Echoes Of Footsteps

Echoes of Footsteps: The Xiakelo Trail and Shilu Community

Timothy Hogan Student No. 97924012 Course: Ethnic and Linguistic Structure of Taiwan Instructor: Professor David Blundell

International Masters Program in Taiwan Studies National Chengchi University January 15, 2009

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Abstract This paper aims at studying the Xiakelo Trail in Xinzhu County, Taiwan, in order to understand its development as a result of mountain land reclamation programs during the Japanese colonial era and subsequent occupation by the Chinese Nationalists (KMT) and the significance of its impact on the indigenous Atayal inhabitants of the area through which it was built. In carrying out this study, I reviewed relevant academic literature on the culture of the Atayal people, the history of the study area, and land use disputes between Taiwan’s indigenous peoples; further, I explored the study area extensively through on-site visits and with the use of basic geographic information system (GIS) software; finally, I performed a content analysis of signs posted in the study area by the Bureau of Forestry. Through this research I found that the Xiakelo Trail has had a significant impact on the Atayal living in the area in that it 1) accelerated their transformation from a lifestyle based on subsistence agriculture supplemented with hunting and gathering to one integrated into a cash economy, 2) resulted in the loss of access to most of the land the Atayal had customarily used and led to their subsequent resettlement in restricted reservations, and 3) continues to exert a powerful influence on the public discourse about the relationship among the Atayal, the land itself, and the Bureau of Forestry by validating the latter’s claim that it judiciously manages the nation’s forest resources in the public’s best interest. Based on the findings of this limited study, it is apparent that further investigation into the manner by which the Atayal have adapted to the restrictions imposed on their customary land use could yield valuable information for decision makers, scholars, and most importantly, indigenous peoples throughout the world.

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Table of Contents Chapter

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1. Introduction

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2. The Community of Shilu

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3. Shilu and the Xiakelo Trail

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4. The Cemetery

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5. The Trailhead

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6. A Night on the Trail

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7. Searching for Clues in Qingchuan

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8. Journey to Jianshi

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9. The Xiakelo Trail along the Baishi River

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10. The Third Visit to Shilu

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11. Conclusion

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Bibliography

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Appendix A: Population Statistics

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Appendix B: Photographs

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Appendix C: Signs

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1. Introduction The subject of this paper is a mountainous area of Taiwan’s Xinzhu County. At its center is Mount Shilu, 2,233 meters in elevation, which has been inhabited for centuries by descendents of the Kinaji group of the Atayal people. The Kinaji, speakers of the Ts’ole’ dialect of Atayal, trace their origins to Pinsbukan (located in Jenai Township of Nantou County), and belong to the Sekolek branch of the Atayal.1 The Ts’ole’ sub-group of the Atayal began their dispersal into northern Taiwan in the mid-eighteenth century, and by the early twentieth century, Atayal villages dotted the western and eastern flanks of Mount Shilu.2 However, as a result of Japanese and KMT confiscation of forest land, assimilation and resettlement efforts, and economic factors most of the people moved off of the mountain and settled in villages along the roads at its bottom. To the west of Mount Shilu, in the valley of the Shilu River, is Taoshan Village of Wufong Township. Taoshan’s population is approximately 1,650.3 To the east, along the Baishi River, lies the district of Hsiuluan Village of Jianshi Township, population approximately 1,500. In each of these villages are located elementary schools, clinics, police stations, shops, churches, government offices, and the residents’ homes. Each village district is made up of a number of smaller communities scattered throughout its territory. Connecting the two villages and crossing over Mount Shilu is the historic Xiakelo4 Trail, which was originally built by the Japanese between 1917 and 1920. It connected police stations in Taoshan and Hsiuluan Villages. Its purpose was to extend police control over the Atayal living in the district, and branch police stations were established in Atayal communities on both sides of Mount Shilu.5 In 1922, on the western slope of the mountain, about seven kilometers above the Taoshan Village community of Qingchuan, a police station was built on a prominent ridge overlooking the Shilu River Valley. The Atayal community of Shilu, presently uninhabited, stands at that location today. A second police station, on the eastern side of the mountain, was built at approximately the same time in the Atayal community of Baishi. The Xiakelo Trail is administered by the Bureau of Forestry under the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, and makes up part of the Bureau’s National Trail System. It is promoted as a tourist destination, and the beautiful forest scenery and historic remains of the two police stations are seen as the main attractions to tourists. Signs offering an interpretation of the trail’s history and the culture of the Atayal people provide visitors with a brief glimpse into the significance of the Xiakelo Trail for the people who inhabit the area.

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Digital Museum of Taiwan’s Indigenous People, Atayal. Li, Dispersal, p. 272. 3 For additional population data, see Appendix A. Population Statistics. 4 Xiakelo is the Japanese name for Shilu. The Atayal name for Shilu is Mukerake. This was confirmed by an informant, a 78-year-old former resident of Shilu. 5 Mandarin Chinese names for place names will be used unless noted in the text. 2

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This paper will introduce Shilu6, describe my process of learning about this community and its people, and share my impression of the evidence that I gather in this effort. My discussion will include aspects of an examination of the buildings located at Shilu, a cemetery that is located nearby, and the Xiakelo Trail and its related infrastructure. Reference will be made to academic scholarship on the Atayal people, including their history, assimilation under the Japanese and KMT regimes, and their contentious relationship with the Bureau of Forestry. Finally, the significance of the effort to develop Xiakelo Trail as a tourist destination under National Trail System will be discussed.

Figure 1. Map of area discussed in this paper.

