The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 4 | Issue 1 | Article ID 1565 | Jan 04, 2006

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Formosa's First Nations and the Japanese: from colonial ruleto postcolonial resistance

Scott Simon

Formosa's First Nations and the Japanese:from colonial rule to postcolonialresistance

By Scott Simon

Abstract: The Japanese administration ofFormosa from 1895-1945 changed the island’ssocial landscape forever; not least by bringingthe Austronesian First Nation people of easternand central Taiwan under the administration ofthe modern nation-state for the first time. TheTaroko tribe of Northeastern Taiwan (formerlypart of the Atayal tribe) was the last tribe tosubmit to Japanese rule, but only after theviolent subjugation of an anti-Japanese uprisingin the 1930s. Shortly thereafter, however,Taroko men were recruited into the JapaneseImperial Army. The names of those who diedduring the war are now honored at theYasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, a situation thatoccasionally becomes the object of protests byTaiwanese politicians. This article, based onfield research in a Taroko community inHualien, looks at how social memories of theJapanese administration have contributed toboth Taroko identity and to various other formsof nationalism in contemporary Taiwan. How doTaroko individuals and collectivities rememberthe Japanese? How do these memoriesarticulate with nationalist ideologies in thelarger Taiwanese society?

On June 13, 2005, Taiwanese independentlegislator May Chin, who claims an Atayalidentity, arrived in Tokyo with a group of fiftycomrades-in-arms representing nine indigenoustribes from Taiwan. Their goal was to protest in

front of the controversial Yasukuni Shrinewhere the spirits of 2.5 million war dead arehonored. Among the dead commemorated inthe shrine are 28,000 Taiwanese, includingapproximately 10,000 aboriginal men, whofought for the Japanese Imperial Army duringthe Pacific War. Although the families ofTaiwanese soldiers have long demandedcompensation from Japan for unpaid pensions,this protest made only one demand: that thenames of aboriginal soldiers be removed fromthe shrine.

When May Chin and her cohort arrived at theshrine on June 14, Japanese police refused tolet them get off the bus, allegedly in order toprotect them from Japanese right-wingextremists who had already arrived at thescene. For a few days, this became the leadingnews item in Taiwan, with television newsbroadcasting images of Taiwanese aboriginesin traditional dress being prevented fromexiting their bus by Japanese police. May Chinaccused Japan of violating their democraticrights of protest. This event, part of thetensions between Japan and its neighbors,underscores the importance of memories ofJapanese occupation to contemporaryindigenous peoples in Taiwan.

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May Chin

Chin’s aboriginal protest occurred at a time ofwidespread protest against Japan that involvesmore than Formosan aboriginal grievanceagainst the former colonial overlords. Duringthe same summer, the Chinese and SouthKorean governments also objected publicly toboth Japanese Prime Minister KoizumiJunichiro’s visits to the shrine and revisions tohistory textbooks in Japan. During the race forTaiwan’s KMT (Chinese Nationalist Party)leadership, candidate Wang Chin-ping also ledprotests against Japanese occupation of theSenkaku (Tiao-yu-tai) Islands which Taiwanclaims is a part of the Republic of China. MayChin’s protests at the Yasukuni Shrine thusarticulate with a larger pan-Asian mobilizationagainst Koizumi. The memories of the deceasedaboriginal soldiers, depicted as victims ofJapanese imperialism by Chin and her group inmuch of the Taiwanese media, are potentsymbols when mobilized in that struggle. Asthis essay attempts to illustrate, however,Taiwanese memories of Japanese colonialism

are very different from Chinese and Koreanmemories. Korean and Chinese anger towardthe Japanese has been much more potent thanthat of the Taiwanese, many of whom alsoremember positive dimensions of theirexperience under Japanese colonial rule. It isthus crucial to contextualize the local meaningof anti-Japanese protest and to grasp howmemories of the Japanese occupation aremobilized to different ends in differentsituations.

Scholars working on collective memory,fol lowing in the footsteps of MauriceHalbwachs (1980 [1950]) and Henri Lefebvre(1991 [1974]), point out that social space is theproduct of struggle between conflicting groupsof people attempting to give concrete form tocollective memory. Through her protests at theYasukuni Shrine over several years, May Chinbrought Japan’s Formosan aboriginal soldiersinto Taiwanese social memory as symbols ofTaiwanese, and particularly aboriginal,suffering and injustice during the colonialperiod. In understanding these and otherpolitical events, the job of the anthropologist isto look beyond media images and politicalsymbolism, elucidating and understandingsocial memory within a broader ethnographicand political economic context (Gupta andFerguson 1997).

