I have seen,
it is said that the sea-route, up and down the coast of the island,
“can be safely followed only during six months of the year,” i.e. the
spring and summer months. “Safely” is probably, like other words, a
matter of individual definition. Personally I should be inclined to
substitute the word “comfortably” for “safely,” judging from my own
experience, both on this trip and on a subsequent one. That is, as
far as the actual voyage is concerned, if one be content to remain on
board the steamer from Keelung to Takao, where there is a good harbour.
With the exception of one or two who disembarked at Karenko, the other
passengers--all Japanese, naturally--seemed glad enough to do this. I,
however, had not come on this trip for the sake of the sea-voyage, or
with the object of reaching Takao--now a Japanese town, the southern
terminus of the railway which starts from Keelung in the north--and
which I could much more easily have reached by rail had I wished to
visit it. Takao, like all the other large towns of the island, is
on the western side of the great mountain range,[39] contains no
aborigines, and, especially to one who has lived for some years in
Japan, is of no especial interest.
The purpose of my trip was to study the aborigines of the east coast
and those who lived in the narrow south-eastern peninsula of the
island. It had not been possible for me to obtain police permission
to cross--or to attempt to cross--the great mountain range; therefore
I knew that my only hope of studying the eastern and south-eastern
aboriginal tribes lay in landing at Pinan. The captain tried to
dissuade me. He said that no man among his passengers would think
of landing; much less should a woman attempt it. Would I not wait
until another trip when the weather was calmer, or when I had a
companion--one of my own race (on this occasion I happened to be quite
alone and the only “foreigner” on board). He really did not like to
take the responsibility.... But I assured him that he would be absolved
of all responsibility “if anything happened” to me--a euphemism that
he several times used, in his rather good, Scotch-accented English (he
had been about the world among seafaring men). Also that my Government
would not hold his Government responsible if “anything happened.” My
blood would be on my own head.
The captain at last rather lost patience. He told me of some
_sensible_ missionaries--he stressed the adjective (he seemed to
think I was a senseless one; apparently he could not conceive of any
white woman wanting to go among “heathen” except for the purpose of
“converting” them)--who in similar stormy weather had sailed around
the island three times before they had dared to attempt a landing at
a Chinese-Formosan village on the coast. I explained that the length
of my vacation would not make such a proceeding possible in my case,
and that rather than go on to Takao, I preferred to go ashore--or
to attempt to do so--in one of the canoes in which some men of the
Ami tribe had put out from shore, and in which they were evidently
endeavouring to reach the ship. I was told it was their custom to
do this, whenever a Japanese ship approached, in order to barter
commodities.
The captain said rather grimly that would be my “only chance on this
trip,” as, with the exception of a few articles which he would give the
savages, if they succeeded in reaching the ship when it came to anchor,
he would not attempt to discharge the cargo he had for Pinan, but would
defer that until the return voyage from Takao....
The Ami canoes succeeded in reaching the ship, and I succeeded in
persuading the captain to have a ladder lowered for me to descend.
This, however, only after further argument, for the captain declared
he had believed I was only “bluffing” (where he had learned this
delightfully expressive word I do not know), when I had said that I
was willing to trust myself to the Ami and to one of their canoes.
He said, however, that these coast Ami were _sek-huan_--“half-tame,”
he explained, when interpreting the expression--and that as far as
my life was concerned, this would probably not be in danger, if I
succeeded in reaching the shore; that is, so long as I did not venture
into the interior. On this point I would make no promise, and the
captain did not press the matter. He was probably glad to be rid of
a passenger whom he evidently regarded as a missionary of less than
average missionary intelligence. To do him justice, however, when the
canoes were tossing on the waves at the side of the ship, he called
down to one of the savages, who was evidently the chief, or leader,
of those who had ventured out, a few words in mixed Japanese and Ami
dialect. This he assured me was an order to look well after my life
and comfort. The fact that I understood enough Japanese to know that
the captain referred to me as the “mad one,” did not detract from my
appreciation of his order.
