As a late autumn tide of weekend hikers flows up and down Chihshan Road, Sheng Ye Museum's annual special exhibition swings into action. Cries of children from the Davalan community mingle with the jingle of bells, bringing exceptional vitality to the Waishuanghsi district.
The Sheng Ye (pronounced "Shun Yi") Museum of Formosan Aborigines is situated amongst the luxuriant mountain scenery of this northern suburb of Taipei. To the left of the museum is a row of aboriginal totems, to the right is an activities plaza surrounded by a bamboo fence. From the outside, the museum resembles a squatting warrior, with a helmet on his head and a long knife in hand. The building also combines elements of aboriginal architecture; the central pillar is magnificently carved with Paiwan tribal totems, the slanting roof on either side represents the slate construction of a Paiwan house.
Who are the Formosan Aborigines?
The Sheng Ye Museum's permanent exhibition is divided into four main themes. These are "The Indigenous Peoples and their Ecology" displayed on the first floor, "Everyday Utensils" on the second floor, "Textiles, Ornaments and Culture" on the third floor, and "Myth, Ritual and the Objects of Spiritual Life "displayed in the basement. There are also multipurpose rooms for special exhibitions, an auditorium and a photo library equipped with multimedia systems.
The first thing one sees on entering the museum's lobby is a large, transparent glass map which shows the geographic origins of Taiwan's aborigines.
Han Chinese and aborigines form the two main ethnic groups living on the island of Taiwan today, but before large-scale immigration by Chinese from the 17th century onwards, Taiwan 's history belonged to the aborigines. The word "aborigine" is merely a generalization and, as National Taiwan University anthropology lecturer Hu Chia-yu points out, Taiwan's indigenous peoples actually belong to more than a dozen ethnic groups. These have distinct social organizations, marriage systems, religious beliefs and utensils.
"Cultural hybridization through interaction between different tribes does not imply uniform cultural characteristics," says Hu. "Where similarities do exist, it is because they all belong to the Austronesian Language Family."
With a total population of some 250 million, the Austronesians are dispersed across a huge area of the Pacific and Indian Oceans; from as far west as Madagascar on the East coast of Africa, to Easter Island almost at the shores of the American continent; from New Zealand in the south, to Taiwan as the most northern habitation. Anthropologists and linguists believe Austronesian-speaking peoples originated in the south-west part of mainland China, and because the linguistic situation among Taiwan's aborigines is particularly complex, many have conjectured that Taiwan was the first stop-over for the Austro-nesians as they spread southwards from their continental homelands.
Art reflects life
In the center of the first floor hall is a scale model showing the geographic distribution of Taiwan's aboriginal tribes today. This includes the nine main extant tribes: the Atayal and Saisiyat, who live in the northern mountains; the Bunun and Tsou of the central mountains; the Paiwan and Rukai of the southern mountains; the Puyuma of the Taitung plain, the Amis of the eastern seaboard and the Yami of Orchid Island. The model also shows the areas previously occupied by the Pingpu, the various plains tribes of western Taiwan.
Having gained an understanding of the Formosan Aborigines and their environment, one can proceed to the second floor exhibition halls. There are a final couple of items to see before ascending the stairs however: a slate sculpture by Paiwan artist Pavavalung Sakuliu and a Yami fishing boat.
Mr. Pavavalung is representative of aboriginal artists; his favored areas include carving, ceramic work and creating installations. The sculpture acquired by the museum is entitled Divining Before a Hunting Adventure, and depicts the divination ritual conducted by a female shaman for the hunters prior to their adventure. The Yami fishing boat to the right side of the doorway is used in traditional fishing practices. It is propelled by oar and is made from nine pieces of wood joined together using wooden nails. The Yami's boat-building skills are particularly refined, reflecting their long residence on Lanyu (Orchid Island), and reliance on fishing for their subsistence.
"The fact that aboriginal cultures are 'living cultures' allows the Sheng Ye Museum to adopt an unusual style of exhibition, "explains Hsu Kung-ming, associate research fellow at the National Museum of Natural Science. "Unlike many other museums which must rely on displays of historical artifacts, the Sheng Ye Museum pays equal attention to collecting reproductions of antique styles, modern works of aboriginal art, and exhibiting displays created by contemporary craftsmen. This gives the Sheng Ye Museum one of its most distinctive features."