Like most issues in Taiwan, memories ofJapanese administration must be understood aspart of the contending nationalisms of “pan-blue” and “pan-green” political discourse whichshape the national political agenda. TheChinese Nationalist “pan-blue” parties includethe KMT, the People First Party (PFP), and theChinese New Party (NP). In favor of eventualunification with China, at least under theconditions that China democratizes andbecomes prosperous, they emphasize theimportance of unity among ethnic groups andhighlight memories of cross-ethnic resistanceagainst Japan. The Taiwanese nationalist “pan-green” parties include the ruling Democratic

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Progressive Party (DPP) and the TaiwanSolidarity Union (TSU). Stressing Taiwaneseautonomy from China, they emphasizeTaiwanese differences from mainland Chinese.They thus celebrate aboriginality as a non-Chinese identity; and perceive both Japaneseand Chinese rule as colonialism at the expenseof all Taiwanese. One important element ofpan-green discourse is that the Japanesebrought modernity to the island, making itsTaiwanese inhabitants more civilized andadvanced than the Chinese who arrived withChiang Kai-shek in 1945 and afterwards. Thesetwo ideologies color different spots on themaps o f these contes ted “ imaginedcommunities” (Anderson 1983) on the island.

May Chin's aboriginal protest at the YasukuniShrine was part of this larger struggle betweenpan-blue and pan-green camps. Just twomonths earlier, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU)Chairman Shu Chin-chiang had paid a visit tothe shrine and was greeted upon his return toTaipei by May Chin and a group of protesterswho pelted him with eggs at the airport. Twodays later, a coalition of veterans who hadserved in the Japanese military protestedoutside of Taiwan's legislature in favor of Shu'svisit to the Shrine and against May Chin'sactions. Chen Chun-chin, president of theAssociation for the Bereaved of TaiwaneseServing as Japanese Soldiers, defended Shuand others of his generation who regularly visitthe Yasukuni Shrine to pay respect to theirformer colleagues and relatives. He said thatthe KMT has consistently neglected formerJapanese soldiers, as they failed to bring manysurvivors back from Japan after the war andsubsequently failed to seek compensation fromJapan on their behalf. The TSU thus promisedto seek compensation for the veterans andbuild a Shinto Shrine in Taiwan for the memoryof those who died in the war.

May Chin began organiz ing her tr ipimmediately after this conflict, making theYasukuni Shrine into an aboriginal issue.

Without anthropological study of the memory ofJapanese colonialism, however, it is difficult tounderstand the extent to which May Chin andother politicians represent the grievances ofindigenous communities or merely useaboriginality in the service of other politicalgoals . Based on f ie ldwork in Tarokocommunities, we query the relationshipbetween the mobilization of social memory insuch protests and aboriginal perceptions of theJapanese period. How and why are memories ofthe Japanese period contested in theircommunities? What is at stake for thesepeople? What other social memories exist, andwhat alternative political possibilities do theysuggest?

Memories of Japan: Voices from the Field

In the summer of 2005, I spent three monthsdoing field research in a Taroko village which Iwill call Bsngan. I had previously establishedan ongoing relationship with the village, havingvisited it several times since 1996 and havingworked with members of the community onissues surrounding the Asia Cement excavationon land belonging to villagers. The village liesat the foot of the Taroko National Park and hasa frequently contentious relationship with parkadministration. This village is inhabited largelyby members of the Truku subgroup of theTaroko tribe, which is composed also of theTkedaya and Teuda subgroups.

The Taroko are related to the Atayal tribe ofwhich May Chin is a member, being born of anAtayal mother and Mainlander father. TheTaroko broke away from the Atayal tribe,however, on January 14, 2005, when Taiwan’sLegislative Yuan recognized their long-standingclaims to be an independent ethnic group.Many observers, including some members ofthe tribe, argued that this reclassification wasdivisive and reduced the numbers of the tribe,hence political influence. Taroko claims to bedifferent from the Atayal, based on linguisticand cultural criteria, nonetheless, are recorded

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in Japanese-era ethnographic studies (TaiwanGovernor-General Provisional Committee 1996:5). The reclassification gave the Taroko greaterautonomy and positioned them to perhapsbecome the masters of Taiwan’s f irstindigenous autonomous region. As discussedbelow, the establishment of a Tarokoautonomous region is currently promoted bythe Presbyterian Church, an institution withstrong historical links to the pan-green partiesin Taiwan. In Bsngan, the Presbyterian Churchhas its roots in the Japanese period, when thelocal authorities tried to suppress all forms ofChristianity and the local people were forced tohold services clandestinely in a cave.