I clung to the ladder until the crest of a wave brought the little
canoe sufficiently high for me to drop into the arms of the chief, who
deposited me, also the small bag I had with me--which one of the crew
of the steamer had thrown down to him--in the bottom of the boat. Then
shouting an order to the men in the several other canoes, the chief and
the one other man in the same canoe with him--and me--began to paddle
for shore. The order that the chief shouted was evidently to the effect
that the men in the other boats were to wait and get certain things
from the steamer, for on looking back, when the canoe in which I was
rose on the crest of a wave, I could see bundles being lowered from
the ship’s side into the canoes. What these contained I do not know,
and soon it became impossible to watch, for the waves rose higher; the
salt water was in my eyes, and was pouring constantly over my head and
face. I was drenched to the skin, in spite of the supposedly waterproof
coat that I wore. The chief’s assistant had given up paddling and was
vigorously bailing the boat with a large gourd, or calabash. The chief
alone paddled.
I had been in the boats of other Pacific islanders; these had been much
more skilfully managed. I soon realized that in seamanship the Formosan
aborigines could not compare with the Hawaians, the Filipinos, or with
most of the peoples of the South Seas; perhaps for one reason, because
their canoes carry no outrigger. Or is this effect, rather than cause?
Is it because of their lack of seamanship at the present time that they
venture into the waves in outriggerless canoes?
At any rate, whatever they lack in skill in the navigation of
sea-craft, the Ami at least are not lacking in personal bravery,
or in a sense of responsibility. When the canoe was swamped by the
waves--as, soon after leaving the ship, I realized must inevitably be
the case--the chief motioned me to get on his back, and when I had
done so, began to swim for shore. He did this quite coolly, almost as
if it were a matter of course, although he had never before seen a
white woman; apparently regarding the whole affair from the Oriental,
“it is ordered,” point of view. The other man in the boat seemed for a
moment to be more at a loss, but at an order from the chief he dropped
the now useless paddle, which for some reason (or none) he still held,
and rescued my little travelling-bag, first taking the handle between
his teeth, then, in spite of the waves, managing in a rather dexterous
fashion--by means of the strip of homespun hemp-cloth which he had been
wearing as a loin-cloth--to lash it to his shoulders, swimming with
legs and one arm as he did so.
Thus from the water--literally--I reached the territory of the east
coast tribes and southern tribes of the island. What I learned of
their manners and customs I shall write in its proper place.[40] But I
want here to record my appreciation of the courage and also the cool,
matter-of-course calmness of the Ami chief, whose presence of mind
undoubtedly saved my life on this occasion, as my own awkward attempts
at swimming would never have carried me through those waves. So rough
were they that it was with difficulty I was able even to cling to the
back of the chief. Had the water been colder I should probably not have
been able to do so. But at that latitude--a little south of the Tropic
of Cancer--sea-water, even in January, is never numbingly cold.
Rather different was my experience on the occasion of another winter
vacation during my stay in Formosa. That vacation I spent in the
mountains, as I wished to visit certain sub-tribes of the Taiyal
that I had not seen. Because of the altitude, it was--certainly by
contrast with the plain below--bitterly cold. There had been flurries
of snow during the day. I had with me, as guide and luggage-bearer, a
Chinese-Formosan coolie, an elderly man, who was supposed to be well
acquainted with the mountain trails--to have tramped them since his
youth, when as a charcoal-burner he had ventured into the mountains
for fuel. Thus had he recommended himself to me. However, perhaps
because of the snowy greyness of the day, he managed to lose his way.
I had--fortunately--a pocket compass with me. In such Chinese-Formosan
dialect as I had acquired--inadequate enough--I attempted to explain
the meaning of the pointing needle. My guide declared he understood,
and said that in order to regain the trail we must go in a certain
direction. Going in this way, it was necessary to cross a stream, which
usually was little more than a shallow brook. Because of the winter
rains,[41] however, this had become so swollen that it was almost a
torrent, and when we reached it we found, instead of a shallow stream
that could easily have been waded, or crossed over on stepping-stones,
a great body of water, dashing over fallen trees, and swirling around
boulders which normally lay far beyond its banks.