2. The Community of Shilu I came across Shilu by accident in 2002 while on an expedition to find roads and trails for mountain biking. I had driven up Route 120, through Wufong Township to the Kuanwu Forest Recreation Area. After bicycling down a dirt road to the Dabajianshan Trailhead and back to my van, I drove back down Route 120 to Qingchuan community. There were a few more hours of sunlight, so I decided to explore an unmarked road that ran uphill from the Qingchuan Hot Springs bathhouse. Hot springs facilities were established in Qingchuan during the Japanese era, and the village was the site of an officers club for the 6

On signage, the term Shilu Tribe is used to what is in this paper referred to as simply Shilu or Shilu community. All indigenous communities in Xinzhu County at the sub-township level of government are referred to as tribes in English and bulou (tribe) in Mandarin Chinese. In Taiwan, tribe is commonly used to refer to the groups of Austronesian language-speaking indigenous people, or “aborigines” that have been officially recognized by the government.

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military. The narrow, concrete road climbed to the ridgeline in a series of switchbacks, and then began an angled ascent of the mountain. When crossing ridges, unpaved roads led up or down from the concrete road. At several of these intersections, fruit orchards or simple houses could be seen, but no people were present. The concrete road finally ended at the ridge on which Shilu community is located. A narrow, unpaved road continued beyond Shilu, but as I didn’t have enough time to explore further before the sun dipped behind the mountains to the west, I decided to stop in Shilu and investigate the buildings there. I took my video camera out of its case and recorded what I found. First, I walked up to the wooden police station and examined its exterior. It was wood framed with wooden planks running horizontally along is walls. The planks were overlaid, with the top edge of each plank covered by the lower edge of the plank above, giving the walls a shingled look that is characteristic of Japanese buildings erected in the 1920s in Taiwan. The roof was of dark tile, and the eaves showed where water damage had rotted the roof’s support beams. Where the planks were damaged or missing on the walls of the building, the insulation material within the walls could be seen. The insulation consisted of a framework of slats of bamboo coated with a mixture of clay and straw. The building was divided into halves. In the rear were two rooms, and in the front, three. The front room on the left was a raised platform of the type seen in Japanese buildings from the colonial area. Water had come in through holes in the ceiling, so the platform was decomposing, as were the interior walls. The same type of insulation material could be seen in the walls where they were damaged. The other two front rooms looked as if they had been offices. Faded photographs of Sun Yatsen and Chiang Chingkuo hung on the walls in the room in the center, and an old plywood desk stood ready to collapse in the room on the right. The roof above the rooms in the rear had been damaged and was listing dangerously toward the floor. Outside, in front of the police station was a chicken wire cage approximately three meters square, and inside that was a large grey goose that honked loudly when approached. I assumed that the purpose of the goose was to alert the residents of the houses across from the police station that someone was nearby. At that time, I thought that the houses across the way were occupied. I walked down the path from the police station, crossed the narrow road, and entered the area with the houses. There were about half a dozen houses with sheet metal walls and roofs. On the roof of each building was a satellite dish, and on the walls, electricity meters. All but one of the houses were closed up and secured with locks. Four were built around a small courtyard of concrete, with benches next to the closed doors. One of the houses was set behind the other four, and its door opened onto a walkway that separated the house from a stand of bamboo that grew nearby. Next to the door of this house was a wooden mortar of the type used by the Atayal people.7 This was the first indication that the village was one that had been inhabited by members of Taiwan’s indigenous groups. The front door of this house stood open, and looking inside, I could see the building was unoccupied. Still filming, I entered the house and looked in each of the rooms. The room inside the front door, located on the west wall, was the largest of the four and had a window which looked eastward. Two bedrooms were located through doorways on the right. Each of these rooms had sleeping platforms raised two feet above the ground, and 7

See Appendix A: Photographs, Fig. 2.

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on these were piles of old cotton bedding and clothing stained and mildewed from exposure to rainwater through the damaged roof and ceiling. The room to the left of the main room was empty except for a wooden dining table, taken from its stand and leant against the wall under the window, and a simple bookcase made of rattan. Hanging from a nail in one wall was a work belt, and lain over the bookcase was a long, narrow strip of cloth, resembling the head straps the Atayal use when carrying a heavy basket on the back. Then I walked out of the house, around the side wall, and into the orchard that lay behind the houses. There were approximately twelve fruit trees growing in a clearing surrounded by pine trees to the east, bamboo to the south and west, and the houses to the north. A ceramic pot sat upturned beneath one of the trees, and weeds grew several feet high throughout the area. The video finished with a view of the forested ridgeline of Mount Shilu to the east. In all, the film was just five minutes long, with a minimum of editing and following the basic chronology that has just been described. The title of the film, Retreat, was chosen by consulting the I Ching through the use of divining coins. The soundtrack was produced by myself on a PC, and the lyrics came from the commentary to the 33rd hexagram, tun, contained in the Wilhelm version of the I Ching.8 The film was included in the Urban Nomad Film Festival of 2004, held in Taipei, Taiwan. At the time, I didn’t know the name of the uninhabited community or anything about the police station, but over the next several years, I began to hear about Xinzhu County’s Xiakelo Trail, with its abandoned police buildings, and I suspected the police station from my video might have been one of those mentioned in newspaper articles. Using Google Earth with the photograph layer and terrain function enabled, I located the area where I had filmed the video. I decided that I wanted to return to the area to hike or bike the Xiakelo Trail, but I would not have the chance until 2008. In November of that year, while doing research for a paper on the history of the border and guard-line surrounding the mountainous territory inhabited by Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, I returned to the abandoned police station at Shilu to photograph the Japanese-era building.

