Talk:Taiwanese indigenous peoples

The current map is fair-use-only. Could someone recreate it as a GFDL or PD map? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 15:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

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An other map showing taiwaneses aborigines

...Han immigration in the 1600s.

Should that really link the decade of the 1600s, or should it be 17th century? --Brion 09:22 Oct 21, 2002 (UTC)

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I put the plains up today and I'll throw a bit up on current tribes and government policy later, I'm trying not to be too long winded with this subject, but it is tricky to give a meaningful explaination.

This all gets so complicated. I just discussed a few details with Dr. Paul J.K. Li, a historical linguist, who pointed out that the people of central Taiwan are predominantly the descendents of Hakka who lost their language and all records of being Hakka after mixing with the Pazeh who also chose Hakka names and lineage books.

It's only complicated if you try to fit it within the

simplistic ideas of ethnicity that are part of modernism. The truth is that like the rest of the world, if you chart out the genetic lineage of Taiwanese, you'll find that everyone has been intermarrying everyone else, and that ethnic identity labels are ephemerial and socially constructed.

-- Roadrunner

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Changed some of the wording.

First of all, all signs do not point to the creation of a separate non-Chinese identity.

Second of all, I don't know of any current supporter of Chinese reunification on either the Mainland or Taiwan that sees the interest in aboriginal affairs as an effort to split the nation. --Roadrunner

"Today, most tribes that the Republic of China (ROC) recognizes are concentrated in the highland mountains of Taiwan". That has not been true for at least a decade. A large population has been living and working in the cities for years. "Second generations" (if not beyond) have been born and raised there. A-giau 21:12, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Avoid the passive voice if possible

"Little was known about Taiwan's highland aborigines until European and American explorers and missionaries began seeking out the mountain tribes in the 19th and early 20th centuries."

By whom? Obviously the highland aborigines knew about themselves. See Edward Said's Orientalism. A-giau 21:22, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The details of inheritance may not have been known by anybody until researchers began to try to do carefully grounded studies. Is information available on their own inderstandings of, e.g., relations among the Ami, Atyal, Bunun, and Paiwan aboriginal groups? Information given in The HIstory and Georgraphy of Human Genes, (pp. 233ff) by Luca Cavelli-Sforza does not show the heavy admixture of Han genetic factors indicated above.

Removal of Photo depicting "racial types"

There was some discussion over my decision to remove a particular photo. I gave my justification for doing so here.

kerim 17:08, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The following texts were moved from the discussion page linked above for discussion archiving.Mababa 04:43, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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In the 19th century it was believed that people were divided into distinct "races" each with their own distinct features. Now it is understood that there is tremendous variation in features - such as skin tone, hight, etc. and that these vary tremendously within groups as well as between them. So, while it might be possible to put a picture of Shaq next to a picture of George Bush and say one exemplifies the "black race" and one exemplifies the "white race" we could find many people who consider themselves black or white but whose features are far less distinct than those two individuals.

I lived with Taiwanese Aborigines for a year, and there were some who were clearly identifiable as Aborigines, but many (most) were not. It is made even more complex by the fact (as is the case between blacks and whites in the US, where most blacks have at least some white ancestors as a result of sexual practices during slavery), most Han Chinese Taiwanese have at least some Aborigine ancestors.

I thus consider it misleading to use a picture in this way, and I feel it diminishes the article to do so. It reduces the complexity of the actual genetic admixture between Taiwanese and Aborigines, presenting "ideal types" of what a stereotypical "Han Chinese" and a stereotypical Aborigine are supposed to look like.

This is made even more complex by the fact that there are various Aborigine ethnic groups and there is considerable variation between them. My Bunun friends were discriminated against by lighter skinned Amis because of the darker color of their skin (even though I've met non-Aborigine Taiwanese who are even darker than most Bunun).

I wrote that these views were 19th century because I've read accounts by turn-of-the-century Japanese anthropologists who tried to define the phenotypical features of each Aborigine ethnic group. Nobody engages in such practices these days in Anthropology, and I did not feel that it was appropriate for an encyclopedia article. I therefore have no intention of "replacing" the photograph with something similar, since I feel that it is wrong to do so. Perhaps a picture of many different Aborigines showing the tremendous variety in how Aborigines look would be more appropriate?

