The Paiwan The paiwan, with a total population of 70,030﹙according to 2000 government figures﹚, are the third largest aboriginal people of Taiwan after the Ami and the Atayal. They are distributed across the southern sector of the central mountain range, from the upper reaches of the Ai-liao River in the north down to the Hengchun peninsula in the south, and including the foothills and the narrow coastal strip in the southeast. Administratively they are encompassed by the districts of Santi, Machia, Taiwu, Laiyi, Chunjih, Mutan, Shihtzu & Manchou in Pingtung county and the districts of Taimali, Chinfeng, Tajen, Tawu &Peinan in Taitung county. In addition, scattered minority groups also live in Chohsi district in Hualien county and Sanmin & Taoyuan districts in Kaohsiung county. All the Paiwan villages lie below 1,500 metres above sea level, and most of them are situated on lower foothill slopes at altitudes ranging from 100 metres to 1,000 metres.
Traditionally the Paiwan base their livelihood on the cultivation of hillside plots cleared by burning, together with hunting, keeping livestock and fishing mountain streams. Apart from what is required for personal sustenance, a portion of their produce is also paid in tax to the Paiwan noble class. Millet, meat, betel nuts and taro customarily serve as barter goods. Their staple crops are millet and taro, but they also grow peanuts, beans and sweet potatoes. Taro are dried over a fire and stored for use throughout the year. Hunting is the preserve of the menfolk, and this together with the keeping of livestock provides the main source of meat. Hunting may be carried out in groups or individually, although since the hunting grounds are considered to belong to certain noble families a proportion of the game must be handed over to the owners by way of tax.
Paiwan social organisation is founded upon the twin pillars of land ownership and primogeniture, for land ownership depends on inheritance by the eldest heir. Three social classes or castes may be distinguished. Firstly there is the nobility, a privileged class mainly consisting of landowners and their immediate kin. Secondly there is the gentry, an intermediate class below the nobility and above the commoners. Only the eldest heirs remain gentry, the remaining descendants becoming commoners. The gentry class is not a transitional class between the nobility and the commoners, neither is it subservient to the nobility . Thirdly there are the commoners, some of whom may be distant kin of landown-ers, or else totally unrelated persons. Their status is the lowest in Paiwan society.
The noble landowners own both the agricultural and residential land, and benefit from privileged taxes such as land tax, hunting tax, forestry tax, and water tax. They wear tattooes in the form of whole human figures; their clan surnames and personal names differ from those of commoners; their houses are larger than others and display carvings of snakes, deer and human heads on the door lintel; their homes display carved human figures inside and have a meeting-place with a dais outside; prior to marriage they have the right to cohabit with unmarried young women; and they may wear leopard-skin clothes. Immediate Kin of landowners are exempted from paying taxes, and their clothing and adornment closely resemble those of landowners. Marginal nobility enjoy similar social status to gentry, but they are nobility in name only. Their privileges extend to having different tattoo patterns and personal names from commoners, but in all other respects they are treated as commoners and must rely on their own efforts to sustain their livelihood.
Paiwan villages often incorporate satellite settlements, and the choice of site depends mainly on the presence of a water supply, so that most villages lie on the slopes along both sides of a river valley where hillside streams run down to the river. Sometimes the village is a single concentrated settlement, and sometimes it consists of a complex of neghbouring hamlets. Usually one finds a more populous village forming the nucleus for a village organization which includes several neighbouring satellite settlements.
The landowner or group headman owns all the farming and residential land, so that all commoners and lesser nobility must obtain his permission to undertake cultivation or build a house. Families living in houses on a certain landowner’s land fall under that landowner’s jurisdiction. All the inhabitants living on a certain landowner’s land constitute a well-defined group, of which the landowner is the headman. He has the responsibility of settling disputes among members of the group and ensuring good order within it. Each group also has a manager to take care of its affairs; this manager is a capable male from any social class. Some villages consist of a single such group, while other villages may have two or more groups in them. The group forms an economic and security body within the village, while the village itself functions as a political unit ensuring its common defence and vengeance for outside harm. In villages with several groups, political matters are handled by elders chosen by the village council. There is also a village ritual master who conducts all sacrificial rituals touching the good of the village as a whole, such ritual masters being chosen by female shamans by divination. Ritual masters are generally male, and they address the gods in an indirect and supplicatory fashion. The shamans are all female, and they address ghosts and spirits using clearly coercive techniques.