As in most Taiwanese indigenous villages, thepeople of Bsngan have vivid memories of theJapanese occupation that ended with theconclusion of World War II. This village of2,224 people, with its main residential arealocated at the mouth of the Taroko Gorge, wasimportant as the site of armed resistanceagainst the Japanese. Even before the tribe wassubdued, i t was a trading post whereaborigines could sell hides to Japanese andHoklo-speaking Han Chinese (now the "NativeTaiwanese") in exchange for such items asalcohol, matches, and salt. Like mostcommunities in Taiwan, the village is dottedwith Japanese-era construction. In Bsngan,those architectural reminders include aJapanese-era power plant, an abandonedcampus of workers’ dormitories, a few homes,and the former nursing station.

The Japanese language can still be heard everyday in Bsngan, not just in the conversations ofthe elderly, but also in songs crooned in road-side karaoke stalls and in everyday Tarokoconversation. Even young people use“arigatoo” to say thank you, some shopkeepersare in the habit of calculating money inJapanese, and the Taroko language isinterspersed with Japanese words. Churchsermons, for example, are delivered in Tarokopeppered with Japanese words in both the

Presbyterian and True Jesus churches. Theseare not just foreign church-related terms likekyokai (church), and kamisama (gods), but alsosuch words as jikan (time), ishoo ni (together),and tokubetsu (especially). The use of Japanesetime measurements, including the days of theweek and even usages such as nansai da to aska person’s age or nanji da to inquire about thetime, all reveal how modern usages of timewere introduced by the Japanese. The young aswell as the old incorporate Japanese into dailyconversation.

Memories of the Japanese era come up in dailyconversation, and not just by people who livedthrough that era, showing that the Japaneseexperience is central to Taroko identity. Incontrast to the historical memories promotedby politicians such as May Chin, who castthemselves in a Manichean drama of goodversus evil, memories of Japan in the villagesare far more nuanced. This paper draws itsexamples primarily from conversations withmembers of the Mawna family. [This, like allnames of private individuals, is a pseudonym.]The courtyard of Ukan Mawna, decorated withphotos from the Japanese era, is often the siteof dinners and conversation over tea betweenleading members of the community. Along withthe courtyard and exhibition hall of his brother,who has done research on the tribe’s custom offacial tattooing, this is also one of the firstplaces that a visitor to the village will see. Thememories of this family are highlighted herenot only because they can be said to berepresentative of the tribe, but also becausethey illustrate the complex articulation betweenpersonal and social memory.

The Japanese as Agents of Modernity

Like the entire Taroko tribe, the family of UkanMawna has had a close relationship with Japan.Their mother, whose biological mother hadtraveled around the island making facial tattoosfor members of the Atayal tribe, spent most ofher childhood in the home of a Japanese

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policeman. After the Japanese sent her tonursing school, she worked in the clinic in thevillage. Her children boast that she vaccinatedthe entire village. With her medical training, infact, she was one of the main agents ofJapanese modernity and a key part of theprocess of displacing traditional Taroko healersfrom their position in society. In the past, eachvillage had healers, who could contact thespirit world and prescribe cures for medicaland other ailments. Now Bsngan has no healer.The nearest healer is an elderly woman in aneighboring village. [1]

Ukan's father had a much more conflictualrelationship with the Japanese, especially withthe police. One of the earliest aboriginalconverts to the True Jesus Church, which wasillegal under Japanese occupation, heestablished the congregation in Bsngan. In themany social gatherings at his home, UkanMawna delights in telling the miraculous storyof his father. At one point, the Japanesearrested him, put him on trial, and planned toexecute him for his illegal missionary activities.They imprisoned him in a bamboo hut to awaitexecution. On the night before his execution,however, a typhoon struck the island anddestroyed his bamboo prison. He managed toescape through the forest and his sentence waslater commuted. Ukan concludes his story bysaying that his father subsequently received aJapanese education and learned to love theJapanese in the village. “My father never letanyone say a bad word about the Japanese,” hesays with every re-telling of the story.

Ukan, a retired policeman, participatesregularly in meetings to discuss developmentplans in the village. He is an outspokenproponent of restoring Japanese-era buildingsas tourist sites, and has even suggestedrebuilding the Shinto Shrine as a tourist siteand historical museum. On one of many drivesthrough the countryside in which he pointedout Japanese-built irrigation systems, watertowers, power plants and an alcohol distillery,

he summed up his perception of Japan’s legacyin the village:

"There are no Taroko who hate the Japanese.Quite the contrary. They love the Japanese.Why do they love the Japanese? Because of thecharity of the Japanese. The Japanese tookthem from the worst kind of feudalism andbrought them civilization. It was the Japanesewho brought them roads and electrical powerplants."