BTW: You are a good photographer and I like your photos - it was the caption and use of this particular photograph that I objected to. I'm sorry if I didn't make my motives clearer, but the edit field didn't leave much room. I hope I have now done so.

kerim 16:59, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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So the photo is back up with a new, caption. Mababa has objected on my discussion page with four basic points that I'll address one-by-one:

1 We have no idea about the racial background of that English teacher.

This point is mute because the caption doesn't state a race for the teacher. She might be Bunun or not. The child is Bunun as I witnessed in Christmas, 1989.

2 The photo is not informative

Yes, the photo is not exactly enlightening, true. On Wikipedia, I feel that more images are better than less. Also, this intimate portrait personalizes the abstract concept of "Taiwan Aborigine." All of the Wikipedia entries for the world's various aborigines treat them like museum artifacts -- This one included! Witness the quaint photo opening the article. Putting a human face on modern GaoShan people is helpful and informative, I think.

3 Revealing racial difference is not helpful

I might not agree with this, but I'm certainly willing to remove all comment about race differences from the caption. Case closed on this, I think.

4 There is no universal and obvious distinction in the way the different groups look

Fair enough. Again: the caption is not race-based.

jk 23:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Assuming that we all agree on this: the reason for us to keep this photo which is not focusing on the Bunun child is simply because we want to have more photos to enrich the content of this article. The, wouldn't any photo deposited in the Wiki common[1] serve a better purpose and be more informative? The photo being discussed clearly put the English teacher in the focus and occupies the major space. Please comment.--Mababa 05:38, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My point for adding this image was to humanize the Gaoshan people. The images in the commons are ancient. I have another photo that might do better than this one so I'll take it off and add the other one as soon as I can scan it. jk 16:46, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Definitely agreed. They are really people, not the anscient people(as the category below suggested; I don't even know what that is about:( ). I would be looking forward to your masterpiece.Mababa 21:13, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

List of Tribes/Plane Tribes

The current list of tribes used ROC official recognition is confusing for they mixed the high land tribes with the plane tribes. Therefore I suggest that they should get rearranged according into the high land and plane tribes. I also removed the Arikun and Lloa from the list since these two were actually same tribe called Arikun Lloa in an earlier classification which was later classified as Hoanya.

• Classification of the plane tribes--Mandarin

Mababa 04:43, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Externals might be useful

• Data links early settlers to African diaspora

Mababa 05:42, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Need citations and references

The vast majority of text for this article appeared intact 05:12, 20 Jun 2003 by 218.170.18.7.

This page is by far the meatiest article on any Indigenous peoples in the encyclopedia. I think we should promote it as a featured article after vetting it. I question the validity of the original article. jk 08:46, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ummm... I wrote much of this a long time ago using my reference materials in conjunction with my own research. I'm sorry I couldn't get back to it as I have a lot of other projects going on, so I was hoping others could finish it and clean it up for me. I hope this will suffice and put your suspicious minds to rest.

I'll give you a book list:

--24.19.37.237

30+ sources moved to article, alphabetized.

This is a tremendous list! Was this a thesis of some sort?! I still think we need to footnote the article whenever a study is mentioned. jk 08:46, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I simply wrote this as a word document to post here. I am currently doign research into several of the topics listed in this document.

I have replaced the early references to Chinese with the term Han, which more accurately describes the cultural identiy of the people prior to the idea of "China". During the early period of Han arrival in Taiwan, immigrants identified themselves by their locality rather than an overarching "Chinese". "Chinese" is a late concept from the mid 19th century borrowed from European conceptions of national grouping. The term "Chinese" is actually a European term for the people along the east Asian coast who, to Europeans, all looked and behaved the same. Another term used at the time was "Sangley". The current meaning of "Chinese" is a national designator as "Chinese" could be any one of 56 ethnicities according to the PRC. Han deals with the Confucio-religious belief structures of the Han people that were adopted by other ethnicities, including Yi, Min, Yue, Hakka, Miao, Li etc...

Remaining tribes/languages

Can anyone translate Dutch? It has the remaining tribes/languages left. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nataoraans_Amis -User:Falphin

Remove the image again

Comparing features: Han woman on left, Bunun girl on right in Lona, Taiwan.