The Paiwan are famous for their primitive art, especially for their stone carving, wood carving and woven and embroidered textiles. Their wood carving and embroidery are particularly finely detailed, although the degree of detail and the types of designs themselves differ according to the social class system. In addition to carvings on house beams and posts, most everyday utensils are made of carved wood, including bowls, grain tubs, weaving looms, polished boards, joint drinking cups, shields, shaman’s boxes, knives, combs and spoons. Bamboo basketry also accounts for many practical items, such as baskets of all types, trays, boxes, and rain gear. The Paiwan also have three great treasures, which are bronze knives, old pottery jars and coloured beads. These are regarded as heirlooms of unparalleled value among the Paiwan nobility. How they were made and where they came from are lost in the mists of time, and all they know is that these are heirlooms inherited from the ancestors which symbolize the noble class. They also have great value as objects of folk art.
Paiwan Domestic Buildings (1)Tebulikan headman’s house, Kulalau village﹙I-4﹚.
The village of Kulalau lies in Laiyi district in Pingtung county, where long ago it was established on the southern side of Mt. Ta-wu where the Chichia River riese in the mountains, at an alti-tude of 1,033 metres. There are two group headmen in the village, representing the Chiyorung and the Tebulikan lineages, each of which has its own legend of origin.
According to the Chiyourng lineage, their ancestor Saruruan originally lived at the place Kuratsua, some three kilometers distant from Kulalau village. About 350 years ago, the chief’s eldest son Sarumuchi and his second son Saraba went hunting with their dog in the place Uliyariyau. On their way back to the village, their dog curled up beneath a large tree and refused to budge. The brothers promptly told their father, who interpreted it as a sign that the dog was showing them where to build a new village. He then instructed his son Sarumuchi to take his kinsfolk and move to the new site, which became the present-day Kulalau village. The Tebulikan noble lineage moved later, from the village of Pulci. According to the Tebulikan lineage’s tradition, a young man named Rumuchi from the village of Pulci went hunting on Mt. Ta-wu some 350 years ago. On the way he discovered the site of Kulalau village and moved there with four other households of his lineage, totaling twelve persons. After they built their homes on the site, it gradually grew into a village.
About three centuries ago, when the Tebulikan were at the height of their power, two of the Chiyorung headman’s four sons, Bais and Bachiyo, led off two subordinates, Chiyokal and Balamuri, to settle the village of Ca’ovo’ovol in modern Shihtzu district.
Inside the headman’s house are two stone pillars carved with representations of the ancestors. In the forecourt stands a dais with more stone monuments, in front of each of which stands a little sacrificial altar. These stone monuments symbolise the supreme authority of the lineage leader. At the top of each monument is a groove from which the heads of conquered enemies were hung. A skull frame was fixed into the step in front of the dais. All important sacrificial rituals of the village were held in this place.
(2)Mavariau headman’s house, Tamali village﹙I-7﹚
Tamali village is the modern Taimali in Taitung county, and was settled by the eastern Paiwan Pakarokaro group. Among the Pakarokaro, the Tamali community form a typical representative group. According to Tamali legend, the village was founded by a Puyuma woman named Chianovas. It was only when her fifth-generation descendant Paqarum married Saulaulai, a Paiwan woman from the Arangiyan family of Kulalau village, that ancient pottery jars with the hundred-pace snake pattern and coloured beads were introduced ino the village. When the Tamali village chief changed his surname to Arangiyan,this marked the influx of western Paiwan ancestral culture.In the seventh generation the Mavariau lineage split off, and in the ninth generation the Vavorongan lineage arose. The most obvious distinguishing feature of the Mavariau headman’s house is the set of three stone monuments carved with ancestral figures that stand in front of it. Within the house are four sacred shrines, dedicated to male and frmale gods, the ancestors of all generations and the founding ancestors of Kulalau village. The house also displays three figures carved in wood. To the left of the doorway stands the figure of Paliciang, a male, representing the plenipotentiary servant of the headman who can officiate at rituals in the headman’s stead. To the right of the doorway is seen the figure of Coclansha, also a male, who is the major-domo in charge of all the headman’s family affairs. Inside the house on the central post stands the last carved ancestral figure, whose name is only revealed to the descendants of the headman’s family and is kept secret from all outsiders.