Neither Ukan nor most members of his tribeare apologists for Japanese colonial expansion.In contrast to pan-green revisionists, they donot use nostalgic memories of Japan to criticizethe KMT. Ukan, in fact, is a staunch supporterof the KMT in his village, is an acquaintance ofMay Chin, and has even made a TV series onthe 1930 Wushe Incident, in which violentconflict rose between the Japanese and theTaroko. In that series, he portrayed theJapanese as cruel overlords who manipulateddifferences between the Truku, Tkedaya andTeuda to gain control of their territory, evenusing some groups in military attacks againstthe others. These and other memories ofJapanese rule, also a part of village life,emphasize the pain of colonial rule. Unlike thesocial memories mobilized by politicians,however, individual memories such as those ofhis parents are often contradictory,highlighting the brutality of the Japanese butalso their contributions to the community.

Memor ies o f Japan : the Pr ice o fDevelopment

Older women remember vividly one of the mostpainful episodes of the colonial era, as it wasthe Japanese who banned the Atayal andTaroko custom of tattooing their faces.Whereas facial tattoos were formerlyconsidered a sign of female beauty and werenecessary conditions for marriage, theJapanese quickly brought an end to the custom.Older women recall that they had to have their

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facial tattoos removed in order to attendschool, which they and their families wantedbecause Japanese education held out thepromise of a better life. [2] The girls thusremoved their tattoos by having the skinremoved surgically, which sometimesdisfigured their faces permanently. Onegraduate student at Donghwa University toldme that she had interviewed several of thesewomen, one of whom burst into tears at thememory of the painful and humiliatingoperation as well as subsequent disfigurement.

Taroko men identify strongly with the forest, soclosely associated with their lifestyle of huntingand gathering. They recall how they once livedin villages high in the mountains, but wereforced by the Japanese and later by the KMTstate to move down into the plains. The Tarokostill lament the fact that this forced relocationremoved them from their ancestral lands andmade it more difficult to access their traditionalhunting territories. The move also incorporatedthem into a new social system that includedagriculture and the use of cash rather thancommodity exchange in trade relations. Manyclaim that they were better off with a lifestyleof hunting and gathering than they are today,when most men make a living as constructionor cement workers if they have regularemployment. Those who venture into theforests to hunt in the nearby National Park thatcovers their traditional hunting territories riskbeing arrested as poachers.

Frequently, however, the men contrastJapanese rule with subsequent Chinese ruleunder the KMT, adding subtle nuance tonegative colonial memories by contrasting thatexperience with what came afterwards. UkanMawna, for example, said that the Japanese leftthe former village intact and they often visitedit after moving to the plains. The roads to thevillage were maintained and the Japaneseconstructed a Shinto shrine there. Anotherelder pointed out that the Japanese cut downcamphor and other trees, but they always

negotiated with the indigenous peoples aboutaccess to land. They also took good care of theaboriginal people with education and healthcare, even sending the sick to be treated atTaiwan Imperial University hospital ifnecessary. This theme of the Japanese era asthe “good old days” is not uncommon in Tarokoreminiscences of the era, even as the sameinterlocutors also acknowledge the pain ofcolonial occupation.

Japanese and Ayatal in Taroko

Memories and Identity: ComparingIndigenous and Native TaiwaneseExperiences

These indigenous memories of Japaneseoccupation articulate with, but remain distinctfrom, those of the so-cal led “Nat iveTaiwanese.” They are thus not merely theresult of the Native Taiwanese taking over theconstruction of political discourse under thepresidencies of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian. The Native Taiwanese are the Hoklo andHakka groups whose ancestors arrived inTaiwan from Fujian and Guangdong Provincesbetween the 17th and 19th centuries. Unlikethe Mainlanders, who arrived after World WarII with Chiang Kai-shek, the Native Taiwaneselived through Japanese occupation. For manyNative Taiwanese, memories of the Japaneseoccupation are central to their ethnic identity.For them, Japan is primarily a symbol ofmodernity and their Japanese education a signof their higher levels of development compared

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to Mainlanders (see Simon 2003). Foraboriginal people, however, the Japaneseperiod was also important to identity formationbecause it positioned them as resisters againstcolonial encroachment. This makes theirmemories of Japan very different from those ofthe Native Taiwanese. Whereas NativeTaiwanese collective memory focuses on thetrope of modernity, the Taroko use memory tohighlight their fierce resistance to outsiders.