Life reflects environment
Everyday utensils better demonstrate the history and changes of the lives of the Formosan Aborigines. Exhibited on the second floor, these include carved ancestral posts, scale models of dwellings and a men's meeting house, a granary, a hearth, slate houses, pottery, musical instruments, wickerwork, carvings, and tools used in hunting and weaving.
Traditional subsistence of all the aboriginal tribes depended on fishing or hunting, and differences in their natural environments were reflected in their lifestyles. The materials used in house construction, for example, varied greatly from bamboo and rattan to wood and stone. Differences in structure were equally pronounced. The Atayal, Saisiat, Bunun and Tsou traditionally lived in long oblong homes; the Paiwan and Rukai build houses with walls of piled slate and slate roofs;and the Yami's semi-underground thatched houses are ideally suited to avoiding the year-long hot and humid climate of Lanyu.
To maximize its limited space and collections, the museum's exhibits are not arranged according to tribe, but on the basis of function and implement use. Explanatory notes, photographs, scale models and modern reproductions are all interspersed between the historical artifacts.
The more distinctive Paiwan slate houses and Yami semi-underground houses are chosen as examples of dwellings. Developed to suit Lanyu's weather conditions, traditional Yami homes are constructed using stones, wood and thatch. Since the introduction of government housing units, such traditional sunken houses are only found in two villages which have been designated as conservation areas, and even most of these have roofs made of iron sheeting or bituminous felt. The museum's exhibit includes an extremely lifelike model of a traditional house; even the fish hanging in front to dry are real!
A particular feature of Paiwan construction is its use of slate, which abounds in the mountains of southern Taiwan. They use slate to build houses that are cool in the summer, warm in the winter and sturdy enough to resist typhoons, in other words, a structure entirely suited to the climate of southern Taiwan. The museum has erected half of a slate house along the length of one wall on the second floor.
"There was no way we could move an entire slate house into the museum, so we asked Paiwan artisans to build the real thing using their local slate," explains museum guide Kung Yu-chung. "Then with the help of photographs and a written description, we tried to make the display as realistic as possible."
Male and female pots
The museum uses photographs and commentaries to offset any deficiencies in the displays. It also shows explanatory films. Although earthenware pots were one of the most important utensils in aborigines' lives, there are only a dozen or so items in the pottery display. To compliment the exhibit, the museum shows a film about pot manufacture by the Amis and the Yami, the two tribes which still possess pot-making skills. Among the Amis, potting is women's work, whereas in the Yami group there is no such gender restriction. Pot-making by both tribes is strictly controlled by a number of taboos. Before starting, for example, the Amis must inform the gods, and during the pot-making process they are prohibited from frivolity or farting. The Yami insert cross-shaped twigs into the finished molds before firing to prevent their fracture by malevolent spirits.
A special feature of aboriginal pottery is its imperfectly circular shape, which results from being produced by hand rather than formed on a potter's wheel. A lump of pounded clay is made into the vessel's base, then beaten into shape using an egg-shaped stone and wooden paddle. The pots are fired in the open air under a pile of firewood. The tools used in this kind of manufacture are very simple, and making a large, uniform vessel requires a great deal of skill.
The majority of the museum's collection of earthenware vessels come, however, not from these more numerously produced articles of the Amis and Yami. Instead, they represent the lost arts of the highly decorative Paiwan pottery.
Paiwan pottery can be divided into male and female. Male pots have designs of the hundred-pace snake while female pots are decorated with nipples. Because the Paiwan tribe long ago lost techniques for making pots, contemporary artists such as Pavavalung must attempt to imitate ancient pots. The vessels collected by the museum have all been passed down from Paiwan ancestors, and tribe members believe that such ancient earthenware contains spirits. Division of the pots into male and female is a result of their personification by the Paiwan tribe. These pots were used for sacrificial offerings and as betrothal gifts, and since their possession was restricted to the nobility, they came to symbolize status and wealth.