3. Shilu and the Xiakelo Trail When I finally returned to Shilu in November of 2008, I wasn’t sure what I would find on the mountain. The Xiakelo Trail had become well known among the hiking community in Taiwan, and I suspected that the Bureau of Forestry might have altered Shilu to accommodate increased numbers of tourists. I traveled by motorcycle to Qingchuan, at the bottom of the road to Shilu, and bought snacks and drinks at one of the small stores there in preparation for spending a night camping along the trail. There was a lot of activity in Qingchuan on account of the construction of a memorial to Zhang Xueliang along the riverside near one of the town’s four suspension bridges. Workers were erecting a Japanese-style wooden house that would serve as a small museum to the memory of Zhang, an infamous character in the history of the Republic of China, who had in 1936 kidnapped Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek in order to force the Nationalist (KMT) army to fight the Japanese instead of the forces of the Chinese Communist Party. Zhang’s audacious scheme succeeded in getting Chiang to change his policy and take on the 8

Wilhelm, The I Ching, or Book of Changes, pp. 129-132.

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Japanese, but Zhang was arrested soon after he released the Generalissimo and subsequently lived the next fifty years as Chiang’s prisoner. After the KMT’s retreat from China and occupation of Taiwan, Zhang was held under house arrest with his wife in Qingchuan for nearly fifteen years. Zhang was eventually moved to a house on Mount Yangming in a suburb of Taipei in the 1960s. In 1990, following the death of Chiang Chingkuo, Chiang Kaishek’s son and his successor as leader of the Republic of China, Zhang was later freed from his decades of incarceration and allowed to settle in Hawaii, where he died in 2001 at the age of 100. Government officials for Xinzhu County and Wufong Township wanted to use the Zhang Xueliang’s association with Qingchuan to promote the development of tourism in the remote area, and it was thought that the memorial to Zhang would attract many Chinese tourists, as Zhang is regarded in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as having a been a national hero. Expert carpenters were recreating the house that Zhang had lived in, the original had been destroyed in a flood, and laborers were laying out a park along both sides of the river in the village.9 With my supplies loaded on my motorcycle, I rode up the road toward Shilu. The journey was much as I had remembered it. The road was still concrete, and although it had been damaged by landslides, it had been repaired and remained open to traffic. There was, however, very little traffic, and only two vehicles passed me on their way down the mountain. One was a flatbed truck carrying a tractor used for repairing the road. I had to pull off the road and into the bushes to let the large vehicle pass by on the one-lane road. One difference I noted was that road signs had been erected, and these pointed to the communities of Minsheng and Songba, accessed via unpaved roads that branched off the concrete road. As I ascended the mountain, I could see orchards at various places on the hillside above and below me. The fruit on the trees was wrapped in white paper sleeves to protect them from both insects and insecticides. Approximately one kilometer before Shilu, I passed a gasoline-engine powered water pump that was taking water from a creek that rushed down the hillside and transporting it via hose to fields located unseen on the hillsides above the road. Finally arriving in Shilu, I parked my motorcycle and began to survey the community to see what changes had occurred. From the outside, all of the buildings looked the same. The goose cage in front of the police station had been removed, but the building’s exterior was in almost the same condition it had been on my first visit. The interior had been altered, but not greatly. The pictures of Chiang and Sun had been removed, and the old desk was missing. The houses in the village had not been appreciably altered, although I noticed that a pole supporting a street lamp had fallen over and was resting against one of the wooden houses, but nothing else seemed to have changed. The tattered ROC flag at the top of a bamboo pole still flew above one of the houses near the road. The fruit trees in the orchard, bare at the time I made the film, now held bright orange persimmons wrapped individually in paper sleeves. The brown earthen jar sat in the same place, and I took a picture of it to record the unusual pattern of concentric rings that had been pressed into its exterior before the clay had been fired in a kiln.10 The one house that I had entered in 2004 was still open, 9

President Ma Yin-jiu attended the grand opening of the museum on December 13, 2008. He traveled to the remote area by helicopter. 10 See Appendix B: Photographs, Fig. 4.

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but the wooden mortar had been moved into the center room and set against the wall. The bedrooms on the right looked just as they did in the film, the same bedding and old clothes covered the sleeping platforms. The fourth room, the one to the left of the center room, had seen the most change. Its concrete floor had cracks running through it and had been pierced by stalks of bamboo. These grew up to touch the ceiling, giving the room the look of an indoor garden. There were about a dozen stalks growing in the cracks, but it looked like those would be just the first of many. I imagine that in a few years, the entire house might be filled with bamboo, and then the house would be re-colonized by the surrounding jungle. Exiting the house, I followed a narrow trail through the bamboo and in a few seconds emerged on a hillside overlooking another small orchard of persimmon trees. The trail led past the fruit trees and into the forest below the houses. It was dark in the forest, and the ground was covered in needles that had fallen from the trees. The trunks of the trees themselves were all of about the same diameter and set approximately equidistance from one another, an indication that the trees were part of the replanting effort undertaken by the Bureau of Forestry. The trail followed the line of the ridge down the hillside, and I assume that it continues all the way to the community of Minsheng, located several hundred meters lower on the mountain than Shilu. After descending for about fifteen minutes without coming to any sign of further habitation, I turned around and retraced my path back to the road. The most significant change that I observed at Shilu was the addition of a sign that had been attached to a concrete embankment below the police station. The sign had a drawing of the village, including the police station, the houses, the orchard, and a male cartoon-ish figure wearing clothing that was intended to resemble the traditional costume of the Atayal people. Beneath the drawing was a text in both Chinese and English that briefly explained the history of Shilu.11 It noted that the police station was built by the Japanese in 1922 and overlooked the site of a former artillery battery, where the houses and orchard now stand, that was used to bombard the Atayal communities on the slopes of the valley. The houses it described as having been “rebuilt into a Chinese style in 1964.” Mention is also made of the 1989 release of the houses from their “police duties,” which would imply that access to the area, like many of Taiwan’s mountainous regions, was restricted. When the KMT established the Bureau of Forestry to manage mountain land, the Atayal living in the mountains were evicted from many of their communities and forced to settle in villages at lower elevations.12 The sign spoke of a Japanese shrine a short ways up the path next to the old police station, but hinted at the loneliness of the area by rather poetically asserting that “only the tall and straight Japanese black pines and Chinese guger tree bear witness to the past.”