In Bsngan, even young people take pride inwhat they describe as the “fierceness” of theirtribe. One young woman, whom I shall callBiyuq here, explained to me over coffee in hershop how her tribe had resisted the Japanesefor decades. The Japanese built many roads upinto the mountains, she explained, in order totransport heavy artillery up to high places andshoot down on the local people. It was veryhard for the Japanese to take over Tarokoterritory, however, because the hunters wouldhide in the forest and then attack the Japanesewith bows and arrows.

By far the best-known event in Taiwan is theWushe Incident of 1930, the memory of whichhas often been mobilized by pan-blue parties asevidence of "Chinese" resistance to Japaneseoccupation. On October 27, 1930, a group ofover 300 Atayal warriors led by Mona Rudaoattacked Japanese spectators at a sports eventin Wushe and killed 130 people. It tookJapanese forces two months, and the deaths of216 aboriginal people, to completely quell theuprisings that followed (Ukan 2002). In anaccount that emphasized Taroko rather thanChinese identity, Biyuq explained that theWushe Incident was meant to be the finalbattle, and that one village decided to sacrificethemselves for the good of the tribe as a whole.According to her version of events, all of thewomen and children committed suicide toencourage the men to sacrifice their liveswillingly. [3] The men then went out to fight theJapanese to the death. Without families toreturn to, they had no need to fear death and

could fight to the end to drive the Japanese outof the forests forever.

Although the ultimate result was militarydefeat, mass slaughter and loss of territory, theTaroko still remember this event as a tribute totheir tribal fierceness. They are not mistaken.According to John Bodley 4,341 Japanese andHan Chinese settlers died at the hands ofindigenous Formosans between 1896 and 1909(Bodley 1999: 56); and a further 10,000casualties were recorded during the 1914pacification campaigns against the Taroko(Nettleship 1971: 40). [4] This experience ofresistance, which is constantly revived andcelebrated through collective memory, alteredTaroko life forever. Although the suppression ofthe Tribe in the Taroko, Hsincheng and WushiIncidents eventually ended control over theirown territory, it also made the Taroko self-conscious subjects of history. This has beentranslated from personal to social memory inthe Taroko Gorge. It remains, however, a socialmemory very different from that promoted byMay Chin in Tokyo.

Funeral pyre at the Wushe Elementary School

Museum Identity: Social Memory of theTaroko Incident

In the summer of 2005, the Taroko tribebecame the subject of a special exhibit in thebasement of the Taroko National Park VisitorsCentre. This exhibit, designed by temporary

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curator Chin Shang-teh (a Han from Tainan anda graduate student at National DonghwaUniversity in Hualien), illustrated the history ofthe Taroko Incident with photos and artifactshe had collected in Japan. The exhibit showedhow the Japanese slowly encircled indigenousvillages, even constructing electric fences torestrict their movement, in order to get them tosurrender to Japanese forces.

In 1910, the Japanese Governor-GeneralSakuma Samata launched the “Five Year Planto Subdue the Barbarians.” In May 1914,Japanese troops attacked the people of theTaroko Gorge by coming in simultaneouslyfrom Hualien City in the South and Wushethrough mountain passes from the West. TheTaroko resisted fiercely for 74 days, but wereultimately forced to surrender control of theirlands to the Japanese.

Sakuma Samata

The exhibit contained graphic photos of the

military expeditions, including the electricfences, Japanese artillery, and Taroko peopleresisting with simple hunting guns. Many of thephotos were taken from memorabilia albumssold in Japan at the time to celebrate thevictory. The final panel of the exhibit, adrawing of the sun setting over the mountains,b rough t t he i s sue o f r e s i s t ance t ocontemporary Taiwan. The text said that theTaroko came down from the mountains, sawtheir land occupied by outsiders, and “have notyet been able to return to their ancestrallands.” Putting it into context, museum visitorscould recognize that the arrival of the Republicof China and later the establishment of theTaroko National Park were precisely extensionsof imperial conquest, the replacement of onecolonial overlord with another. This writtendiscourse repeated Taroko activist TeraYudaw’s contention that the Taroko NationalPark is a form of “environmental colonialism”(Tera 2003: 169).

Return our land

According to the curator, the exhibit almostnever saw the light of day. When the Han parksuperintendent viewed the exhibit the daybefore the opening ceremony, she asked thecurator to remove the final panel with itsoblique reference to the National Park asanother colonial power. She said that it riskedinciting “ethnic conflict.” The curator refusedto comply and threatened to remove the entireexhibit if she removed the plaque without hispermission. The superintendent backed down

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and allowed the exhibit to open with the finalpanel in place.