My guide, accustomed, as are all Chinese coolies--both in Formosa and
on the mainland--to carrying burdens on his back, volunteered thus
to carry me, declaring he could easily do so. I acquiesced; and thus
“pick-a-back” fashion we started. The guide was a tall man, and, though
the water came well up on his thighs, he felt his way carefully with
a stout staff that he carried, and all seemed going well, in spite of
the fact that it was growing dark, when, without warning, the man gave
a startled, guttural cry--in the unexpected fashion of the usually
phlegmatic Chinese when really frightened--shook me from his shoulders,
and, stooping until his whole body was submerged in the water, shuffled
rapidly to a boulder behind which he crouched. Dropped thus suddenly
almost to my waist into very cold water, which was running with a swift
current, I was nearly swept off my feet. I managed, however, to make my
way to a boulder, near the one behind which my guide was cowering. As I
drew myself up out of the water on to the boulder, I angrily demanded
of him the reason of his extraordinary behaviour.
“Light of Heaven,” the man replied, in a low voice, between chattering
teeth, “be not angry. It is a _seban_--a head-cutter--there.” With a
motion of his head he indicated a figure that I had not seen, standing
at the edge of the water.
“I was wary,” my guide continued, “I heard a movement in the bushes.
I looked up--I saw. Now our heads must surely go. As it was with our
fathers----” The man continued to murmur, growing more incoherent in
his terror, and evidently more than half benumbed with the cold, as I
found myself also becoming.
I decided that possible decapitation was preferable to
freezing--especially as the agreeable stage of pleasant dreams, which
is said to accompany actual death from cold, had not been reached;
only that of extreme discomfort. The small weapon that I usually
carried with me on these mountain trips was in my hand-bag, which,
with my other impedimenta, was on the bank that we had left. My guide
had promised to return for these things after carrying me across the
water. However, there are times when it is better to flee from evils
that one knows.... I hailed the _seban_, and, although he spoke a
variety of Taiyal dialect a little different from that of which I knew
a few words, he evidently understood the situation. Indeed, under the
circumstances, words were scarcely necessary for such understanding.
The man’s grin of comprehension pleased me. It was so human--so
_Aryanly_ human--that it was refreshing after the mask-like stolidity
of both Chinese and Japanese to which for some time I had been
accustomed; for these two peoples, however differing in other respects,
are on this point at one. They equally regard it as a mark of the
lowest breeding to allow any expression of emotion--of genuine feeling,
of whatever kind--to be reflected in their features. Even the coolies,
imitating their masters, have, as far as possible, adopted the code of
the latter on this point. All wear a mask that is seldom, or never,
dropped. The _seban_, however, are not trained in Confucian ethics;
hence the play of joy and sorrow, of amusement and of other emotions,
on their more mobile features.
The expression of that particular _seban_, at the moment, was one of
mixed amusement and sympathy. I am afraid that he rather enjoyed the
plight of the cowering Chinaman. For generations the Chinese-Formosans
and the aborigines of the island have been hereditary foes. However,
I made him understand that my guide--or the one who was supposed to
act in that capacity--was not to be molested. The _seban_ nodded in
comprehension. Then by signs he made me understand that he would--if
I so chose--carry me in safety to his side of the water, which he had
seen I was trying to reach. My clothing was drenched, I was chilled to
the bone, my fingers I found too numb to move. I realized that my hold
on the boulder could not last much longer. The Chinese I knew could
not be depended upon in the proximity of the _seban_. Indeed, the poor
wretch (the Chinese) I feared could scarcely manage to get himself out
of the water, so completely had he been unnerved by the unexpected
appearance of the _seban_--one belonging, it seemed, to a sub-tribe
which he had especial reason to fear. For me it was a choice between
trusting myself unaided to the torrent--and, in my benumbed condition,
I knew I should soon be swept off my feet--and accepting the offer of
the friendly _seban_. Naturally I chose the latter alternative.
