"We are going out to hunt! Out we go to find seeds. Scattered on the ground, wah! How densely they grow! As they grow, birds come, rabbits come. A- hunting we will go!" (From a Tsou aboriginal hunting song.)
Aboriginal peoples have lived in the mountains from time immemorial, treating nature with a combination of respect and fear, living in balance with nature. Songs and rituals bear out how man and nature benefitted each other. Today, these ideas are seen as a positive force for environmental protection.
Amidst the "Aboriginal Culture Month" activities, let's take a look at how traditional hunting culture is being brought together with modern conservationism: How can the former be helpful to sustainable use of resources? In overdeveloped Taiwan, what can mountain culture teach us?
We need to look deeper at the "ecological wisdom" of indigenous people's traditions. Aboriginal mountain culture is a product of millennia of practice; it should not be oversimplified as some uniform code, with excessive expectations placed on it to help serve as a brake on Taiwan's excessive development. Today the problems of the mountains cannot be resolved by a simple set of rules, especially given the decline of aboriginal traditions under the impact of the larger environment. As the Atayal author Walis Nogang says, today's indigenous people live like most of the other people who share this piece of land; they also need to relearn how to live with nature.
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In Wutai Rural Township in Pingtung, a plan to bring together traditional hunting ethics with modern wildlife-management technology is being put into place.
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