Hsu Kung-ming explains that collection and preservation of aboriginal artifacts started during the Japanese occupation. Their possession by museums is a direct result of the enthusiasm of these early collectors, of tribal dispersal and population levels, and of the tribes'willingness to sell cultural artifacts. The vast majority of items in the Sheng Ye Museum come from the private collection of its chairman, Safe C.F. Lin, and the collector's own bias greatly influences the objects exhibited by the museum, giving the museum its character as well as its limitations.
"The contents of a collection are influenced by the goals of a private collector," says Hu Chia-yu. "The Sheng Ye collection is characterized by their high commercial value on the antiques market, their high artistic value, or their use in installations. In addition to the antique Paiwan pottery on the second floor, the clothing and glass beads displayed on the third floor represent the cream of the Sheng Ye collection."
Inimitable weaving
The museum is particularly proud of its clothing and ornamentation section. Every aspect is represented, from looms and the weaving process, to embroidery, finished articles, ornamentation and decorated articles.
Taiwan's indigenous peoples employ horizontal weaving techniques using extremely simple tools. Little more than wooden sticks joined together, a deceptively simple loom can produce items in a wide range of beautiful patterns.
Weaving is women's work. Most cloth is made from ramie from which the bark is pared to obtain fibers; the fibers are worked between the fingers to produce thread; then the thread is strung onto a frame, rubbed, bleached and dyed. Women must be capable of all these procedures. From the weaving process and the finished articles, we can learn much about the lifestyles and value systems of the aborigines.
Dark red rhombus shapes on white ramie cloth, for example, are the height of beauty in the eyes of the Atayal tribe. The rhombi represent eyes, and clothing with this eye pattern was greatly prized by the Sediq subgroup of the Atayal tribe.
The socially stratified Paiwan tribe has a wide range of clothing and cloth colors. Most admired by the tribe members but restricted to use by the chieftain, are patterns depicting human figures. With large heads and small bodies, a pair of shiny eyes and six or seven hairs of unequal length sprouting from the top of their heads, they resemble extraterrestrial beings. Weaving this kind of pattern requires painstaking efforts. The art has already been lost, and reproducing this kind of work by modern weaving methods is extremely difficult.
Cloth woven on a horizontal loom is limited to shoulder width, so all the tribes were accomplished in making clothes by joining together pieces of cloth, which were then embroidered.
Decorative collars and buttons
Before the introduction of cotton cloth and steel needles, aborigines used bone needles and citrus thorns to embroider patterns onto ramie cloth. Cross shapes, satin stitch, linear and zigzag designs of the finest standard were embroidered using in-weaving techniques that follow the warp and weft of the background material. Embroidered articles are not found among the Yami, Atayal and Saisiyat, whereas women of the Paiwan and Rukai tribes are rarely separated from their embroidery.
Aboriginal clothing has also been affected by outside influences. Collars and sleeves were only adopted after contact with outsiders such as the Dutch and Han Chinese. Of particular interest is the way the collar and buttons of Western clothing have been incorporated, not for their original purposes of protecting the clothing from sweat or of fastening the garment, but as purely decorative features.
Beyond spinning and weaving, special features found in the manufacture of clothing reflect differences in the living environments of the various tribes. Animal hides, tusks and bones are used as materials or decorative accessories by those peoples who practice hunting. The Yami use fish skin and rattan to make helmets and armor. Members of the Atayal tribe who distinguish themselves through bravery may wear special clothing decorated with shell beads. The Paiwan, Rukai and Puyuma prize the beauty of glass-bead jewelry.
Rare glass-bead jewelry from the Paiwan and Rukai tribes is displayed on the third floor of the museum. Among Taiwan's aboriginal groups, such ornamentation is now restricted to the Paiwan, Rukai and Puyuma tribes. It not only represents social class, position, wealth and gender, but also possesses religious significance, as they believe the beads can confer blessings, ward off misfortunes, protect the wearer and impose penalties. As the tribal members are unsure of the origins and age of the glass beads, and do not know the traditional techniques of their manufacture, extant beads must have been passed down from generation to generation and their number is limited. The museum's collection is consequently very valuable.
Having inspected all the museum's acquisitions, one may proceed to the basement to watch the films. The museum is quite unusual in possessing an auditorium equipped with a multimedia system, photo library, and rooms for presenting special exhibitions.