In the subsequent months, however, theNational Park refrained from advertising theexhibit to the surrounding communities.Instead, the Presbyterian Church, which hasclose links with the indigenous socialmovements, took the lead in inviting theirmembers to visit the exhibit. This move wasconsistent with other church actions inpromoting Taroko identity. The PresbyterianChurch, in fact, has become the maininstitution behind the recognition of the tribeas distinct from the Atayal, and now the mostimportant lobbyist for the establishment ofautonomous indigenous regions in Taiwan. [5]The Presbyterian Church is well-known for itsclose relat ionship with both the DPP(Rubinstein 1991, 2001) and indigenous socialmovements (Stainton 1995, 2002). They hopethat local recognition of indigenous sovereigntywill eventually lead to international recognitionof Taiwanese sovereignty.

The difficulties encountered by the curator ofthis exhibit and i ts promotion by thePresbyterian Church rather than by the parkadministration and the local government revealthe political fault lines underneath thesecontested social memories. The main differencecenters on indigenous autonomy, an issue thatdivides the pan-blue camp and the pan-greencamp in indigenous communities and beyond.The DPP has promised to establish autonomousdistricts for indigenous peoples as part of itsdesire to emphasize the non-Chinese identity ofthe island. Its policy assumes that self-determination should be the basis for activitiesin indigenous areas just as they insist on theright of self-determination for Taiwan. The pan-blue parties favor more assimilationist policiestoward indigenous peoples, emphasizingeconomic development and employment overautonomy. Their parties thus say little aboutself-government and justify the employment-generating activities of mining and other

companies on indigenous land. Just as thememories of Japan evoked by May Chin fit intoa larger pan-blue imagining of Taiwan, thememories exhibited in the park exhibition fitinto a wider pan-green discourse. In thiscontext, ownership of indigenous socialmemory has potential implications that go farbeyond the local community.

Conclusion

Anthropologists John and Jean Comaroff havecalled for bringing historical understandinginto ethnography, saying that, “No ethnographycan ever hope to penetrate beyond the surfaceplanes of everyday life, to plumb its invisibleforms, unless it is informed by the historicalimagination (1992: xi). ” It is important to note,however, that the historical imagination isoften also a national imagination; part ofcontested ideologies that can very wellinfluence the fate of a people. Yet every timehistorical memory is mobilized in support ofcontemporary nationalist narratives, conflictingpersonal memories are silenced. This dynamicis especially visible in Taiwan, a society tornbetween two conf l i c t ing h i s tor ica limaginations.

May Chin, in attacking the former colonialoverlords, has long used highly publicizedprotests to draw indigenous support away fromthe pan-green parties. In this case, shemanaged successfully to draw attention awayfrom pan-green TSU attempts to seekcompensation for the veterans and even toportray that party as complicit with Japaneseimperialism. In doing so, she discredited locallythe same people who promise indigenousautonomy within the framework of the existingstate on Taiwan. She is able to do so atrelatively low cost by mobilizing resentmentagainst Japan, which also articulates well withthe larger geopolitical context in which bothChina and Korea protest against state visits tothe Yasukuni Shrine, preeminent symbol ofJapanese wartime nationalism and empire.

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In the months leading up to the local electionsin December, 2005, the KMT continued toappropriate indigenous social memory bycovering their headquarters in Taipei with alarge image of Wushe hero Mona Rudao. Thistactic has the twin effect of appealing toMainlander anti-Japanese sentiments and ofpositioning the KMT as the voice of indigenouspeoples. The party's consistent support inindigenous areas, including overwhelmingsupport in the December 2005 local elections,suggests that this strategy has contributed toelectoral success. May Chin's protests are onlya part of this larger struggle.

Mona Rudao center

Taroko perceptions of May Chin, however, arejust as ambivalent as are their memories ofJapan. In fact, although most aboriginal peoplesupport the pan-blue KMT and PFP parties

(Wang 2004: 695) and although May Chin wasre-elected, there was very little enthusiasm inBsngan for her well-publicized protest trip toJapan. As the news came on TV the morningafter her trip, I asked the people around me inthe breakfast shop (an important place foranthropological research) what they thought ofthe commemoration of aboriginal soldiers inthe Yasukuni Shrine. One middle-aged man andPresbyterian Elder stated matter-of-factly thatthe news has nothing to do with him, since theprotesters are not Taroko. He added that MayChin has spent so much time with Mainlandersthat she no longer understands aboriginalneeds.

