Yushan's First Nation--Tales of the Bunun Hunters

"Remain silent and keep your eyes peeled," says Yushan National Park ranger Lin Yuan-yuan, a Bunun. Going uphill from Walami, he points out, it's not hard to see wild animals, so long as you go from seven to nine in the morning, the period when they come out to warm themselves in the sun and find food.

"If we are lucky, and we are downwind, the animals will not pick up our scent and so won't take cover, and we will be able to see the Formosan sambar [a kind of deer], the Reeve's muntjac [like a mountain goat], the Mikado pheasant...."

After setting off from the Walami cabins, Lin leads the way, walking silently and steadily forward, hands clasped behind his back. Along the two-kilometer route through wilderness, he frequently turns to whisper that he has spotted some wildlife. However, despite his best efforts to point out his finds, while we catch sight of one sambar and see the tail of a muntjac from a distance, our senses-dulled by urban living-generally can't detect the creatures.

Traditionally, Bunun hunters often hung the lower jawbones of caught prey like wild boars and mountain goats over their doorways. The photo shows a stone house at the Nan-an Visitors Center.mirror.

The making of master bowmen

Lin, a dark and sturdily built man, grew up learning how to hunt in these mountains with his father. Today, nearly 50, he remains sharp and vigorous, and he helps one understand what defined glory in traditional Bunun life, such as surviving on Mt. Mahsi for a month carrying with him only a knife, a gun and a small amount of millet, and hunting down two black bears. He looks reticent and self-effacing, but once he gets started on stories, they come one after the other.

Yu Ming-te (Bunun name Haisul), who like Lin grew up in Chuohsi Rural Township in Hualien County, is currently studying for a PhD in ethnology at National Chengchi University. Since childhood he has always enjoyed going into the mountains to set traps and hunt, and he has been deeply affected by the outlook of the Bunun hunter.

"I remember when we were small and we followed the adults into the mountains to hunt. If we got to fooling around and raising a ruckus in the river, we really caught it. Talking was forbidden, even when you were walking for hours and hours," he says. He didn't realize at the time how such experiences were intangibly shaping his self-effacing character; it is only in looking back that he has felt their impact most deeply. During his field research in recent years he has noticed that many older Bunun share this point in common: "I have interviewed some very wise old people-they don't ordinarily have much to say, but when you dig a little you discover unlimited treasure."

You can see the importance of hunting to Bunun society from the fact that even today all Bunun communities retain the "Deer Ear Ritual," which involves shooting arrows at a deer-ear target. "Bunun consider the sambar to be the prey of choice, because it is bigger than other wild animals such as the wild boar or muntjac," explains Tien Chih-yi, a Bunun teacher, in his book Rites of Passage of the Bunun of Taiwan.

The Deer Ear Ritual includes several elements: veneration of the lower jawbones of prey animals such as the sambar and boar; the shooting of arrows at deer ears by small boys, assisted by parents or other family; target shooting by adults, followed by a barbecue in which all share; veneration of hunting weaponry (the "hunting spear rite"); and veneration of human and animal bones taken by hunters (the "head hunting rite"). "The ritual expresses a hope that in the future these children will become skilled bowmen," explains Tien.

The Bunun are known for being tough, stubborn, and loyal to the group. They rebelled repeatedly against the Japanese colonial regime, causing considerable losses to the Japanese police force.

Cultivating courage

As you could surmise, people who spend their lives in the mountains, continually facing hostile weather and terrain, need more than just skill and good judgment-cultivating courage is also indispensable.

Lin Yuan-yuan recalls that when he was small he was often awakened at around 8 or 9 o'clock at night by his father, who would order him to take something or other and place it on someone's grave. The next morning his father would go and check, and Lin would be punished if he had not completed the task-no breakfast for him that day. "That was to teach a child courage."

There is even a rather dramatized story of how one tribal chief was so impressed with the courage of a Japanese researcher that he had intended to kill that he became his great friend.