The photo library is a store of information about items in the museum's collections and is operated by touch control. The auditorium is very well equipped, possessing a 120-inch screen and a four-channel multi-soundtrack facility, which allows a choice of languages to be heard in each seat. Such high technology is very rare in Taiwan's private museums. A series of films entitled "Profiles of Aborigines" was specially made for the museum. It includes titles such as "General Introduction," "Pottery," "Woodcarving," "Textiles," "Songs and Dances," and attempts to explain various aspects of aboriginal life. It's a shame that with such emphasis being given to technology, the narrative element is rather dull.
Dull and dusty anthropology?
Some people may think that an anthropological museum is, by definition, boring, and that without being already well-versed in the museum's theme, visitors will just see so many dusty antiques. If the museum's exhibitions are insufficiently varied, even aficionados will quickly become bored. There is also a danger that a museum of ethnology or anthropology will interpret alien cultures from a mainstream viewpoint.
One way the Sheng Ye Museum attempts to counteract these problems is through its series of special exhibitions focusing on the culture of an individual tribe. Members of each tribe actively develop an exhibition from their own viewpoint, present their own culture, and allow visitors direct contact and understanding circumventing the museum's interpretation. In November 1998, for example, the Sheng Ye Museum presented "Unite with a Tribe; a Special Exhibition of the Paiwan." Paiwan artist Pavavalung Sakuliu tried to show the Paiwan perspective on how the Davalan group, when faced with cultural crisis, used "tribal classrooms" to help nurture aboriginal culture and give the tribe an aboriginal future. Children of the Davalan Community Elementary School were invited to give a live dance performance at the exhibition's opening ceremony. This showed the success of tribal classroom teaching, and provided a great opportunity for cultural exchange with the Han Chinese children of Shihlin's Pingteng Elementary School.
Despite Sheng Ye Museum's efforts to interpret cultures from the aboriginal tribes' perspective, in 1995 there was a protest by aboriginal groups who wondered why they had to pay such a high entrance fee to view the cultural artifacts of their ancestors. While the protest might seem to be a simple matter, Li Tao-ming, professor of sound and image studies at the Tainan National College of the Arts, thinks its background is worthy of consideration. He suggests that administrative and economic factors helped disperse the very cultural artifacts that are generating excitement in the museum world today. Government persecution during the Japanese occupation and speculative investment by entrepreneurs brought about this dispersal of a majority of aboriginal historical artifacts, and led to the current bizarre situation where Taiwan's indigenous people must go to a museum to see their ancestors' treasures. This is similar to Chinese people going to the British Museum to see treasures obtained unscrupulously by the British in the closing years of the Manchurian Qing Dynasty.
This was just the first of various difficulties to face the museum.
Not just an exhibition hall
While the impetus for the museum was the desire to exhibit a previously private collection, C.F. Lin hoped that the Sheng Ye Museum would not be limited to collection and presentation. He also envisioned a role for it in academic research and educational outreach.
Kao Hsuan-yang, professor of sociology at Soochow University, thinks that while it is very difficult for us to define the functions a museum must have in order to be of interest, from the perspective of perpetuating or recreating a culture, the museum will have achieved its objective if it prompts mental development in its audience. If a museum wishes to be more than an exhibition hall and plans to undertake research and educational work, it requires researchers and educators with specialist knowledge and abilities.
During the planning stage the museum had sponsored academic research. It signed an agreement with the Department of Anthropology at the National Taiwan University to cooperate in classifying the de-partment's ethnological artifacts data and help safeguard the valuable collections of that institution. It also announced its intention to assist in the publication of materials relating to research of aboriginal culture, and to provide scholarships for aboriginal graduate students to do research into their own cultures. It instituted long-term cooperation with internationally renowned academic bodies such as Oxford University in Britain, UC Berkeley in America, Leiden University in the Netherlands and Tokyo University in Japan. With the museum's support and donations, these institutions have carried out research into aspects of Taiwan's aboriginal culture. The first wave of these research findings will be published later this year. Financial constraints have, however, limited Sheng Ye Museum's contributions to international academic research.
Li Tao-ming points out that most of the problems encountered by private museums in Taiwan are usually connected to their own limitations. Although the Sheng Ye Museum had grand hopes of supporting academic research, shortfalls in its income have brought these plans to a halt.
