Looking for past glory
Apart from manufacturing arts and crafts items, Tabalong, like Fataan, hopes to become a travel destination. In contrast to Fataan's swamps, Tabalong offers a more quiet and peaceful kind of village scenery.
The tourist activity is centered on Chienkuo Road, on either side of which are forests of wooden carvings the height of people that offer visitors a quick introduction to carving in the village. The Tabalong "tribal classroom" at the side of the road is designed inside and out to look like a traditional dwelling. In the afternoon a few elderly women while away their hours here in this familiar space, chatting, their memories flowing.
Chou Kuang-hui, a former tribal chief who fondly recalls the intimacy of communal living, hopes that the younger generations won't forget their ancestors' wisdom. Since he has retired, he's spent every day in the workshop, painstakingly assembling thin pieces of bamboo and arranging straw to construct realistic models of various traditional buildings: typical residences, a chief's house, a village meeting house. Each structure is different. Chou's self-funded workshop and cultural artifacts hall has become another must-see for tourists coming to Tabalong.
Looking toward the future, Lin Heng-chih says that once he gets a sizable chunk of money for renovations, he wants to repair Kakita-an, Tabalong's ancestral shrine. Located at the center of the village, this building was originally where the chief lived, and it was also the lodge where the young adults of the village would gather. As the place where official discussions about inheritance, religious ceremonies, land and property were carried out, it was rife with symbolic significance.
In 1958, when Typhoon Grace ripped through here, the shrine was blown down, and the original structure was taken north and reconstructed for a cultural artifacts exhibition by researchers from the Academia Sinica. At the original site, all that remains is tall grass and a tablet marking where bones have been buried.
Rebuilding the shrine would symbolize that the ancestral spirits were being honored by the village. It's a big project that many are eagerly awaiting. For the people of Tabalong, who have been taking firm and prudent steps on the path of holistic community building these past eight years, completing it would represent another cultural renaissance.
Lin Heng-chih was originally a reporter. Returning home to gather material for an article, he ended up getting involved in "holistic community building" in Tabalong. He's been working on it ever since and now serves as a spokesman for the program here.
Mouthwatering authentic Aboriginal food: salted wild boar, hearts of vines and okra.