The Secret's Out

This article was written by Zoe Cheng and published by the Taiwan Review on April 1, 2007. It reports that for 100 years after a 19th-century massacre, Sakizaya aborigines in Taiwan hid their identity. Now, in a changed society, they are recognized as the nation's 13th tribe.

The Sakizaya people were known to the Spanish during the latter's brief stay in Taiwan in the 17th century. In 1874, the Japanese sent 3,000 troops on a punitive expedition to Taiwan to punish a southern aboriginal tribe for murdering shipwrecked sailors. After this event, the Qing Dynasty, which loosely controled Taiwan at that time, mounted a program to assert its authority over the island. This led to numerous clashes between Chinese forces and aboriginal groups in eastern Taiwan.

In 1878, the Sakizaya tribe in eastern Taiwan lost a major battle to the Qing forces. What followed was an attempted genocide of the tribe, known as the Takobowan Incident. The surviving Sakizaya fled and found sanctuary among the much larger Amis tribe. From then on, the Sakizaya people hid their identity. After the Japanese began their colonial occupation of Taiwan in 1895, their ethnological experts believed and therefore officially classified the exiled Sakizaya people as simply a subgroup of the large Amis aboriginal tribe.

Eventually, on January 17th, 2007, the government in Taiwan formally declared that from then on, the Sakizaya people would be classified as Taiwan's 13th officially recognized aboriginal tribe. Today, it is estimated that the tribe has between 5,000 and 10,000 people. Many of them grew up among the Amis and have picked up the latter's dialects, but still maintain their own tribal identity. This is despite the fact that some young members of the tribe still feel confused about who they are.

This article features several young Sakizaya individuals who are researching the half-suppressed, half-forgotten history of their people. Among their findings is a Spanish document from 1636 that had recorded the name and activities of the Sakizaya. There are also other documents after the Tokobowan Incident that refer to the Sakizaya as a separate aboriginal tribe. Other young researchers have conducted fieldwork. In general, throughout the 1990s, the Sakizaya people had become increasingly conscious about their unique identity.

In 2000, an organization which later became the Hualien County Sakizaya Tribal Development Association was formed. In 2002, members of the association were inspired by the success of the Kavalan people's campaign to restore their status as a separate tribe. (The Kavalan people were previously also considered a subgroup of the Amis.) As the "name rectification" movement -- allowing aboriginal people to use their own tribal names and identities -- reached its peak, the Hualien County Sakizaya Tribal Development Association proposed to push for rectification in 2004 and formally filed an application with the Council of Indigenous Peoples in 2005.

Although it is estimated that fewer than 2,000 people speak the Sakizaya tongue, which is below the level needed to sustain it, the association's application to the council was accompanied by 4,800 letters from people who confirmed that they were Sakizaya, not Amis. In 2006, the Sakizaya revived an ancient ceremony of ancestor worship called Palamal and performed it for the first time for more than a century. This event further enhanced the progress of the aboriginal tribe's rectification. "We feel that it is necessary to restore our own status and identity so that the spirit of our ancestors can find consolation and rest peacefully," members of the Sakizaya said.

In accordance with the Aboriginal Basic Act promulgated in 2004 and other related regulations, the government commissioned the Department of Ethnology at the National Chengchi University to research the Sakizaya people. The recognition of the tribe was later approved. According to this article, an aborigine identification law, which has been drafted but not yet passed, will map out relevant approval procedure for future rectification applications.

According to anthropologists, there are two major criteria for the determination of whether a group can be clearly defined as a separate ethnicity. The first one is a strong sense of ethnic identity. The second has more to do with outward characteristics, such as language, religion, population distribution and history. According to these experts, the main difference between the Amis and the Sakizaya is language. The variation level is about 60 to 70 percent from the language of the northern Amis and is even higher in the south. The Sakizaya's ancient mythology, customs and ceremonies have also been pieced together to present a more focused picture of this distinct people.

Indeed, in recent years, the government in Taiwan has been working hard to promote indigenous rights. A "New Partnership between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Taiwan" was signed in 2000. Since then, four aboriginal tribes have been officially recognized as distinct peoples -- the Tsao in 2001, the Kavalan in 2002, the Truku in 2004, and the Sakizaya in 2007. These tribes now have their own representatives in the Council of Indigenous Peoples. They also have access to government funds for language and cultural programs. The Ministry of Education is currently working to include in the national curriculum materials that introduce the Sakizaya. In the future, if the Indigenous People's Autonomous Area Act comes into force, all aboriginal tribes will have autonomy over the land designated to them. (The bill is currently being drafted.)

The aforementioned Hualien County Sakizaya Tribal Development Association began the procedure for individual registration as a Sakizaya in February 2007. Once this procedure is completed, the association will elect their tribal leader. All newly registered tribespeople will be encouraged to share the task of language and culture restoration.