When I asked if any Taroko had served in theJapanese military, he said that they had. Heinsisted, however, that many groups arecommemorated in the Yasukuni Shrine, so itwould be unreasonable for any one group toask for their spirit tablets without returningthem to the countries and families of all 2.5million spirits. The breakfast shop owner, whois a member of both the Presbyterian churchand the KMT intervened by saying that theTaiwanese who fought for the Japanese werenot volunteers. The conversation turned into adiscussion of reasons why they would serve, theman saying they were forced to join the armyby circumstances of poverty, not by Japaneseconscription. Despite different interpretationsof the Japanese period, however, oneperception emerged as consensus: that MayChin was acting primarily for personal politicalgain, trying to position herself as the primaryadvocate of indigenous communities even incomparison to other aboriginal KMTcandidates. If it were not for her politicalmanipulations, which included getting fundingfor the trip, it is unlikely that her group ofaboriginal people would show up to protest atthe shrine.

Personal memories of the Japanese era in theTaroko community are thus ambivalent,showing both positive and negative aspects of

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the occupation. As Halbwachs observed,historical memory is preserved not just inregions, provinces, parties, and classes, butalso in certain families and in the minds ofindividuals. It is thus important to make adistinction between individual and collectivememory (Halbwachs 1980: 51). The individualmemories of Japanese colonialism are nowpassing away with the individuals who carrythem. The few remaining Taroko men whoserved in the Japanese military show noresentment against the Japanese; if anything,they were well treated (Nettleship 1971: 43). Itis striking, in fact, that few Taroko individualseven bring up the issue of having been forcedinto the Japanese military, focusing instead onissues of forest resources, education, health,and tattooing. This gap, more than anything,illustrates how those specific memories aremobilized by politicians more than they arediscussed by individuals.

Collective memories persist, given expressionthrough monuments, actions in space includingdemonstrations, as well as words spoken in thecommunity; they often reflect current politicalstruggles and can be mobilized for politicalgoals. Since May Chin’s protests at theYasukuni Shrine are so obviously tied to pan-blue politics, there are good reasons for theTaroko to remain ambivalent about thoseevents. They know that the discourse comesfrom outside of their community and is tied to apolitical agenda not of their own making. Thesocial movement for autonomy is also led byTaroko community members, includingPresbyterian ministers and school teachers. Inspite of pan-blue success in the elections, theyprovide a very prominent alternative to thehistorical imagination of the KMT and its allies;albeit one that is also widely perceived ascoming from outside of the local community.The struggle for indigenous memory is in manyways a struggle for indigenous future as localmembers of different parties claim to be thelegitimate heirs of Taroko fierceness. Like anyclaims for a valuable inheritance, they are hotly

contested. The ultimate outcome, especiallywhether or not they will choose a pan-greenversion of local autonomy, is thus far fromcertain.

In any event, it is clear that the Japaneseoccupation of Taiwan was the defining momentthat constituted aboriginality as it is currentlyimagined in Taroko territory. Before theJapanese arrived, the Qing Dynasty had merelylabeled the Taroko and other unassimilatedtribes as “raw barbarians” (shengfan) and hadnot attempted to administer their territories.The threat of having their heads cut off, in fact,was sufficient deterrence to keep Chinesesettlers out of indigenous territories --especially in Taroko land. The Taroko tribe wasknown as “wild people” and was only "civilized"after the Japanese came to Taiwan (Nettleship1971: 39). When they finally encroached onthose territories with far superior weaponry,however, the Japanese also created theconditions for resistance that became the coreof Taroko identity for members of all sub-groups.

As aboriginal individuals subsequently becameagents of Japanese modernity, even as soldiersfor the Japanese army, they were conscious ofdoing it as members of the fierce Taroko tribe.It was thus the Japanese occupation thatfashioned the Taroko into self-conscioushistorical actors. The various social movementsof this tribe in recent years, with demands forname changes, land settlements, and nowautonomy, show that this spirit of resistance isalive and well. As “savages” become soldiers,and soldiers become social activists, the tribehas rapidly developed a First Nations identityas advocates of both stripes mobilize memoriesof past resistance in different contexts.Whether the state is green or blue, therefore,Taroko memories will continue to shape therelationship between state and tribe.

Scott Simon has conducted ethnologicalresearch in Taiwan since 1996. He is Associate

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Professor, Department of Sociology andAnthropology, University of Ottowa. He isauthor of Sweet and Sour: Life Worlds of TaipeiWomen Entrepreneurs and Tanners of Taiwan:Life Strategies and National Culture. Thisresearch is generously funded by a grant fromthe Canadian Social Science and HumanitiesResearch Council. He wrote this article forJapan Focus. Posted on January 4, 2006.Thanks to Mark Selden and Jim Orr for theircomments on earlier drafts of this article.