4. The Cemetery Having learned a little about the history of Shilu and intrigued about the mention of the Japanese-era memorial, I walked up the concrete path past the police station. Approximately two hundred meters up the ridge line, the concrete path ended at a grove of trees on an embankment. A trail led up the hill into the trees, and on climbing just a 11 12

See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 1. Kuan and Yen, Traditional institution, p. 1.

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minute up, I came to a small cemetery in the grass and bushes beneath the deciduous trees. There were approximately two dozen headstones visible, and in front of them were mounds of earth with weeds growing on them. The stones all had Chinese writing carved on them and gave the name of the deceased and their dates of birth and death. The headstones also bore crosses, and some of them had tiles with photographs affixed near the top. Such photographs are commonly seen on tombs in cemeteries throughout Taiwan. The names on the headstone were Chinese, but the faces in the photographs resembled those of Atayal people. Of one woman pictured, there was no doubt of her ethnicity; her cheeks bore the characteristic tattoos of the Atayal. According to the engraving on the headstone, Jiang Zhu-mei was born in 1912 and died in 1992, making her eighty years old at the time of her death. Based on the date provided for the construction of the police station in Shilu, she would have been ten years old at that time. Atayal girls received their facial tattoos when they reached puberty, and the tattoos on the cheeks were reserved for those women who had demonstrated mastery of the weaving techniques that were considered essential for Atayal women to acquire. The Japanese discouraged tattooing from 1914 and actively prohibited it after 1930.13 Before the Atayal converted to Christianity in the 1950s, they practiced in-home burial, along with other groups of Taiwan’s indigenous Austronesian-language speaking peoples.14 Atayal who died natural deaths were buried under the floor of their homes. When the ground under the home could hold no further remains, the home would be abandoned and another established for the family. The Atayal belief system includes the concept of utux, a general concept of spirit that includes the spirits of the ancestors as well as of all things. Atayal society was based on the principle of gaga, a set of rules and taboos governing the activities that an Atayal could engage in. One aspect of gaga was paying respect to the spirits of the ancestors through the Maho ritual, whose date was set by the village elder based on the timing of the ripening of the millet in late summer. On the day of the observance of Maho, the villagers would assemble in the village carrying offerings of food. These would be attached to bamboo stakes and in a ceremony attended by all member of the group placed next to trails just outside the village on which the spirits of the ancestors were believed to travel.15 The Japanese authorities made in-house burials illegal in the 1920s, and from that time onwards, burials began to take place outside the houses.16 These early outside burials had no markers whatsoever, and later an unmarked stone plinth would be used to indicate where a body was buried. The Atayal, having no written language of their own, and no custom of marking burials with headstones, relied on this practice until their later conversion to Christianity after the arrival of missionaries in the 1950s. After that, their burial customs evolved to incorporate aspects of both Chinese folk practice, no doubt under pressure from the ROC government, and under the encouragement of church leaders, Christian practices were adopted as well. The earliest of the headstones examined at the cemetery in Shilu dated from the 1970s, and most were from the 80s and 90s. Nearly all Atayal leaders converted to Christianity in the 1950s, joining either the 13

Chen, Material Culture, p. 246. Shinji Ishii, Mountain People, p. 130. 15 May Bo Qing, Naming and Identity, pp. 100-106. 16 Chang Bien, In-house burial, p. 1. 14

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Protestant or Catholic faiths, and social practices for the Atayal people underwent many changes under these influences. The celebration of Maho, when the spirits of the ancestors were worshipped ceased to be performed by placing offerings of food on bamboo stakes alongside a trail near the village. Instead, people would assemble early in the morning of the appointed day, carrying candles and offerings of food for the spirits. Everyone would walk together, accompanied by the priest, to the cemetery. There the priest would say a prayer and the village leader would speak about the purpose of the honoring the ancestors and obeying the gaga. Then the people would separate to place their offerings on the graves of their ancestors. This represents a significant change in the beliefs and practices of the Atayal people. Prior to their conversion to Christianity, the Atayal prayed to utux collectively and not to their specific ancestors.17 The cemetery at Shilu reflects these changes, in the headstones and the writing on them, and in the offerings of food that had been placed on the graves. At the time of my visit to the cemetery, the evidence of offerings that had been placed on the graves, including plastic cups for wine, ripe persimmons, vases to hold flowers, and even cigarettes impaled on slivers of bamboo, could be seen. Another significant feature of the cemetery was the fact that it was divided into two halves by the trail that led through the grove of the trees. The majority of the graves lay to the right of the trail heading uphill, but there were some to the left. The most easily accessible of the graves in this portion of the cemetery was that of a double burial, the two graves lying side by side within a rectangle marked out with stones. The headstones on the two graves indicated that the deceased, a man born in 1957 and a woman born in 1958, had both died on the same date in May 2008, presumably a married couple that had been the victims of an accident. It seemed that segregation in the cemetery could be reflecting the belief that those who died natural deaths (old age, disease, etc) should not be buried with those who suffered unnatural deaths (accidents, suicide, etc.) , but it was not possible to test that hypothesis by examining the other graves in that segregated portion of the grave. One likely set of graves, which appeared to be that of possibly two adults and one child, were in an overgrown section and it would not have been possible to get close enough to read the headstones without walking across the burial mounds themselves. To more fully understand the changes that have occurred in Atayal burial practice and spiritual beliefs, the examination of cemeteries such as the one at Shilu could reveal important evidence. Regrettably, my own investigation of the area was quite limited, but it is hoped that other researchers might pursue this line of inquiry further.