When I signalled the _seban_ my acceptance of his offer, he again
grinned, took his knife from his loin-cloth and, holding it out of
reach of the water, stepped into the stream, which swirled about
his loins. I was glad enough to slip from my precarious hold on the
boulder to the shoulders of the _seban_, who, true to his word--as in
my dealings with the aborigines I found them always to be with those
who have not betrayed them--carried me safely to the shore. Then
still holding me on his shoulders, for I was too benumbed with cold
and fatigue to walk, he strode on to a fire a little distance away,
around which a number of his people were gathered. I learned later that
these were members of a village community higher up in the mountains,
whose bamboo huts had been destroyed by recent torrential rains. The
homeless people were camping temporarily near the foot of a great
tree, in the branches of which the spirits of their ancestors were
supposed to dwell; also the spirits of the Great White Fathers of Long
Ago--obviously the seventeenth-century Dutch--to whom the priestesses
of the demolished village had been offering constant prayers. My
appearance among them was hailed as an answer to their prayers, which
accounted for the fact, as I also later learned, that when I was
carried into camp--a very benumbed and bedraggled goddess--both men and
women fell on their faces, and some of the children fled shrieking in
terror.
I have since wondered whether perhaps these two chance occurrences--one
a storm at sea, the other a torrential rainfall in the mountains, which
by accident brought me among two divisions of the aborigines, one those
of the east coast, the other those of the northern mountains, in the
fashion that I have described--had not something to do with the very
friendly relations which existed between these “Naturvölker” and me.
Certainly the rôle of the sea-born (or river-born) goddess was not one
that I was anxious to play, or that I had in mind, on either occasion.
But a few chance words of some of the people--after I had learned a
little of their language--led me to believe that the fact that I had
“come to them out of the water” contributed to the esteem in which I
was held; made certain in their minds the conviction that I was the
spirit of one of the beloved white rulers of old, returned from the
elements. (Why a spirit should choose this particularly uncomfortable
method of approach--or of return--was not quite clear.) That I had
come among a matripotestal people probably accounted for the fact that
none of the aborigines seemed to think it strange that the spirit of
one of the Great White Fathers should choose to reappear in the body
of a woman. That such a spirit had returned seemed to be the general
supposition among the northern tribes. Among those of the south there
were some who held, apparently, that a Goddess of the Sea (or “from out
of the sea”) had come to them--one to whom semi-annual offerings were
customarily made.
When I realized the reason for the regard in which I was held by these
people a sense of the ludicrous overcame me. School-day struggles with
Virgil--buried in some region of the subconscious--were recalled; these
even more strongly when one day I overheard a discussion among some
of the tribespeople regarding my walk. I neither hobbled as did the
Chinese-Formosan women, nor did I walk with the toed-in, short steps
of the Japanese women (a few of the coast aborigines had seen Japanese
women).
“Feet strangely covered, stone-defying. With no burden on her back,
freely, with long steps, she walks, as must the females of the gods
from whom we spring.”
“_Et vera incessu patuit dea_,” etc. Curiously similar the idea,
though the words in which this time it was voiced were those of this
strange Malay dialect.... The childhood of the world! Still in odd
comers it exists, and can, with seeking, be found.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] Rickshas--small man-drawn carriages--(see illustration) could be
pulled only about the city and its immediate environs, and it was not
city or suburban life in which I was interested.
[31] See illustrations.
[32] It is due to the efforts of Mr. Hosui and Mr. Marui that the skull
of a recently decapitated member of the Taiyal tribe has been presented
to the Museum of Oxford University.
[33] See map.
[34] Quite naturally, Christmas means nothing to the Japanese. Most of
those who have not been missionized do not even know on what day this
_seiyō-jin matsuri_ (foreign festival) falls; those who live in country
districts have not even heard of it. Their celebration of the winter
solstice is at the New Year, which is the great festival time of the
year. At this season interesting ceremonies are observed, and quaint
and picturesque games played by old and young alike.
[35] See map.
[36] See map.
[37] See map.
[38] See map.
[39] See map.
[40] See Part II of this book.
