The Inconvenient Truth of Taiwan’s First Peoples
Indigenous groups assert their own claims on a contested island.
NOVEMBER 19, 2023, 6:00 AMBy Margaret Simons, a principal honorary fellow at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne.
Members of the Kanakanavu tribe perform in traditional costumes during a Siraya harvest festival in Taiwan’s Donghua village on Oct. 18. DAVE TACON PHOTOS FOR FOREIGN POLICY
Siyat Taro Titiyon remembers when the Kuomintang (KMT) recruited him to fight against China on the islands of the Taiwan Strait. The shells from the artillery “fell like rain.” Far from their traditional lands, Titiyon and his fellow mountain tribesmen dug themselves trenches in the mud and didn’t expect to survive.
The KMT, otherwise known as the Chinese Nationalist Party, told them they were on the front line because “we tribesmen were the strongest and the bravest.” He didn’t understand why the Chinese were fighting other Chinese—but “they told us we had to go and fight, so we went.” It was 1955, during what became known as the Strait Crisis. The brief armed conflict was fought between the Communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Kuomintang, which had retreated to Taiwan in 1949 following defeat in the civil war against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Today, at 87 years old, Titiyon is, to the best of his knowledge, the oldest living member of the Saisiyat, one of 16 Indigenous tribes recognized by the Taiwanese government.
Siyat Taro Titiyon, an 87-year-old military veteran who believes he is the oldest member of the Saisiyat tribe, poses for a portrait at his home in the mountains of Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Oct. 21.
He lives in a family compound in a house he built himself on the traditional lands of his tribe, high in the mountains of Hsinchu County in northwestern Taiwan. He brews his own rice wine, makes offerings to the ancestral spirits, and worships at the Christian church, seeing no conflict between the two beliefs.
He doesn’t pay much attention to politics these days, but he understands that, once again, the Indigenous tribes of Taiwan are being used in a conflict between one set of Han Chinese—the overwhelmingly dominant ethnic group in Taiwan—and the PRC. This time, there are no artillery shells. Instead, for the first time in his life, people are visiting him and asking about his heritage. He knows that in the government’s assertion of a national identity, he and his people are useful.
At his elbow, translating his words, is a living example of what has become an Indigenous cultural renaissance: his 19-year-old great-niece, the daughter of a New Zealand father and a Saisiyat mother. She was not raised in the tribe or on the mountain but has come here to embrace her heritage.
Like many young tribespeople, she has two names. When she attends university down on the plains, where she studies Indigenous culture, she is Corayne Kaiteri, a name taken from her father. But up here, and with her great-uncle, she uses her tribal name, Away Maya Titiyon.
A view of the mountainous terrain from Titiyon’s kitchen window on Oct. 21.
“Before I began to explore my heritage, I was confused, because I am also half a New Zealander. So I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere,” she said. Her classmates called her a “hybrid.” At school in the capital of Taipei, she was teased when her class was taught that tribeswomen had served as “comfort women” for the Japanese. She battled stereotypes; her peers asked her if she rode a pig to school.
But under government policies dating to Taiwan’s democratization in the mid-1980s and amplified under the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government, she was taught her language in school and, gradually, “I came to want to be part of my tribe and learn more about what that means.”
She is not eligible to vote for another year and so pays little attention to the differences between Taiwan’s two main political parties, the DPP, which is the more progressive and advocates for a distinct Taiwanese national identity, and the more mainland-China-friendly KMT. The KMT is the same party that sent her great-uncle to war and that, for nearly four decades from 1949, ruled Taiwan as a one-party state before democratization in 1987. The party has changed in many ways, but still claims that there is only “one China,” with its legitimate government being the Republic of China. Elements in the party still favor eventual reunification with mainland China, though not necessarily on the CCP’s terms.
But rather than following these disputes, Titiyon is engaged in the politics of being Indigenous. She has participated in international Indigenous youth forums, including visiting the First Nations people of Canada and making connections with Maori in New Zealand. She is taking continuing lessons in the Saisiyat language—made harder by the fact that there are few people with whom she can speak it. She hopes to make a career out of representing her people on the international stage.
Eighteen-year-old Corayne Kaiteri, who also uses her tribal name, Away Maya Titiyon, listens to her great-uncle at his home in Hsinchu on Oct. 21.
What do the old man and the young woman think of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s claim that Taiwan is a breakaway province of China and must be reabsorbed? The older Titiyon said his people did not previously have the concept of land ownership, but this place is where he and his family have always been. So how can others have a claim? It is a fair point. About half of Taiwan’s land mass—mostly the mountains that form the island’s central spine—is categorized as the traditional land of Indigenous peoples. It remains under their control at the local government level.
Further up the mountain, Lahling Yumin, a leading member of the Atayal tribe whose lands abut those of the Saisiyat, explained that the early Han Chinese colonists, who arrived in the 17th century, never occupied the mountains. The PRC’s claim to historical ownership can, at most, be to the plains of Taiwan, he said—those densely settled areas far below, covered with cities and warehouses and the factories of this high-tech manufacturing nation.
Yumin’s great-grandfather died fighting the Japanese, who were the first to attempt to control the entire island. Today, he supports the DPP and has run under that party’s banner in local village elections. The Han Chinese who dominate the DPP, he said, are “a bit better” than the Han Chinese who dominate mainland China. Following his narrow defeat in the local election, Yumin’s life is dedicated to making sure his children learn the three pillars of his culture: language, history, and the intimate knowledge of how to live, hunt, and gather in the mountain forests.
Meanwhile, Taiwan exists in strategic and diplomatic ambiguity. It considers itself a nation, yet doesn’t dare declare independence from the PRC for fear of provoking invasion. In this ambivalent space, the Indigenous peoples hold a particular place. Their continuous occupation undercuts the PRC’s claims, and their cultural renaissance underscores both Taiwan’s position as the region’s newest liberal democracy and its unique relationships with other countries in the region—relationships that do not rely on its tenuous nation status.
Mona, a 10-year-old altar boy, wears a garment inspired by the Atayal mountain tribe’s traditional dress at the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Taiwan’s Wufeng township on Oct. 22.
“