5. The Trailhead Continuing west from Shilu toward the Xiakelo trailhead, three kilometers distant, the road is no longer paved in concrete; instead it is a dirt road just wide enough for one vehicle to travel in the twin tire tracks. Set in the tracks are paving stones of approximately 15 centimeters in width and 80 centimeters in length that are laid end to end to create a continuous hard surface for a car’s tires to travel over. In the middle of the road grows grass, and alongside the road are bushes and grass. Road crews have used weed cutters to keep down the plant growth. Roads in Taiwan’s mountains are maintained 17

May Bo Qing, Naming and identity, p. 105.

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by road crews, and in townships inhabited by indigenous people, the government employs them to maintain the roads. Quotas for the hiring of indigenous people within indigenous reservations were established by the Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan.18 Travelers along mountain roads in Taiwan often encounter work crews using heavy equipment to remove debris from landslides and rubble from roadside runoff ditches. Along major roads in mountainous districts, work crews of indigenous workers are often seen working on cliff faces to repair damaged hillsides above the roadway. They employ various methods to stabilize the hillside, including laying sheets of cyclone fencing across the earth and covering the slope with concrete, or on less steep slopes creating lateral berms, applying fertile topsoil, and seeding that with grass to encourage plant growth designed to bind the soil to the underlying earth. With Taiwan’s sharply sloping mountains and geological strata prone to landslides, road cuts often lead to irreversible damage to the hillsides above and below mountain roads. The torrential rainfall that Taiwan experiences during the typhoon season, not to mention the frequent strong earthquakes that it experiences, causes hillsides stripped of their vegetation to slide downward. In some instances, such landslides can be so extensive as to make road repairs unfeasible, as the closure of Taiwan’s Central Cross Island Highway due to severe damage during the September 21, 1999, 7.3 earthquake and Tropical Storm Mindulle in 2004. Another powerful storm in 2004, Typhoon Aere, caused a landslide across the valley from Shilu that resulted in the deaths of fifteen people, mainly members of the Atayal tribe, when their homes were swept away without warning by a river of water, mud, and rocks. In that incident, a police station where tourists heading up the mountain to the Kuanwu Forest Recreation Area were required to stop and apply for mountain permits was also destroyed. In 2008, the road in the area of that slide is still unpaved, and the giant scar on the hillside above the road ominously sloughs off rocks and dirt. The impression one gets while crossing the area is that another landslide could occur at anytime. On my first visit to the area in 2002, while waiting for the roadblock at the police station to open in the morning, I spent the night sleeping in my van, parked outside that very police station. Just beyond the path of destruction, several houses stand untouched, and their residents continue to live in the community that suffered such a grievous loss. A memorial to the victims was erected on the spot by the Catholic Church in Qingchuan. The road from Shilu to the Xiakelo trailhead winds along the forested hillside and rises very little in elevation. At two points within one kilometer of Shilu, roads head uphill towards small orchards or steeply downhill to fields located on the hillsides above Minsheng. Reaching the trailhead, the road ends at a wooden railing where the footpath begins. A wooden deck with several benches stands on the side of the clearing, and from its rail, if the weather is clear, the opposite side of the steep valley, approximately two kilometers away, can be seen. Alongside the road are areas where visitors’ cars can be parked while their occupants enjoy the scenery and walk on the trail. At the trailhead, several signs have been erected by the Bureau of Forestry. One of these introduces the migration of members of the Kinaji group of Atayal, inhabitants of the river valley to the east of Mount Shilu, to the western side of the mountain approximately two hundred 18

Council of Indigenous People, Employment Rights Protection Act, Chapter 1, Section 5.

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years ago, where they established new communities. 19 Another introduces the different Atayal groups living in the area to the west of Mount Shilu. 20 These include the Mukeraka, inhabiting the area of Shilu community, and the Tenton, Yabakan, and Rokkaho, who lived in separate communities across the river. Of the Tenton, the sign explains that they lived near a police station and often served as guides and porters to groups traveling in the mountains. The third sign, inexplicably titled “Foreign Attacks,” introduces aspects of Atayal culture, history, and religion. Under the heading culture, the custom of tattooing is briefly discussed, while under habits, the Atayal custom of sharing food to ensure that everyone has enough to eat is described. Curiously, a contrast with Han farmers is made, noting that Atayal people cooperate closely together and have a stronger “sense of community” than the majority Han. Under the third heading, religion, a brief paragraph introduces the Atayal notion of animism, the existence of a powerful “ancestor’s spirit,” and the belief that Atayal must live their life according to “gaga (or rules).” A final sign carries a map of the route that the Xiakelo Trail follows, distance and time estimations for journeying between landmarks on the trail, and rules for visitors to observe. In comparison with other trails in Taiwan, particularly those in mountainous areas inhabited by indigenous people, the signs at Xiakelo trailhead are more directly focused on history and culture than those in other areas. Typically, signs on national trails, at Forest Recreation Areas, and in national parks introduce plants and wildlife, briefly mentioning indigenous people. While the signs at Xiakelo are brief, their content is significant in that it reflects the discourse concerning Atayal identity, citing the tattooing custom so closely associated with the Atayal, which in the eyes of most Taiwanese is the key distinctive feature of the Atayal. The attention to the differences between the Atayal and the Han in terms of cooperation and community can be seen as having several purposes, simultaneously celebratory, patronizing, and divisive. The fact that the Bureau of Forestry, the government’s organ of oppression for Taiwan’s indigenous people for six decades, has erected signs that tell the story of the Atayal people, on land that was appropriated from them and from which they were excluded, is a great irony. The Japanese claimed all mountain land as terra nullis in 1895 and proceeded to drive the indigenous inhabitants off the land so that logging could take place. Once the Japanese left in 1945, the KMT took over possession of the mountain land and authorized the Bureau of Forestry to oversee the management of the extensive territory. Reservations for the indigenous peoples were established, small plots of land for private or communal use were allocated, and the majority of the land remained in the hands of Bureau of Forestry. The local inhabitants were barred from hunting, gathering plants, farming, and cutting or collecting wood on the state land that surrounded their communities. While some restrictions on hunting and gathering of plants have been eased in recent years, harsh penalties still exist for activities such as cutting trees or collecting wood from fallen trees, and criminal convictions continue to occur.21