Please show me the evidence that the lady in the middle of that picture is Han, not High lander aborigie, not plane land aborigine, not Korean and not Japanese, before the picture put back into the article. I challenge the person who put the figure back to show me evidence on the ethinicity backgroung of the very lady in the front. The text would be misleading without supporting evidence.Mababa 00:15, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I took the picture of her in 1989 after travelling with a group of 10 English teachers from Taichung. I'm mostly positive she had no aborigine ancestry, but we didn't speak at length about her heritage. But I added the other picture with the kids to humanize the Bunun people around Lona village. This photo seems to be a hot-button with many working on the article. I agree with you that this picture doesn't add much here. On the other hand, why remove hard-to-find photos if they don't mislead the reader? The problem is not the photo but rather the caption.jk 20:42, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem is the notion claiming Taiwanese are mostly composed of the Han with political connotation, where in fact they were mostly Pepo according to history and scientific study. Please refer to The origin of Minnan and Hakka, the so-called "Taiwanese", inferred by HLA study. This article should be integrated into the article Taiwanese aborigine as well.

What does "Pepo" mean? P0M 07:09, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I apologize for this delayed reponse. Pepo(平埔) was a term generally used to refer to the the plain tribes in Taiwan. I do not know how can we direct meaning of Pepo.[2]--Mababa 02:33, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. The information about the genetics of the so-called Taiwanese is interesting. Even more interesting is recent research that indicates that Taiwan was the source of a group of Pacific Islands people, rather than an outlyer of that group. That is to say, the aboriginal Taiwanese are genetically as well as linguistically a fairly clearly separated group from any of the mainland Chinese groups. It appears that humans must have reached Taiwan quite early, diverged from mainland groups, were visited only rarely until the few centuries and so became more and more distinct until relatively recently, and meanwhile they spread out into the Pacific. I think I saw the research reported in Science News a few months ago. P0M 06:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

If I take a picture of my classmate in my next reunion, I guess then it would not be thought regrad as hard to find then? :) --Mababa 03:27, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That image is not at all illuminating. A-giau 21:06, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The only defining characteristic that I remember being claimed for Taiwanese aborigines by Han Chinese in Taiwan was that the former are slightly darker in skin color. The photo would seem to offer a tiny bit of corroboration for this belief, if the ladies are indeed members of the groups claimed for them, but skin color is very much a function of how much time each year an individual is exposed to the sun. The picture of the supposed aborigine lady is not very clear, she is in the background, etc., and so I do not believe that the photo accomplishes any good purpose in the article. P0M 21:48, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Proponents say ....

Proponents say this is without any consideration for the socio-contextual value headhunting played in many societies on Taiwan. Er... proponents of headhunting? Mark¹ 09:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Naming convention

http://61.31.195.133/ethnic/modules/xcgal/albums/ethnic/realname/cover/realname_cover-back.jpg – Kaihsu 18:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

deletion of Chinese characters from the article

The Chinese characters that served to clarify some of the romanizations were deleted by another editor. I put them back. S/he deleted them again with the note: "This is English Wikipedia." I do not see any reason to be offended by the presence of written forms of another language in an English encyclopedia article. The object of adding characters should be to be helpful to those readers who may wonder what is going on. Romanizations may represent a "dialect" of Chinese with which a reader is not familiar. The characters do not get in the way and they do not cost money. And, if you are set on being a language purist, why not remove all of the Chinese characters? Why stop there? Remove the Chinese romanizations too, since this is not an article in Chinese and not an article about Chinese? P0M 06:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Calm down. I'll ask some other people what they think. Personally, I just don't see why this is necessary. Most people going to English Wikipedia can't read Chinese, so how is that helpful? The characters also look like they get in the way. --Khoikhoi 08:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I must agree with the deleter. Chinese characters, as a rule, don't belong in the main bodies of articles beyond the opening sentence, unless the article is on that subject. The article gives meanings and romanizations, so there is really no need. Wikipedia has a clear policy on this subject, and to include characters unnecessarily like this goes against it. elvenscout742 09:30, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree I find the characters in understanding the names given in the article but that's my opinion. Abstrakt 01:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I also disagree with deleting Chinese characters. Regardless of whether someone knows Chinese or not, they might be doing research with the Chinese words in front of them and be able to compare them to the Chinese words in wikipedia. There have been so many romanization systems used for Chinese over the last 500 years. Its important to have a standard... the original Chinese... especially for people or place names or special titles or phrases that might not on their own deserve an article. Mike 22:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Too many were added however. It's fine if you just a have few in the article, but with too many they just get in the way and make it harder to read the article. --Khoikhoi 23:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

"cooked" and "raw"

熟番 and 生番 should not be "literally" translated into "cooked-" or "raw-". although one of the meanings of 熟 and 生 are such, people who speak and read chinese know by context which meaning is implied, and would not cognitively think "cooked" or "raw" when used in the above manner. an example in english is the word "live" - which can be pronounced in two different ways with different meanings (ie, "to be alive" or "in person"), depending on context.