The researcher in question was the anthropologist Mori Ushinosuke. According to a book recording conversations with Mori, when in 1906 he was doing a survey of plant life along the Lakulaku River, he was nearly beheaded in Talunkeng by demand of Aliman Sekun, the younger brother of the leader of the Tafen tribe.

Tafen was the most powerful tribal community in the Lakulaku River area. Aliman hated the Japanese because an elder brother and other tribesmen had been mistakenly arrested by the Japanese and died in prison. He was looking for a "big head" (someone of importance) to take his revenge on, and had heard that there was a Japanese official in next door Talunkeng. So he demanded that the chief of that community, Salilan, deliver the head of this Japanese. Because Salilan was already friends with Mori, he was determined not to turn Mori over. Although Aliman preferred not to formally make enemies of the people of Talunkeng, before leaving he swore that he would kill Mori once Mori left Talunkeng.

Mori, judging no option to be any safer than another, decided to press on with his botanical survey, even though this would take him right through Tafen territory. After five days of hiding in the daylight and moving at night, he finally escaped from the Tafen hunters looking for him. When he walked safely into Yuli, the local police officers though they were seeing a ghost! Although Aliman bemoaned this outcome, he could not but respect Mori's courage.

Eventually the tale of Mori's courage spread, and later when Aliman got to know Mori-who gained the nickname "friend of the Bunun" in his lifetime and was a harsh critic of Japanese oppression of Taiwan's Aboriginal people-he befriended him. "Aliman celebrated the fact that he had not killed Mori, which he would then have regretted. Two years later, when Mori again passed through Tafen territory, Aliman personally helped him carry his belongings, and escorted him along the road like an old friend," says Nelson Yang, a scholar researching the history of the Japanese occupation, in his article "Academic Adventurer Mori Ushinosuke."

Sadly this cross-cultural friendship could not alter the fact that the Aborigines remained a colonized people and the Japanese were their rulers. In 1915, following the "Tafen Incident," Aliman and his elder brother took to the hills to resist the Japanese authorities. Pursued by the Japanese police, the two fraternal heroes led fellow Bunun across peaks and precipices southwestward along the upper reaches of the Laonung River, finally reaching Yusui, hidden deep in harsh protective terrain. There they set up their base and carried on fighting against the Japanese police for more than a decade. Members of many different Aboriginal tribes, moved by their example, joined them.

Both Mori and another Japanese expert who spent much time deep in Taiwan's mountain regions, naturalist Kana Tadao, concluded, "Generally speaking the tribespeople have a powerful sense of blood ties, with this feeling being strongest among the Bunun." For example, whereas the Atayal, high mountain dwellers like the Bunun, had internal divisions and even wars among themselves, the Bunun were very loyal to the group, maintaining unity against outsiders. This eyewitness historical evidence helps explain why the Bunun were "the last of the untamed peoples" under the Japanese.

Respect nature

Thrilling as stories of epic heroism may be, there is a subject even more worth pondering: How is it that the combative and courageous Bunun are so respectful and gentle in dealing with the other living things that share their mountain surroundings?

Every Bunun is warned before his first hunting trip: You must show respect and awe to the mountains; you must crouch when you urinate; when drinking from a river you must lay flat next to the surface of the water to show humility; and rushing into the water to play and splash around is disrespectful. No hunting is allowed in spring, because it is the reproductive season for the animals; bear hunting can only be done in the winter....

And lend an ear to the prayer-song of the Deer Ear Ritual: "May the animals come to my home"; "may the animals come to my spear"; "may all the animals come to me."

From the Deer Ear Ritual and hunting taboos, as well as from the background to many myths and stories, you may find that the hunting spirit of the Bunun is one of gratitude to nature, of sharing the resources of the mountain forests with all creatures. It is not based only on what is good for people, taking at will what they want by relying on superior power.

Perhaps these days, with the old habitats of the Bunun disappearing, it is not easy to see the traditional hunting spirit manifest itself. Yet, now that people are taking ecotours into the mountains to "learn from nature without destroying it," the Bunun mindset remains a precious