6. A Night on the Trail 19

See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 2. See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 3. 21 Kuan and Yen, Traditional institution, p. 1. 20

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Lacking sufficient time for a complete transverse of the Xiakelo Trail, I decided to spend one night camping on the trail. After locking my motorcycle, I hiked approximately 1.5 kilometers up the trail until I found a patch of suitably level ground that was yielding enough to allow me to sink stakes for my tent. This was in an area of replanted forest, and the closely spaced trees blocked the sky, the dried needles on the ground creating a soft carpet beneath my feet. With my one-man tent erected and the afternoon coming to an end, I ventured further along the trail. I soon came to an area where a small landslide had covered the original trail and forced a detour over the debris. Among the rocks and soil that had fallen, I saw two slender telephone poles, each made from a single, de-barked log. Atop the poles were cross beams that carried two strands of rusted wire.22 These were relics of the Japanese colonial era, when police stations were connected along guard-lines by telephone lines that allowed guardsmen to keep their superiors informed of events in the indigenous communities and summon assistance if necessary. Like the police stations and the path itself, the telephone lines were effectively tools that the state employed in its campaign to dominate the indigenous people. Until the telephone lines were connected, information could only move as fast a man might run through the forest. The revolution in communication technology did not work to the advantage of the Atayal people; it strengthened the state’s ability to manipulate and subjugate the indigenous people, and eventually drive them off their land. Back at my tent, I laid out my sleeping bag and prepared to spend the night alone on the side of the trail. Once the sun was down, the darkness under the trees was nearly absolute and the silence was pervasive. Lying in the darkness, I listened to the sounds of the forest, occasionally hearing the call of a barking deer or squirrel. Then I heard a noise just above my tent, a noise that I recognized: the sound of the flapping of a bird’s wings. The sound seemed to circle around above my tent. I had heard the same sound at night while camping on a trail in Taoyuan County. That night I heard and then saw a Scops owl hunting moths in the darkness. Under the illumination of my headlamp, I watched the small owl with broad wings fly acrobatically among the trees as it chased large insects. This current visitor I did not see, but the whoosh of wind from its powerful wing strokes as it flew about was a reminder that I was not alone in the forest. Once the owl left, silence returned to the trail, but my mind was active. My thoughts turned to the Atayal who had in earlier times moved forward and back along this very trail, women carrying woven burden baskets on their backs, men with weapons on hunting expeditions in search of game or the heads of their enemies. Waiting for sleep to descend, “the spirited hunters in the forest” mentioned on the sign at Shilu were my companions, the trail outside my tent their path through worlds seen and unseen. The next morning, I returned to Shilu, and there spent some minutes taking photographs of the buildings and the surrounding hillsides. As the sun rose above the mountainous ridge to the east, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. A few minutes later, a blue truck came into view. The driver stopped near me, and through his open window he greeted me and asked if I had any problems. I answered no, and told him that I was just enjoying the beautiful scenery. He laughed, waved, and then drove off along the unpaved 22

See Appendix B: Photographs, Fig. 8.

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road toward the trailhead. I then mounted my motorcycle and drove down the concrete road, leaving Shilu on the ridge silhouetted by the rising sun. Just half an hour later, I arrived back in Qingchuan, which despite the early hour, was bustling. Laborers were already at work on the Zhang Xueliang museum, groups of children were crossing the suspension bridge to the elementary school, and people bought breakfast at the shops along the street. I sat at a roadside pavilion next to the bridge head and ate my breakfast. A local couple stopped to sit near me. The man was a laborer who was hoping to get hired at the museum worksite, and while he smoked a cigarette, his wife spoke with me. I told her that I had spent the night on the trail beyond Shilu, and she asked me whether I had been afraid. I answered that there were few wild animals in the forest to fear. She asked me whether I knew that there was a cemetery at Shilu, and when I said that I had visited it the previous afternoon, she told me that the spirits of the ancestors buried there had looked after me. She said that they were good spirits, and that the local Atayal people prayed to them and received their protection. With the blessing of the spirits of the Atayal’s ancestors, I departed Qingchuan on the highway that connects the village with other communities in the Taoshan Village area of Wufeng Township and eventually Xinzhu. The road I followed down the valley was another portion of the Xiakelo Trail, built by the Japanese over eighty years earlier to link the police station at Taoshan with that in Hsiuluan in Jianshi Township. It is now paved, and bears the designation Route 120, but it is itself a relic of the Japanese oppression of the inhabitants of the area. The road enabled the Japanese to force the Atayal to submit to their authority, surrender their lands, abandon their customary lifestyle, and begin their assimilation. Today the road brings tourists from the plains, but it also carries local indigenous people to the plains in search of work. Since 2002, the population of Taoshan Village, of which Qingchuan is a part, has declined by 12.9% versus an increase of 3.9% in the same period nationwide.23 There are relatively few adults of working age in Qingchuan. Many have moved to the cities on the plains to get work as laborers; some take their children with them while others leave them to be looked after by their grandparents. Like the trail on top of which the road was constructed, the road has had an immeasurable impact on the lives of the Atayal in the area.