You are entirely correct. Maybe the terms "assimilated" and "unassimilated" would come close enough. The basic idea is that one group is familiar with and to the Chinese, and one group is not accustomed to contact. One might also use the terms "enculturated" and "unenculturated." A better translation would avoid the idea (which "assimilated" and "enculturated" imply) that these groups have entirely come over to a Chinese way of doing things. Instead, they are capable of interacting with the Chinese group in an effective way. They may not have entirely the same values or the same worldview, but they at least know each others values, mores, ways of communicating things that go beyond what would be present in a word-for-word translation. P0M 00:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Polynesian and Maori origins

Recent genetics research links Maori and Polynesian origins and migration paths to the indiginous people of Taiwan, which backs up the linguistic links mentioned in the article. There is a brief overview here at TVNZ, and Chambers' academic profile. Example sources:

• Whyte, A. L. H. "Human Evolution in Polynesia". Human Biology, Volume 77, Number 2, April 2005, pp. 157-177.
• Underhill, P. A. et al. "Maori origins, Y-chromosome haplotypes and implications for human history in the Pacific". Human Mutation,

Volume 17, Issue 4, pp. 271-280.

• Chu C. C. et al. "Diversity of HLA among Taiwan’s indigenous tribes and the Ivatans in the Philippines". Tissue Antigens, Volume 58, Number 1, July 2001, pp. 9-18(10).

(sorry - the anonymous IP edit was me!) Jon 00:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Famous Taiwanese Aborigines?

Would anyone object to the inclusion of a brief list of well-known, self-identified Taiwanese Aboriginies? The likes of, say, historical figures such as Mona Rudao, through to famous contemporary Aborigines like A-mei Chang, Chang Chen-yue, Power Station, Sakinu, etc.?--210.241.95.245 08:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

"driven into mountains"?

Re: "The undocumented 'displacement scenario', which claims Taiwan's aborigines immigrated to the mountains, becoming 'Gaoshan', "

And also: "Contrary to the popular misconception that the Pingpu tribes, under pressure from Han immigrants, fled to the mountains becoming Gaoshan tribes, documented facts show that the majority of plains people remained on the plains, intermarried immigrants from Fujian, and adopted a Han identity, where they remain today..."

This is certainly true of a very large number of Pingpu individuals. It is also certainly the position of Shepherd (1993). However, the first quote above is one of a few statements in this article (and related ones) that have the air of flat assertions. I'm concerned that some of these assertions may gloss over areas that are or may be subject to debate within academia, or that simply may not be as cut-and-dried as the text might lead one to believe.

E.g., some Siraya speakers in the Tainan area relocated to the mountains due to an influx of Chinese (Tsuchida and Yamada 1991:1-10).

[I do see the word "majority" above]. I realize that semantically this leaves open the possibility that a nontrivial minority of Taiwanese aborigines may have escaped or been forcibly relocated to the mountains, or met some other fate (see below). However, it seems to me that the wording might lead the casual reader to infer that none of these are true to any meaningful degree. It seems a tad bit less than transparent.

In this particular case, has a broad consensus coalesced around Shepherd's position? What about this use of the word "undocumented".. is it a bit strong, in this case? Is there significant scholarly debate of this point? More to the point, can we come up with enough contrary evidence that we should modify the above to warrant saying that "some/many" escaped or were driven or relocated to the mountains, and "some/many" were killed outright in warfare with the Han Chinese?

I also acknowledge that those last words may be politically sensitive. Please accept my apologies. However, I'm only in pursuit of accuracy and clarity.

Ling.Nut 03:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Please check citation formats

Cites may need checking. See first paragraph, then references. One cite is not available online; used Harvard (for Blust 1999). Others were; used embedded. Ling.Nut

Major changes

All of the changes I've made so far are to the topmost section, above the List of Peoples (in fact, above the discussion of "raw" and "cooked" etc.). As time permits, I hope to check many other details etc. I'm more of a linguist than an anthropologist, however, and many details are way outside my area of familiarity. Ling.Nut 16:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Details:

1. Added phrase "who are believed to have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major". I'll find the cite later...
2. Created new paragraph: "For centuries the Formosan tribes..."
3. Also moved a few things out of this section, but those were later edits (see topics below).