[41] Winter is the rainy season in northern Formosa; summer the rainy
season in the southern part of the island.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRESENT POPULATION OF FORMOSA
Hakkas and other Chinese-Formosans, Japanese, Aborigines.
As regards this particular odd corner of the world, naturally, in
my peregrinations about the island, I picked up a certain amount of
information. Among other things, I learned that those who make up the
vast majority of the population of the island at the present time,
and who are known as “Formosans”--this not only among themselves, but
who also are so called (i.e. _Taiwan-jin_, “men of Formosa”) by their
Japanese conquerors, and by Europeans resident in the island--are
Chinese; that is, descendants of the immigrants from the mainland of
China. Of these, between 80,000 and 90,000 are Hakkas, originally
from the Kwantung Province of China--a people rather despised by the
other Chinese.[42] The remaining nearly 3,000,000 “Formosans” are
descendants of Chinese from the Fukien Province of the mainland, and
most of them speak the Amoy dialect of Chinese, though a few speak the
dialect of Foochow.
The Japanese, who since the treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) have been
masters of the island, number between 120,000 and 125,000, and are
constantly increasing in population. All official positions, and those
of authority of any sort, are in the hands of the Japanese as is now
all the wealth of the island.
The aboriginal population it is naturally more difficult to estimate.
But the number of the aborigines at the present time cannot, in
reality, exceed 105,000. Personally I doubt if a carefully taken
census would reveal that number.[43] Certainly the aboriginal
population is steadily diminishing, and all tribes are being driven
constantly farther up into the mountains; or, in the case of certain
tribes--such as the Ami and Paiwan--are being more rigidly confined to
the precipitous, barren east coast. The whole of the island--including
the marvellously fertile great plains on the west side of the central
mountain range--was naturally once in the hands of the aborigines.
But during the Chinese dominion of the island, from the conquest of
Koksinga (1662) to the close of the Sino-Japanese War (1895), the
aboriginal population was--if all reports and all records, including
those of the Chinese themselves, speak truly--treated with systematic
cruelty and with ruthless greed and rapacity. Sometimes by wholesale
slaughter, sometimes by fraud and cunning, the Chinese gradually
pushed the aborigines back into the central mountain range, or, as the
Japanese to-day are doing, confined them to the sterile, ill-watered
east coast, and thus gained for themselves possession of the whole of
the broad, level, western sea-board; and even of those valleys between
the mountains where rice and tea could be made to grow. Chicanery was
often cheaper than gunpowder. An aborigine would fancy a gun or a red
blanket. A Chinaman would supply him with the commodity desired and
would take in exchange, or more frequently “as security,” fertile
fields. Naturally--to one who knows the habits of the aborigines--the
“security” was seldom redeemed, and the Chinaman became the owner of
the land.
If an effort were really made by an exceptionally industrious or
far-seeing aborigine to redeem his land, some method was usually found
by the Chinaman to thwart this effort. The land remained in Chinese
hands.
Since 1895 all the land of agricultural value in the island has passed
from the hands of the Chinese-Formosans into those of their Japanese
conquerors; this usually by force and extortion, the Chinese having
suffered at the hands of the Japanese, much as they had forced the
aborigines to suffer at their hands during the preceding two hundred
years.[44]
The well-being, or the reverse, of the aborigines has been little
affected by the change of masters. On this point I should be
contradicted by the Japanese, who would point out that they have
introduced the eating, and--as far as this is possible in the
mountains--the cultivation, of rice, instead of millet, among the
aborigines. Also they would lay stress upon the fact that they have
established among the aborigines schools for the “teaching of Japanese
language, Japanese customs, and Japanese manners.” Apart, however, from
wondering just how the displacement of millet by rice, as a staple
of diet, and compulsory training in Japanese language and customs
and Japanese “good manners” will be of benefit to the aborigine (the
eating of white rice will probably give him berri-berri--as it has
given this disease to so many of the Japanese--from which up to this
time he has been spared by the eating of millet), one notes that the
Japanese in their reports--official and otherwise--of the efforts
of their Government in the direction of the “civilization of the
aboriginal tribes” fail to remark upon the fact that, because of their
establishment of camphor “factories”[45] (see illustration) throughout
the mountains, they are encroaching further upon the territory of the
aborigines than ever the Chinese did. Also they fail to remark upon
the fact that bombs are dropped from aeroplanes upon villages of the
aborigines, in order to impress the latter with the omnipotence of the
Japanese Government, and with that of its Divine Emperor.[46]
[Illustration: “FACTORY” FOR EXTRACTING CAMPHOR IN THE MOUNTAINS OF
FORMOSA.
