Alongside the gravelly, slow-moving Ta-an River and neighboring a steep mountainside with a marvelous view sits Hsiangpi Village, part of Miaoli County's Tai-an Township. Over the past few years, this small village has transformed itself from an ordinary, peaceful mountain village into a destination renowned for its Atayal Weaving Culture Park. Throughout the day half a dozen rooms run in the weaving factory, with the local female staff working in separate teams. One team is the "color" team, responsible for laying out the desired patterns on paper. Another team, the "organization" team, sorts the hundreds of threads by color in preparation for the next team, the "threaders," who feed the ordered threads through to the looms. Finally there are the "operators," who work the looms and bring the weaving process to a close.

The neighboring weaving classroom doubles as a dyeing workshop, with magnificent red, yellow, green, and blue threads hanging down from the high ceiling, contrasting vividly with the cold stainless-steel dyeing vats that rest on the floor. Another room operates as a post-production processing center, where the sound of cloth-cutting and sewing machines is virtually non-stop.

Nearby, outside, is a garden where the villagers grow flax for weaving and other plants to produce dyes. Another wooden structure, clad in bamboo and fir, sits nearby--the soon-to-open dyeing museum, with a teaching center and research center on the second floor, above a functioning workshop. Going through these buildings, which cover all aspects of the weaving process, visitors may find it hard to imagine that this is all the result of one woman's idea--and even more surprisingly, an idea from a woman who just 17 years ago had never even tried weaving.

But the tale of how all this came about is a bittersweet one.

In 1990 the Taichung County Cultural Center's weaving workshop had only recently opened. Yuma, who at this time still went by her Chinese name Huang Ya-li, was assigned the project of recreating weaving techniques, and her search for a teacher of this ancient art had her at the end of her tether. But then her mother reminded her that she could always just go and ask her grandmother, who was a weaving specialist. This simple realization brought the world of weaving to sudden and vivid life for Huang, whereas before it had been little more than a relic of the past.

Over her time at the workshop, Huang kept hearing about how the Aboriginal peoples once had highly advanced weaving methods, but in one of her advanced classes her teacher bluntly remarked, "If you want to learn about Aboriginal weaving in Taiwan now, you're too late," because "all that's left of Aboriginal culture is a hollow shell. The spirit of has long since vanished into thin air." This motivated Huang to rediscover the weaving traditions of her tribe, the Atayal.

In addition to her modern styles of woven clothing and accessories, Yuma has also developed household ornaments, cutlery, and gift products, all with a distinctively Atayal flavor.

Turning Atayal

In 1991 Huang left her civil-service job and returned to her tribal village. By day she worked in the fields growing beans, and by night she learned weaving from her grandmother. It was at this time that she changed her name from Huang Ya-li to her real, Aboriginal name. But while the newly rechristened Yuma wanted to take her knowledge of Atayal weaving to the next level and learn about patterns and materials, her grandmother refused, saying she didn't have the skills to responsibly hand on that much of the tradition and recommending that her granddaughter seek the help of other elders. However, the Atayal weaving tradition is an esoteric one, passed down from mother to daughter, and seeking instruction from others was not the done thing. And since her family had only moved into the village in the early 20th century, a relative latecomer like her was going to have even more problems finding a teacher.

In order to further her understanding of weaving methods, in 1995 Yuma enrolled in the Institute of Textiles and Clothing at Fu Jen Catholic University, where she did master's research into Atayal traditional weaving. She completed her degree in 1998, and after those years of study and research, couldn't help but realize how right her teacher had been all those years ago, and that finding unsullied Atayal culture in modern Taiwan was a mammoth task.

"If it hadn't been for the Japanese colonial government's anti-Aboriginal polices and the hundreds of battles we had to fight to survive, perhaps Atayal culture would be in a better state today," sighs Yuma. For years her village had been in dire straits, forcing the residents to make do with what little they had and losing much of their tradition. With the village in such trouble and art having no place in their everyday life, where could one find any kind of authentic culture? And so while on the one hand trying to rediscover the tribe's traditions, Yuma also had to work to reconstruct the disappearing Atayal lifestyle and rites, giving her tribespeople a chance to return to the old ways.

In addition to her modern styles of woven clothing and accessories, Yuma has also developed household ornaments, cutlery, and gift products, all with a distinctively Atayal flavor.

Rebuilding traditions

"For 17 years everything I did, regardless what role I was playing, was concerned with this one issue," says Yuma. Compared with the relatively well-preserved traditions and culture of the Paiwan and Rukai tribes, who have been able to systematically revive their arts and culture thanks to a century of people continuing to indulge in the traditional arts, the Atayal have had a much harder slog. And if the reconstruction of traditional arts and crafts was not built on a sound cultural foundation, the results would be shallow and superficial.

So while still at Fu Jen University, Yuma would take weaving equipment to her home town and offer free weaving classes to the women of the tribe. Although a few of the elders had their doubts about how traditional this would turn out, Yuma believed that teaching with traditional looms--which students found surprisingly difficult to use in comparison with modern technology--would help preserve the styles and patterns of traditional weaving. She also believed that after passing the knowledge on to these women, they would be better able to get involved in the traditions, thus helping them return to life and continue through the ages.

Of course, preserving traditions is far from a pick-and-choose affair, so Yuma decided she had to teach the entire weaving process, including making the thread, dyeing it, and the actual weaving. In the village she planted ramie and plants used to make dye, building a traditional environment step by step. "It took a lot of time and demanded that we live closely with the land so that the traditions could become part of life," she says. If she had resorted to modern thread and materials, the end result wouldn't have been genuine.