7. Searching for Clues in Qingchuan I returned to Qingchuan several weeks later with the intention of finding out more about the former inhabitants of Shilu. I decided to begin my search at the Catholic Church, and because it was Sunday, I hoped to meet the priest and perhaps talk to some of the parishioners. The priest, an American of the Franciscan order, had lived in Qingchuan for over thirty years. I spoke with him briefly before he entered the church to perform morning’s mass and told him of my interest in Shilu, and he assured me that he would give me his assistance. That morning, I attended mass with the Catholic inhabitants of Qingchuan. There were approximately fifty people present that day, and they were composed mainly of elderly people and young children. The priest said mass in Mandarin Chinese, and several portions were in Atayal. An Atayal laywoman served as Catechist 23

See Appendix A: Population Statistics.

15

during the mass, overseeing the congregation’s participation in the service. Two teenage girls stood up during the mass and read portions from the Bible in Mandarin. Older male members of the church took the microphone the catechist offered to them and spoke briefly in Atayal. After each person had spoken, the congregation responded with Amen. Before the mass was completed, the priest introduced me and explained that I was looking for people from Shilu community and would like to talk with them. Two older men raised their hands and indicated that they were from Shilu, so the priest asked them to stay after the mass and speak with me. I learned that the two men were brothers, the elder seventy-eight years old and the younger seventy-four, and had grown up in Shilu. I asked them what the name of Shilu was in Atayal and they answered that it was Mukeraka, the same name that I had seen on the sign posted at the trailhead at Xiakelo. They told me that their families had moved down from the mountain in 1948, and when asked, said that this was because the younger children needed to go to school. At that time, the brothers would have been seventeen and fourteen years old. I asked them where they lived now and they answered that they now lived in Qingchuan, but that the land at Shilu still belonged to them. Some of the orchards that I had seen at Shilu were their property. They told me that they each had many children, but that few of them lived in the area anymore. The arable land in the indigenous reservations was privatized in 1966 and allocated to the people that lived and farmed on it.24 Most had left the mountains to work in the city and only returned occasionally at the time of important festivals. Outward migration to find work is a typical characteristic of the life of the indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan. Incomes from farming are low, and because of the Bureau of Forestry’s prohibition on making use of forest resources, adults view leaving their home villages to settle and work in the prosperous cities as the best way to support themselves and their families. This process began in the 1960s as Taiwan’s industrialization proceeded in earnest, when the demand for laborers was high, and continued through the 70s and 80s. 25 Many of the Atayal who leave the mountains for work return only rarely, and they often raise their children in the cities. This young generation grows up with little understanding of the lives that their parents and grandparents lead in their ancestral villages in the mountains. This development can be understood as indirectly related to the construction of the trail between Hsiuluan and Taoshan Villages. The trail led to roads that carried the Atayal out of the mountains and onto the plains, where their ethnic identities were subsumed by the mainstream culture. Before the Japanese arrived in the area, the Atayal populations living on either side of Mount Shilu maintained close relations due to their shared ancestry and adjoining territories. The trail allowed the people to travel back and forth between the two villages and also to access the hunting grounds on the mountain. The path over the mountain was not just a link between the two areas; it was a physical manifestation of the migration routes that their ancestors had traveled across so many generations before. For the Atayal of Shilu, the mountain, the path that crossed it, and the river valleys on either side were inextricably tied to their identity as a people. Like the rainbow bridge across which the Atayal pass into the spirit world, the trail over Mount Shilu was a connection to 24 25

Kuan and Yen, Traditional institution, p. 1. Jou, Incorporation to exclusion, p. 1029.

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another world. In that world, the people shared ancestry with the people of Shilu and engaged in similar rituals and customs; its existence was a necessary precursor to the identity of the inhabitants of Shilu community. When the Japanese co-opted the trail for their purpose, the subjugation of the Atayal through violence and force of arms so that their lands could be economically exploited, the links between the groups living on either side of the mountain were weakened. The Xiakelo Trail linked the two watersheds, but it also linked to roads leading out of the mountains and to the plains. As the Japanese and then Chinese Nationalist control of Atayal society deepened, the Atayal were pulled down the road and off the mountain. Today, the trail leads from one empty village, Shilu, over a mountain to another river valley, and before I could finish my study of the Xiakelo Trail, I needed to see the communities at the eastern end of the path in Hsiuluan Village of Jianshi Township.

8. The Journey to Jianshi To reach Hsiuluan from Qingchuan by motor vehicle, one has to drive down Xinzhu Route 122 through Wufeng and either take Route 63 via Huayuan Village that heads over Mount Xiangtianhu to Jianshi or continue downriver to Zhudong, turn right on the #3 highway, and enter Jianshi by way of Neiwan. Whichever of these routes you take, the travel time is less than four hours, significantly faster than the two days it would take on the trail. Before entering the Baishi River watershed, Xinzhu Route 60 climbs up and over a pass to the east of Mount Dongsui. From the pass, where the Yulao Police Station is located, narrow Mamei Road cuts across the side of the ridge toward the northeast. Approximately five kilometers from the pass is the Atayal community of Mamei, and above that the peak of Mount Lidong. Atop the mountain stand the remains of a fort built by the Japanese in 1915. The fort is a patch of earth, perhaps 600 square meters, enclosed by thick brick walls and massive gate. Just outside the gate, the jungle presses close against the walls, trees obscuring the view of the hillsides below. Today the fort’s crumbling walls enclose a modern radio tower and communications shack, but ninety years ago it was a base for Japanese infantry forces and artillery units fighting in the military campaigns against Atayal. From its commanding height, its field guns could be trained on the villages on both sides of the valley, including those living in the Hsiuluan area. Without the fort at Mount Lidong, the Japanese could not have built the Xiakelo Trail. It took them two major campaigns in 1917 and 1920 to gain control of Mount Shilu by violently attacking the Atayal living in villages on its slopes. Mount Lidong, like Shilu, was a strategic outpost from which the Japanese sought to destroy Atayal resistance. Shilu’s tragic history has little physical manifestation, the land’s use being given over to buildings and an orchard, but its occupation of the strategic high ground is comparable to the fort on Mount Lidong. Whereas the fort’s significance is obvious in terms of the suppression of the Atayal and their way of life, Shilu’s import is more diffuse but no less great. The Japanese claimed these two points from which to wage their wars against the Atayal. Today, both places are empty, receiving relatively few visitors, but this does not lessen the role they played in Taiwan’s turbulent history, and the great changes they brought to the lives of the Atayal people of the area.