References:

Anderson, Benedict . 1983. ImaginedCommunities: Reflections on the Origin andSpread of Nationalism. London: Verso Press.Barclay, Paul. 2003. "Gaining Trust andFriendship' in Aborigine Country: Diplomacy,Drinking, and Debauchery on Japan's SouthernFrontier." Social Science Japan Journal 6(1):77-96.Bodley, John. 1999. Victims of Progress.Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing.Comaroff, John and Jean. 1992. Ethnographyand the Historical Imagination. Boulder:Westview Press.Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. 1997.Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in CriticalAnthropology. Durham: Duke University Press.Halbwachs, Maurice. 1980 (1950). TheCollective Memory, translated by Francis Ditterand Vida Yazdi Ditter. New York: Harper andRow.Honda, Katsuichi. 2000. Harukor: an AinuWoman's Tale (translated by Kyoko Selden).Berkeley: University of California Press.Huang, Shiun-wey. 2004. “ ‘Times’ and Imagesof Others in an Amis Village, Taiwan.” Time &Society 13 (2&3): 321-337.Kayano, Shigeru. 1994. Our Land was a Forest:an Ainu Memoir (translated by Kyoko Selden).Boulder: Westview Press.Lefebvre, Henri. 1991 (1974). The Productionof Space, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Nettleship, Martin A. 1971. An Experiment in

Applied Anthropology among the Atayal ofTaiwan. Ph.D. thesis in Anthropology, LondonSchool of Economics.Rubinstein, Murray. 1991. The ProtestantCommunity on Modern Taiwan: Mission,Seminary and Church. Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe._____. 2001. “The Presbyterian Church in theFormation of Taiwan’s Democratic Society,1945-2001.” American Asian Review 19 (4):63-96.Simon, Scott. 2003. “Contesting Formosa:Tragic Remembrance, Urban Space, andNational Identity in Taipak.” Identities: GlobalStudies in Culture and Power 10 (1): 109-131.Stainton, Michael. 1995. Return our Land:Counterhegemonic Presbyterian Aboriginalityin Taiwan. M.A. thesis in Social Anthropology,York University, Toronto._____. 2002. ‘Presbyterians and the AboriginalRevitalization Movement in Taiwan.’ CulturalSurvival Quarterly 26 (2): 63-65.Taiwan Governor-General ProvisionalCommittee on the Investigation of TaiwaneseOld Customs. 1996. Report on the Old Customsof Barbarian Tribes, Volume 1, Atayal Tribe,translated by Academia Sinica Institute ofEthnology Translation Group. Taipei: AcademiaSinica.Tera Yudaw. 2003. Muda Hakaw Utux(Crossing the Ancestor's Bridge). Hualien:Tailugezu Wenhua Gongzuofang.Ukan, Walis. 2002. “The Wushe IncidentViewed from Sediq Traditional Religion: aSediq Perspective” Pp. 271-304 in FromCompromise to Self-Rule: Rebuilding theHistory of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples, ed. byShih C.F., Hsu S.C. and B. Tali. Taipei:Avanguard Publishing Company.Wang, Fu-chang. 2004. “Why did the DPP WinTaiwan’s 2004 Presidential Election? An EthnicPolitics Interpretation.” Pacific Affairs 77 (4):691-696.

Endnotes

[1] After a long period in which these practices

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had fallen out of favor and were perceived assinful, there are signs of a revival. She now hastwo apprentices. That, however, is beyond thescope of this essay.[2] For similar accounts about how the Ainu ofHokkaido were forced to end tattooingpractices and join Japanese modernity incolonial Hokkaido, see Honda 2000 and Kayano1994.[3] I have not seen this account of the Incidentin historical accounts of the event, but thatdoes not mean she is mistaken. It is interestinghow her story makes the women critical agentsof Taroko history.[4] Unfortunately, neither of these authorscould break down the statistics into differentnational and ethnic groups of the victims.[5] To outsiders, it may seem unclear why they

would support Taroko independence from theAtayal. From the perspective of the activists,however, it is a logical strategy. Consideringthat indigenous communities get manyfinancial resources from county governmentsand that political factions are closely tied tocounty electoral processes, it will be mucheasier for them to develop the necessaryconsensus within the smaller Taroko triberather than within a larger Atayal tribe spreadthroughout several counties and one urbanarea in northern Taiwan. Even then, it is likelythat the Taroko Autonomous Indigenous Regionwill only include the Taroko of Hualien becausethose in Nantou do not support the project.Members of pan-blue factions accuse the DPPand their Presbyterian allies of manipulatingthe Taroko in order to gain an electoralfoothold in Hualien County.