(3)Men’s house of Piuma village﹙I-10﹚
Piuma is the Paiwan name for the village of P’ing-ho in Taiwu district, Pingtung county. This men’s house is where the adolescent and young adult males receive their training and education from the village elders, and it is where village disputes are adjudicated. The interior beam at the top of the rear wall is where the skulls of conquered enemies are placed which is the focus of village ritual worship.
(4)Roabanijau headman’s house, Ca’ovo’ovol village﹙I-11﹚
Ca’ovo’ovol is the Paiwan name for the village of Nei-wen in Shihtzu district, Pingtung county, which is inhabited by the Butsul sub-group of the western Paiwan. The Paiwan share closer similarities with Polynesian culture than any other Taiwan aboriginal group, and the rectangular houses of the western Paiwan and the round-roofed or turtleshell-roofed houses of the Butsul sub-group closely resemble the buildings of Tahiti in the South Pacific. The rectangular style of building represents the earlier culture of the interior, while the round-roofed or turtleshell-roofed dwellings are found along the coast and belong to a later cultural stratum.
The settlements around Ca’ovo’ovol village formerly belonged to the sphere of influence of the headmen of two lineages, the Roabanijau and the Cholon. According to legend both lineages settled in the area some three centuries ago, the Roabanijau coming from modern Laiyi village and the Cholon from modern Chiahsing village. Thus the ruling class imposed themselves from outside, and indeed the clan name Roabanijau matches that of the headman of Laiyi village.
The headman’s house is distinguished by two striking features, namely its curved roof in the shape of a turtle’s shell and the presence of two main doorways. The interior is divided into a front and a rear chamber, divided by a wall of wooden planks with two doorways let into it. The ancestral images are carved on the sides of the front chamber and on the front of the planked wall.﹙Here designs from Ku-hua village are used, courtesy of Mr. Hsu Ying-chou.﹚The sacred shrine is located beside the granary in the rear chamber, and it is here that rituals and prayers are conducted.
(5)Tingurul headman’s ancestral temple, Kaviangan village﹙I-12﹚
Kaviangan is the original Paiwan name for Chia-p’ing village in Taiwu district, Pingtung county. Although the old village has since been abandoned, the ancestral temple of the headman of the Tingurul lineage is reconstructed here according to the 1937 observations of Dr. Chijiiwa Suketaro.
Actually, as observed by Dr. Chijiiwa, there ought to be a side room built on to the right wall of the building with communication via a side door. This was because it was forbidden to smoke or to cook inside the main house, restrictions which did not apply to the side room. This domestic temple, which served both as a family home and as a lineage temple, displayed the faces of ancestors carved along the exterior lintel running below the eave. Inside the house were four posts carved with ancestral images.﹙There was another such post in the side room also, but this had been destroyed by 1937.﹚Four niches were let into the rear stone wall which served as shrines for worship of the god of war and head-hunting, the grain god, the god of the five-year festival and the ancestral gods. Skulls of conquered enemies were placed in other niches in the stone walls to left and right.
The Paiwan worship different ancestral figures on different occasions. The “grandfather” ancestral figure controls all matters affecting the clan, and ritual worship must be made to it as part of every ceremony. The “father” ancestral figure governs agricultural production, and thus it is the object of ritual worship at harvest ceremonies, sowing ceremonies, and the five-year and six-year cyclical ceremonies. The “son” ancestral figure governs warfare, and must be worshipped whenever the villagers return victorious with the heads of conquered enemies, or when an enemy has succeeded in taking the heads of the villagers themselves. Most solemn of all is the five-year ceremony, at which all the souls of the most distant ancestors are worshipped, and one may describe this as the climax of the Paiwan ritual cycle.
