The silent black and white film, being old and damaged, is flipped left to right and run twenty frames slower than normal, expressing even more of the silence and tranquility of the mountain life it shows.

On the speckled screen, the title "Portrait of the Exquisite People" is the first thing to appear--"Exquisite People" being the name given to the mountain aboriginals by the Japanese. Tiny characters on the film's box tell us that it is from the year 1938. Although records tell us that between 1937 and 1938, the Japanese Miyamoto Nobuhito did make four documentaries, as the fate of these is unknown, later people have not had the fortune of seeing them. This film is Taiwan's earliest and only documentary of the life of the mountain aborigines.

These young braves who all those years ago went through many tests before they could take part in the coming of age ceremony are now all over seventy.

In an old house:

It was actually just by chance that this valuable piece ever came to light: One day two years ago, 24-year-old Wu Chung-wei was driving to Hsinchuang when he got confused and lost his way. At Yenping North Road he came across a long disused and damaged railroad workers' dormitory. Having always liked to "rummage for junk," he immediately pulled up and went in to look for treasure.

In the damp and broken building there were six cases of 16mm film lying in a cupboard on the wall. When he took them home and looked at the frames one by one under a light, they began to move. The contents were mostly to do with the early construction of the railway, but there was one which was a record of the life of the aboriginal people. On discovering this, Wu Chung-wei was so excited that he did not sleep that night.

Like a small ripple, his excitement slowly spread to other interested people. First of all came Liu Feng-sung, the manager of the Taipei County Cultural Center, who collects historical material about the mountain aboriginals. The cartoonist Chiu Juo-lung, who was drawing a cartoon on the theme of the Wushe rebellion of the Atayal people, was also found. Then, travel weary from Taitung, came Ming Li-kuo, researcher into the music and dance of the Taiwan mountains.

Chiu Juo-lung, seeing that the people in the film had five to seven stripes painted on their faces, pointed out that the main characters in the first half were members of the Balanshe tribe of the Atayal of Taitung. This ability to distinguish came from his experience of having made an earlier mistake: When Chiu had just begun coming into contact with Atayal culture, he consulted a lot of reference materials and gave the draft of his characters to a member of the Atayal from Wulai in the north. As soon as the elder saw it, he exclaimed, "This is wrong--you have drawn our enemies!" It was only then that Chiu Juo-lung came to realize how the various tribes of each of the different peoples had all originally had their own decorative cultures.

The ceremonial dances might have been directed in many places, but these glimpses have really spanned the space of 55 years.

A voice in the heart:

When Ming Li-kuo, a half-Ami researcher into the music and dance of the aboriginals, watched the ceremony in the second half of the film, he spontaneously sang out the song that was being chanted. "These are the Ami from the south of Hualien's Chian rural township," he realized at a glance.

The dance ceremonies in the film are in no way different from those of today. Despite the garment decorations, such as the bird feathers which are not easy to procure now, and the textiles which are now dyed by machine instead of naturally by hand, the basic appearance has not seen any great change. "Everyone thinks that we cannot see their traditional culture today, but what we see in the film is its enduring and stable quality. This unchanging maintainance and repetition represents the centripetal force of their people, and is a kind of self-confidence in their mother culture," says Ming Li-kuo with excitement.

In the harsh black and white contrast of the screen, a small boy in the mountains carries a satchel as he happily makes his way to school through the floral undergrowth, and a woman pays her respects to the flag of the rising sun. Although this is called a documentary film, in many places it can still he seen how the Japanese government used its own viewpoint to "direct" the culture of the aboriginals.

Despite the dangers to continuity faced by all cultures today, the ornamentation worn by these Ami women shows no marked difference from that of today.

That is my mother:

On August 18, at the Aboriginal Culture Festival held by the Taipei County Cultural Center, twelve aboriginals from Tungchang village in Hualien's Chian rural township attended the first showing of the documentary, and with a capacity audience traced back the past of their people.

When the film came to the section about the Ami, the twelve suddenly rose up. Gua, their leader, said, "That is Bagua, the idol now at the entrance to the Ami Culture Village!" And the 86-year-old former headman, Sanma, although he did not see himself in the film, could make out many of his childhood playmates. Those children, who had only that year passed the strict tests for entrance into youth society, are today all over seventy.

The women in the group were discussing the dances in the film. Suddeuly, 50-year-old Slan shouted out in excitement, "That is my mother! That is my mother! It is already more than ten years since I last saw her." At this the atmosphere became very tearful.

Lover of "junk," Wu Chung-wei, who rescued the earliest documentary film of Taiwan's aboriginal peoples.

See you next year:

It was just by fortune that Wu Chung-wei found this film from the period of the Japanese occupation, and it is only thus that people have had the fortune to be able to join with the Ami in looking back at this lively history. Yet the preservation of aboriginal historical materials cannot just rely on fortune. It takes just one instance of carelessness for history to be forever silenced; and it cannot just be something that is fashionable under the appeal of the International Year of Aboriginal Peoples.

After the meeting, the headman of Tungchang village announced that, at the same time next year, there will be held the coming-of-age ceremony which is performed once every eight years. He invited concerned friends to go to their village as guests. Hopefully, their destinies will be ever closer and ever more expansive.

[Picture Caption]

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These young braves who all those years ago went through many tests before they could take part in the coming of age ceremony are now all over seventy.

p.47

The ceremonial dances might have been directed in many places, but these glimpses have really spanned the space of 55 years.

p.47

Despite the dangers to continuity faced by all cultures today, the ornamentation worn by these Ami women shows no marked difference from that of today.

p.48

Lover of "junk," Wu Chung-wei, who rescued the earliest documentary film of Taiwan's aboriginal peoples.

p.49

At the film's premier, descendents of the Ami people featured in the documentary joined with the audience in looking back at the faces of their ancestors.