Ling.Nut 20:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggested Changes

I have some suggestions for re-organization that I'd like to offer for discusion. If no one objects, I'll do them myself as time permits (unless others want to change things themselves). Here they are:

1. Creation of a relatively brief "Migrations and Forced Relocations" section. Several details sprinkled throughout the article would be moved here from their currect position. Also, some counter-opinions would be offered. The section heading is long, but the distinction seems germane.
2. Creation of a "Recognized Peoples" section of text to go along with the excellent list already in place. Again, this would mainly involve moving several details sprinkled throughout the article from their currect position. The section will also include discussion of non-recognized peoples. However, I thought the section heading "Recognized and Non-recognized Peoples" would be clumsy. The existence of Recognized Peoples seems to imply that there are others who are not... Done (Renamed "List of peoples" section; moved some info into new section. See discussion topic below)Ling.Nut 19:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
3. Deletion of the "History of aboriginal peoples" section. Again, several details in this section would be moved from their currect position to a more specific section. This will be the easiest change to make, so I'll approach it first. Done (See discussion topic below).Ling.Nut 19:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
4. Finally, every time I edit, I see a warning from Wikipedia that the article may be too long. I'm afraid I agree. If anyone is interested, I would really like to open up the floor (if that doesn't sound too formal) to suggestions about cutting some text. As time permits I will make deletions bit by bit, noting each and being open to all arguments (of course).

Ling.Nut 18:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Changes to "History of Aboriginal Peoples"

All these changes were made to "History of Aboriginal Peoples"

1. Deleted the entire section, after moving major portions of it to other sections.
2. Deleted the following sentence, not because it is not useful, but because at the moment I am not sure where to put it. Besides, it was the last sentence left after all other changes: "The Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese supply the earliest records of aboriginal life on Taiwan."
3. Moved the "According to the Taiwan government..." paragraph to the (newly-renamed) "Recognized Peoples" section.
4. Deleted these sentences about Formosan languages:

   It is believed that the Austronesian languages and cultures originated on Taiwan roughly 6,000 years ago due to a lengthy split from its root in southern Asia. Linguistic evidence shows a greater diversity of languages on Taiwan than other Austronesian speaking areas. Linguists also note earlier linguistic separations that mark the earliest settlements.

   I believe this is good info, but it needs to be on the "Formosan Languages" page. Also needs relevant citations.
5. Moved "This theory has been strengthened by recent studies in human population genetics" to the paragraph about Formosan languages.
6. Deleted the following sentences: "In 1697, Yu Yong-he (???) arrived in Taiwan to procure sulfur. His account of aboriginal settlements along the western plain and in the Taipei basin is an invaluable source of information." I believe this info is of interest only to scholars, who can find the relevant source for themselves. However, I did not delete the Yu Yong-he source from the References section. Someone may use it.
7. Moved this sentence to the European section "The Dutch East India Company (VOC) included details of their encounters with peoples on the western plain as well as peoples from the south and southeast."

Ling.Nut 19:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Removed "Formosan languages" paragraph

It broke my heart after making so many changes to it, but I strongly feel that the fairly detailed paragraph regarding Formosan languages should be moved to the article on that topic. Note that this involves moving not only my own additions, but also some sentences that were here from an earlier contributor. I know this may be objectionable to some, but to me it seems necessary.

I would also like to copy/paste the remaining sentences on Formosan languages to that page. However, I need to research the relevant Wiki copyright rules.

But see the next section, on Maori etc. This delays the move of info to the Formosan Languages pages just a bit. Ling.Nut 19:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Revisit: Polynesian and Maori origins

I just noticed this topic far above, and the discussion of its sources.. Not sure, but it looks like maybe the three embedded citations that were used to support info about Formosan Languages may instead have been the correct cites for the sentence about Polynesian and Maori origins. In other words, correct citation, but placed on wrong sentence?

Now I'm afraid to move those citations the "formosan languages" page. I will research this. I will move the correct info to the Formosan languages page this week, as soon as time permits. Ling.Nut 20:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

== Thanks to Ling.Nut! Ling.Nut is doing some excellent long-overdue work cleaning up this page. I had long planned on doing something similar myself, but never had time. I know it is scary to mess with what other people have written, but I feel that Ling.Nut is doing a careful job and I hope previous contributors will be supportive of his/her efforts! kerim 05:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)