_The work is done by Chinese-Formosan coolies under the supervision of
Japanese officials. The manufacture of camphor, like that of opium, is
a Japanese Government monopoly._]
As a matter of fact, the only people ever dominant in Formosa who
seem to have treated the aborigines with either kindness or equity
were the Dutch during their thirty-seven years’ over-lordship in the
seventeenth century. The story of this period of just and kindly rule
in their island has been handed down among the aborigines from parent
to child and still remains a tradition among them--one of a Golden
Age long past; just how long of course they have no idea, but in the
time of “many grandfathers back.” There is a tradition that the
Dutch even taught the aborigines to read, and also to write their own
dialect--this in the “sign-marks of the gods” (Roman script). Old
documents written by their ancestors are said to have existed among
them even a generation ago. These are reported to have been confiscated
by the Japanese, as part of a systematic and far-reaching attempt to
eradicate the memory of any culture other than Japanese. Whether or not
this story of the confiscation of old documents be true I do not know,
but certainly during my two years’ residence in Formosa I was not able
to find a single document of this sort among the aborigines.
Only the memory of past culture given by “fair gods who came over the
sea in white-winged boats”--or, as some of the tribes have it, “came up
out of the sea”--remains.
It seems that there exists among some of the tribes a belief that
a reincarnation of a former “Great White Chief”--presumably Father
Candidius, a Dutch priest, who devoted his life to the care, spiritual
and temporal, of the aboriginal people--will return and help them throw
off the yoke of their Chinese and Japanese conquerors.[47] Hence the
welcome which a fair-haired, blue-eyed person receives from them, and
the reverence with which he--or she--is treated: their appreciation
of such a one being in rather marked contrast with the point of view
of both Chinese and Japanese, who speak of a fair-haired--or even
brown-haired--blue-eyed man or woman as a “red-haired, green-eyed
barbarian.”
FOOTNOTES:
[42] One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Hakkas is that
the women never “bind” their feet; whereas the feet of all the other
Chinese-Formosan women are “bound,” i.e. crippled and distorted. This
“sin of omission” on the part of the Hakkas seems to have something to
do with the contempt in which they are held by the other Chinese, both
in Formosa and on the mainland.
[43] The _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th edition, gives the aboriginal
population of Formosa as 104,334. This is probably a fairly correct
estimate, although the Japanese claim that 120,000 is more nearly
correct, they wishing to give the impression that the aboriginal
population is increasing, rather than diminishing.
[44] During my residence in Formosa I personally saw instances of
the most hideous cruelty on the part of the Japanese toward the
Chinese-Formosans, and of barbaric torture, officially inflicted, as
punishment for the most trivial offences (as later--in the spring of
1919--I saw the same thing in the other Japanese colony, Korea, on the
part of the Japanese toward the gentle Koreans). But this is an aspect
of Japanese colonization with which in this book I shall not deal.
[45] The camphor “factories” established in the mountains--such as the
one illustrated--for the extraction of crude camphor from the camphor
wood are naturally of a primitive kind. The crude camphor is brought
down to Taihoku to be refined.
[46] This actually happened during my residence in Formosa, the
Japanese boasting of the cleverness of the expedient, and ridiculing
the aborigines for believing--as they did--that the aeroplane was a
huge bird, and the bomb its poisonous excrement.
[47] In connection with the care, especially the medical treatment,
which Father Candidius gave to the native people, naturally many
stories of miracles have grown up.
PART II
_MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES_