METHODS OF TRANSPORT
Ami Wheeled Vehicle Resembling Models found in Early Cyprian
Tombs--Boat-building and the Art of Navigation on the Decline.
This subject might be dismissed with a word--so little is any method
of transport less primitive than that of human shoulders developed
among the aboriginal tribes--were it not for two facts which raise
interesting questions. One of these has to do with land transport; the
other with transport by water.
Regarding the former, the only tribe that uses any sort of wheeled
vehicle, or that knows anything of a beast of draught, is the Ami. The
vehicle of this tribe is a primitive two-wheeled cart, the interesting
point about it being that the solid wheels are fixed to the axle, the
latter revolving with each revolution of the wheels. In fact, the
construction of the cart causes it to resemble an enormous harrow
rather than any vehicle usually associated with transport. The Ami
tribes-people, however, are inordinately proud of this invention, which
they say was introduced among them by the “White Fathers” (evidently
the Dutch) of the “glorious long ago.” This cart is drawn by a
“water-buffalo,” a descendant of those said to have been brought to
Formosa by the Dutch.[98]
The question of interest in connection with this vehicle is whether or
not the Dutch of the seventeenth century used carts of so primitive a
type as that now in use among the Ami. Is it not more probable that
when the carts introduced by the Dutch fell into decay, the Ami, in
their attempts at imitation of the original model, unconsciously
reproduced a form of vehicle used by man at the “dawn of history?”[99]
Needless to say, the Ami cart produces a painful creaking, and a sound
that can be compared only to a series of _groans_ when it is drawn over
the rough roads of the east coast. This, however, apparently adds to
its attractiveness in the eyes of its owners.
Whether or not the present-day cart represents the degeneration of a
more highly evolved type of vehicle once known to the Ami would be
difficult to assert with positiveness. As regards water transport,
however, it is almost certain that degeneration has taken place among
the Ami, as among the other Formosan tribes, both in the craft of
boat-building and in the understanding of navigation. Tribal traditions
among all the aborigines point to the fact that their ancestors were
skilful navigators and that they understood the construction of boats
capable of making long voyages. But the rafts used for fishing at the
present time by those tribes living on the east coast could not be
used for making even a short sea voyage. Nor could the plank canoes
also used for fishing which a few tribal units of the Ami, living
near Pinan, build--in obvious, though crude, imitation of the Chinese
fishing-junk--be used for navigation.
Of all the aboriginal tribes, the most skilful boat-builders are the
Yami, of Botel Tobago. Their boats, like their pottery, resemble
more those of the Papuans of the Solomon Islands than they do those
of the other Formosan tribes--this both in mode of construction and
in ornamentation. These boats are not dug-outs, but are built from
tree-trunks, smoothed and trimmed with adzes, lashed together--through
holes bored near the seams--with withes of rattan. Prow and stern
are rounded in graceful curves. The boats present a picturesque and
attractive appearance, but cannot be used for making long voyages.
That the tribes living in the interior of the island should have lost
the art of navigation is not surprising, as on the east side of the
mountain range--within which section the present “savage territory”
lies--there are no navigable rivers, and in the mountains is only one
lake, the beautiful _Jitsugetsutan_ (“Sun and Moon Lake”), so-called by
the Japanese.[100] On this lake those members of the Taiyal and Tsuou
tribes who live near it paddle in their dug-out canoes. These dug-outs,
however, are of the most primitive type, with open ends, obviously
unfitted for seafaring. Even a storm on the lake sends the canoes
hurriedly paddling to shore. But the Ami and the Yami, and also the
Paiwan and Piyuma, have not the excuse that applies to the tribes of
the interior. Before these tribes lies the open sea, over which their
ancestors navigated. That they should have lost the art of building and
of navigating seaworthy craft is strange; as strange as is the fact
that many of the tribes have lost the art of successful pottery-making,
which according to tradition--and also judging from the few ancient
specimens preserved among the Tsarisen--their ancestors seem to have
possessed.
Whether the losing of these arts implies that the tribes since they
have been in Formosa have not had material as suitable for making
either seaworthy boats or uncrumbling pottery as they had in the land
whence they came, or whether it implies that they are an “ageing”
people, a people who have lost their “grip on life,” and have no longer
either inventive ability or mechanical skill, is a question which I
shall not attempt to answer. It is one which presents an interesting
field for speculation and also for further investigation.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] See Part I, p. 52.
[99] “In the early Cyprian tombs clay models of chariots have been
found; these are modelled with solid wheels; sometimes spokes are
painted on the clay; other models are almost certainly intended to
represent vehicles with block wheels....
“Prof. Tylor figures an ox-waggon carved on the Antonine column. It
appears to have solid wheels, and the square end of the axle proves
that it and its drum wheels turned round together.... Tylor also says
that ancient Roman farm-carts were made with wheels built up of several
pieces of wood nailed together.” (Haddon, _Study of Man_.)
[100] Called by the missionaries “Lake Candidius,” after Father
Candidius, the Dutch missionary explorer, of the seventeenth century,
who discovered it.