"As I grew to better understand the culture, I also came to appreciate my ancestry more," Yuma recalls. She would recollect and find wisdom in what the tribal elders had taught her, such as her grandmother's lesson that the tribal ancestors resided in a different world, one where the basic rule was that "less is more." During Atayal festivals the roads are lined with bamboo sticks to attract the spirits, and on these sticks hang small "gift bags"; Yuma had never understood why the elders were so apparently miserly with their gift bags, but later she realized that the "less is more" philosophy had grown from ancient appreciation for the limited resources available to the village and for the need to live in harmony with nature.

She began to think about how to make this philosophy part of her weaving. "If I put my heart into my work and made durable, good-looking, simple clothes that can be worn in a variety of ways, one item should be enough, and isn't that the essence of that philosophy?"

In addition to her modern styles of woven clothing and accessories, Yuma has also developed household ornaments, cutlery, and gift products, all with a distinctively Atayal flavor.

Putting food on the table

Yuma's transition from working toward a cultural renaissance to a more commercial mindset springs from having lived so closely with the women of her village for so long and realizing the burden they carried in trying to support their families. To create her desired weaving culture in the village, Yuma needed the support of the tribe, and this made her turn to practical efforts to improve the village's economic life.

When she first opened her classes, Yuma recalls, some of the students seemed to have emotional issues; there was constant cursing, and some of the husbands would stumble into the classes drunk and kick up a stink, wrecking equipment and computers in the classroom. Others were still having problems getting their lives back together since the massive earthquake of September 1999. All this led Yuma to the conclusion that if she was to further her goals, she first had to help develop a stable environment for the villagers, and then traditional culture and art could be passed on as part of a greater lifestyle aesthetic.

"In Japan the kimono is the foundation of the traditional textile industry. You can easily spend a few hundred thousand NT dollars just for a kimono sash, and this has helped build a flourishing and progressive art scene," sighs Yuma. "Taiwan's Aborigines want to leap from nothing straight to a booming craftwork industry, which is a dangerous attitude." So Yuma has been promoting traditional festivals in various local villages in the hopes of igniting a desire for traditional clothing. Along with this she has continued her weaving classes, hoping her students will take their skills back into their homes. "I just hope that one day people will be proud to wear the traditional outfits at Atayal wedding ceremonies, like the Paiwan and Rukai are."

And what shape will this industry take? Yuma's husband Baunay Watan admits they've been kind of playing it by ear thus far. Basically, both he and his wife believe that tourism shouldn't be considered the only option for development, because going that way would force everyone to work with minimal profit margins thanks to market forces, and then the dream of creating a "village of weaving" would never materialize.

The funds Yuma used to pay the weaving women for the past few years have mostly come through work for museums and the government, but that isn't reliable in the long term.

"At the moment, we're still finding it hard to be economically efficient," says Baunay. Although Yuma has broadened the range of Aboriginal-themed products and got a few small-scale sales channels opened up, such as small stalls, hotels, and the like, sales are still far from steady.

While this venture might look like a success to outsiders, there's still a long way to go before it becomes a well-established business. For example, should development focus on internal demand or external sales? How can they find designers with the R&D skills needed to help them? What kind of marketing model best suits this kind of craftwork? These are all big questions.

(left to right) The garden where ramie and dye plants are grown; beautifully dyed fibres; color matching; threading; and weaving.

Makeup to multivitamins

Although her first love is research work, Yuma is content to play the role of businesswoman for now. Working out how to integrate the wisdom of the ancestors with modern aesthetics and put this into her products, making people aware of the uniqueness of those products, and making sure there's something to pass on to the next generation are tasks that have seen Yuma become a businesswoman in body but artist in soul, and help ensure the operation is a pleasant job.

"What we need is greater public appreciation and acceptance of Aboriginal culture, though," says Yuma. She hopes that Taiwanese society "will stop looking at Aboriginal culture as a cosmetic like Max Factor or SK-II, and start looking at it as a vital element to cultural wellbeing, like a kind of multivitamin," and let the true colors of Aboriginal culture shine through. This way it can continue to grow and become a rich, blossoming flower.

(left to right) The garden where ramie and dye plants are grown; beautifully dyed fibres; color matching; threading; and weaving.

The half-Atayal, half-Han Chinese, plains-educated, one-time Chinese major Yuma returned to her village through chance, taking a long, winding path to find her roots. In this search, she also found a deep and abiding passion for Atayal traditional weaving.

In addition to her modern styles of woven clothing and accessories, Yuma has also developed household ornaments, cutlery, and gift products, all with a distinctively Atayal flavor.

(left to right) The garden where ramie and dye plants are grown; beautifully dyed fibres; color matching; threading; and weaving.

(left to right) The garden where ramie and dye plants are grown; beautifully dyed fibres; color matching; threading; and weaving.

Piluo Village in Taian Township is a quiet mountain village and home to the Tayan Dye and Weave Cultural Park. This picture shows the three-story building that is home to the dyeing workshop, traditional education center, and research center.

(left to right) The garden where ramie and dye plants are grown; beautifully dyed fibres; color matching; threading; and weaving.

While at present Yuma already has several products for sale through various exhibitions and outlets, there's still a long way to go before she has finished building this into a viable business. This picture is from Huashan Culture Park's 2005 Lifestyle, Crafts, and Sports Fair in Taipei. Second from right is Yuma's husband Baunay Watan.