Literature: The Mountain Baptism

In those days, none of us Atayal youngsters had failed to experience the mountain baptism.

Old man Ya would often stand out in the cleared area in front of the house. Raising a brawny arm, he would point to the distant triangular peak to the east and say, "Walis, an intelligent person will learn from that Payaanpu Mountain Range over there."

Old man Ya didn't have much of an education, a fact that would invariably provoke laughter from the Chinese in the plains below. Old man Ya had only reached the second grade before dropping out of school, and this was in the period of Japanese occupation.

Old man Ya would never elaborate on exactly how one should go about "learning" from the mountain. Only in moments of perplexity and frustration would he come out with a spontaneous phrase: "The mountain won't cram its wisdom into your head all by itself, stupid."

Sometimes, I could not help but admit that in my heart, old man Ya himself was a kind of living mountain, a man of unfathomable mysteries.

In the early 1970's the wave of industrialization and commercialization had not yet completely encroached upon our mountain community. In the eyes of the Atayal, it was considered a shameful thing not to know how to trap wild animals, and these animals all hid themselves deep in the mountains. I thus had many opportunities to follow adults into deep mountain fastnesses, where I came into contact with the mountain's vibrant living skin.

We would set out from the settlement on deserted mountain paths, drawing closer with every step to the lofty green peaks. As we approached, I would gradually become imbued with a realization of my own tininess, a feeling I never had at the settlement, where the mountains seemed like nothing more than scenery pasted onto a sheet of glass. They did not loom up and take on emotions of their own as they seemed to when I actually approached them. As I walked I would watch them grow and grow until they looked like they were about ready to fall on top of me.

Once I asked hesitantly, "Old man Ya, are we really going up in there?" "We are if you want to be a true Atayal, Walis."

Yes, the pride of old man Ya ran in my veins also--I so much yearned to become a true Atayal. I gazed upon the traps I carried in my hand. Their strong nylon thread and loops of iron wire felt like extensions of my own body. I knew that it would not be without a tremor of emotion that I would secrete them in tree branches and embed them in puddles of mud. As we drew farther and farther away from the village, the plant growth became denser and the terrain started to slope upwards. I was shaking inside; my feelings seemed so immediate, so fragile.

"Am I going to catch anything?" the child in me asked.

"All Atayal children are able to catch things," old man Ya replied firmly. "We Atayal are much smarter than animals."

We rested on a platform that seemed to overlook the whole planet. The settlement was visible far away at the mountain's foot, girdled by a white stream flowing in a bow-shape to its left before meandering off into the west to shake hands with a row of low clouds. From where we stood, the Payaanpu Mountain Range stretched outwards and upwards to the heavens.

"Does the Payaanpu speak?" I asked.

Old man Ya was sitting in the grass arranging the implements from his pack. Hearing my question, he raised his bearded hunter's head and said, "That's a very good question." He gazed off solemnly at the mountains before us. "When you ask Payaanpu a question and offer it your little ear, perhaps it will happily open its mouth and greet you cordially, but sometimes it will stonily rebuke you for your lack of manners." With this, old man Ya lifted his backpack, which was woven from forest pricker vines, and looking like a schoolboy, slung it onto his back.

"Are you serious?" I asked him.

"Don't ask me."

I tried to make a megaphone out of my hands and yelled, "I'm here. . ."

The sound reverberated off the trees, and in a few seconds a voice answered from the other side of the valley, "I'm here. . ."

I had answered my own question. The mountain really could talk, and in such a rich and friendly voice.

We reached a particularly steep stretch of the path and my legs grew weary. Only a few slanting rays of sunlight managed to pierce the broad canopies of the enormous trees scattered about both sides of the path--the forest's parasol. The world under this living umbrella was a moist and luxuriant green realm of nameless grasses and strange insects that flew up whenever one disturbed them. It was a timeless, carefree world under the care of the mountain. At this point, beads of sweat began to collect on my brow; soon, all my clothes were soaked with sweat. Old man Ya squatted by the edge of a cliff. He took a metal trap from his backpack and began digging carefully in the mud under the detritus of fallen leaves. "Look closely," he said, "This is the trail of a fox."

Nonplussed, I looked at the spot he indicated but saw only a rank mess of leaves and other rotting matter. I found it hard to imagine that in this huge forest, the fox had chosen to use this particular "trail."

"Really?" I asked.

"The hunter must have vision as acute as an eagle's and a nose as sensitive as a hound's. Animal feces tell no lies!"

Sure enough, nearby I spotted a row of small, wood-like objects. I crumbled the damp feces between my fingers, and then drew them to my nostrils for a few deep whiffs.

"The fox is a cunning creature," said the old man as he took the leaves h e had moved aside and put them back over the steel trap. The ground looked just as it had before. We placed several more traps along our path as we continued on, and I crumbled the feces of many more animals, learning to distinguish them by their odor. When we arrived at the "old mushroom house," old man Ya went out himself to inspect some traps he had set a few days before.

By myself now at the mountain's heart, I sat quietly, feeling my pulse gradually slow until it faded into inaudibility. A susurrant mountain breeze sprang up to accompany the insects I heard chirping from their hiding places underneath the soil and in the trees. I wondered if there were any birds or beasts concealed in the branches or behind the trunks of the surrounding trees, spying upon me, a stranger in these parts. Occasionally, the forest's disparate noises seemed to coalesce into a mournful yet sumptuous symphony. I searched around in all directions, my hand tightly clasping my knife, but found nothing out of the ordinary. There were only the delicate smells of the forest, perhaps emanating from the pores on the leaves all around me, or springing out of the loam underfoot. I had a sensation that they were talking with my own body, as if they were extending feelers to delicately caress the tips of my hair and stimulate my skin. It was like exchanging new with an intimate friend.

I was not lonely sitting quietly in the mountain cabin. My tense mood had completely relaxed, allowing my imagination to become one with the spirit of the forest and ramble freely along the Payaanpu mountain range.

When old man Ya returned, he carried over his shoulders two squirrels, one fox, and three long-winged flying squirrels. He expertly dressed the animals and removed their organs, and then washed them clean in a stream. Their tails had already been cut off to be hung up outside the house upon our return to the settlement, partly to demonstrate our hunting prowess, and partly because the extra meat would be distributed among friends and relatives. On our way back I watched the rays of the setting sun paint the Payaanpu mountains in warm, golden hues.

This was my initiation into the world of the mountain. Now, many years later, whenever I'm teaching in some village on the west coast, my eyes always turn away from the sea to gaze into the mountains. Perhaps they have become a part of my inner being, a being which even now is waiting to go again for another baptism.