The museum admits that initial projections badly miscalculated its financial income. Sheng Ye had expected its location across the road from the National Palace Museum to attract the latter's tide of visitors. Such a situation failed to materialize and the Palace Museum's crowds had little effect in helping the Sheng Ye Museum. The latter's high ticket price when compared to the NT$50 entrance fee of the Palace Museum also made many people reluctant to enter. Although daily attendance has risen from 40 to around 80 persons, self-sufficiency cannot be achieved through ticket sales, and the museum still requires the support of C.F. Lin's Sheng Ye Group. As museum staff joke, the ticket money isn't even enough to pay the electric bill!
It should be mentioned that the Sheng Ye Group and its generous financial support is closely bound to the museum's image. Seeing aboriginal culture used as a central theme in advertising Sheng Ye's automobiles, people naturally make a connection with the Sheng Ye Museum and its efforts to conserve aboriginal culture.
In the words of a traditional aboriginal blessing, to all good friends visiting the Sheng Ye Museum and to all those concerned about the cultures of Taiwan's indigenous peoples, "May the ancestral spirits bless you and your every breath be easy."
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(left) Even from the outside, the Sheng Ye Museum is rich in aboriginal style.
Safe C.F. Lin, who has been chairman of the museum since its founding, has a personal collection with a focus on art.
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In the past, nose flutes were common to all tribes; this double nose flute produces a sustained drone from the holeless pipe, while the pipe with four finger holes plays the melody.
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A museum guide explains the Paiwan slate house to an after-school class of children as part of the museum's educational outreach program.
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Aboriginal utensils are made from natural materials: the helmet, armor, hats and clothing shown are made from wood, ramie and fish skins; the knife is made of steel.
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The pottery making film shown in the ceramics exhibition helps to make the display more vivid.
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From the stripping of ramie bark to get fibers, through framing, sun-drying and dying, to weaving, tailoring and embroidering, every step in the process of making cloth is women's work. This picture comes from the Sheng Ye Museum's film about aboriginal weaving techniques.
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By organizing special exhibitions, the museum hopes to be more representative. Here aboriginal artist Pavavalung displays the results of the Davalan community's tribal classroom, and through his installation art, expresses his meditations on aboriginal life.
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Teaching the next generation to understand and accept other cultures is one of the responsibilities undertaken by the museum.
A museum guide explains the Paiwan slate house to an after-school class of children as part of the museum's educational outreach program.
Aboriginal utensils are made from natural materials: the helmet, armor, hats and clothing shown are made from wood, ramie and fish skins; the knife is made of steel.
The pottery making film shown in the ceramics exhibition helps to make the display more vivid.
The pottery making film shown in the ceramics exhibition helps to make the display more vivid.
The pottery making film shown in the ceramics exhibition helps to make the display more vivid.
From the stripping of ramie bark to get fibers, through framing, sun-drying and dying, to weaving, tailoring and embroidering, every step in the process of making cloth is women's work. This picture comes from the Sheng Ye Museum's film about aboriginal weaving techniques.
From the stripping of ramie bark to get fibers, through framing, sun-drying and dying, to weaving, tailoring and embroidering, every step in the process of making cloth is women's work. This picture comes from the Sheng Ye Museum's film about aboriginal weaving techniques.
From the stripping of ramie bark to get fibers, through framing, sun-drying and dying, to weaving, tailoring and embroidering, every step in the process of making cloth is women's work. This picture comes from the Sheng Ye Museum's film about aboriginal weaving techniques.
From the stripping of ramie bark to get fibers, through framing, sun-drying and dying, to weaving, tailoring and embroidering, every step in the process of making cloth is women's work. This picture comes from the Sheng Ye Museum's film about aboriginal weaving techniques.
From the stripping of ramie bark to get fibers, through framing, sun-drying and dying, to weaving, tailoring and embroidering, every step in the process of making cloth is women's work. This picture comes from the Sheng Ye Museum's film about aboriginal weaving techniques.
By organizing special exhibitions, the museum hopes to be more representative. Here aboriginal artist Pavavalung displays the results of the Davalan community's tribal classroom, and through his installation art, expresses his meditations on aboriginal life.
Teaching the next generation to understand and accept other cultures is one of the responsibilities undertaken by the museum.
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