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From the Yulao Police Station, Route 60 heads southwest, passing through Tianpu community before reaching the Baishi River at Hsiuluan, approximately ten kilometers distant. Those wishing to proceed beyond Hsiuluan must register with the police at a mountain checkpoint just before the bridge. This practice has evolved from the policy of restricting access to the mountains and specifically the indigenous reservations during the Japanese era. In those days, guard-lines surround the territory of Taiwan’s mountaindwelling indigenous people, and outsiders needed official permission to enter. The Japanese guard-line was itself a development on the guarded border that was established under during Qing rule of Taiwan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While waiting for the Atayal policeman to complete the permit form, recording the names, addresses, and identity card numbers of all who will enter the indigenous reservation, visitors can read the Bureau of Forestry signs that introduce the Xiakelo Trail.26 The first of these explains that Xiakelo is the “name of a mountain, a river, and a community of Atayal people,” supporting the notion that the identity of the people is closely linked to the territory they inhabit. It briefly notes the battles in 1917 and 1920 between the Atayal in the area and the Japanese, which preceded the construction of a 49.5 kilometer trail from Hsiuluan Village over Mount Shilu to Taoshan Village in Wufeng Township. A second sign describes the condition of the trail, noting that it rises gradually by following the contour of the hillsides before crossing over Mount Shilu and descending to Shilu and finally to Qingchuan and Taoshan.27 It notes that landslides have caused the trail to be moved somewhat, but that the route offers beautiful natural scenery, “relics of Atayal cultivation,” and a historic Japanese police station at Baishi. In early December, with a mountain permit in hand, I drove to Yanglao along a narrow concrete road that twisted along the hillside on the southern side of the Baishi River. Unlike the road from Qingchuan to Shilu, the road from Hsiuluan to Yanglao does not ascend steeply up a ridge, but works along the side of the hills gradually gaining elevation. After approximately eight kilometers, the road ends at a clearing where visitors to the Xiakelo Trail can park their cars. There are no buildings here, but several Bureau of Forestry signs are posted. The first of these carries the title “A Beautiful Life,” and it expresses the philosophy of the Atayal people. The Atayal ancestors passed down these words. “We are the fine descendants of our ancestors who told us not to hide behind wooden planks, but to stand up against our adversaries. We are like bamboo shoots that keep on springing up. As aborigines, we must observe our Gaga (rules, habits and taboos), live a good life on this land and do not disgrace our ancestors. Let bygones be bygones and work together for our beautiful life together.”28 Again, the sign celebrates the courage and spirit of the Atayal, reinforcing the idea the idea that identity is a product of resistance to adversity, of opposition to an outside force. The reference to gaga and honoring the ancestors is ambiguous, implying that resistance to oppression is valued, but that bygones should be put aside in place of cooperation. 26

See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 5. See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 6. 28 See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 7. 27

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What bygones is the sign referring to, those in the distant past or those of recent decades? The Japanese “pacified” the Atayal and occupied their land. The KMT and the Bureau of Forestry maintained the restrictive policies that the Japanese adopted to advance the economic exploitation of the resources in their territory without regard for the people whose lives were intertwined with the environment they inhabited. The sign argues for reconciliation, for progressing beyond the injustices that the Atayal have experienced, but offers no evidence that such a development has occurred. Another sign nearby explains the origin of the Kinaji people, mentioning their ancestral homeland of Pinsabukan in Nantou County and the route of their migration to the headwaters of the Dahan River, of which the Baishi River is a tributary. Significantly, it discusses the link between the Atayal people living on either side of Mount Shilu, and their cooperation in opposing the Japanese during the war that took place between 1917 and 1920. The sign ends with an expression of the reputation of the Atayal people of the area, noting that they are praised for “their friendship and solidarity in time of adversity.”29 Similar to the signs at the Xiakelo trailhead near Shilu, the message here portrays the Atayal’s struggle against outside forces in the distant past but does not discuss their contemporary status at all. No mention is made of why the Atayal people no longer live along the trail, nor of where or how the descendents of these people now live. The tone of the signs is similar to what one would find in a history museum, with exotic people and lifestyles portrayed as objects of the past with little connection to the present. While the signs along the Xiakelo Trail interpret the history of the area, the interpretation they offer is intended to shape the way visitors understand their experience of the trail. In effect, like most histories, this narrative is one written by the victors

9. The Xiakelo Trail along the Baishi River From Yanglao, the unpaved trail heads southwest along the contour of the hillside above the Baishi River. A few minutes along the trail, an abandoned farm comes into view below the trail, with a house sitting amongst fallow fields and fruit trees that are leafless in the winter season. The path continues, passing over wooden bridges above rushing streams and through groves of bamboo and forests of deciduous trees. In one dense grove of bamboo, a sign introduces the place as Tarakkis, meaning millet in the Atayal language.30 It states that a Japanese police station was built here in 1919, and was later abandoned in 1959 during the KMT era. An earthen wall is visible among the bamboo, but that is all that remains of the building. A short distance past Tarakkis, round holes approximately two meters in diameter and lined with stones are visible alongside the trail. A sign explains that these were charcoal kilns built by the Japanese near police stations. Wood from the surrounding area would be collected and burned in the kilns to produce charcoal for use in cooking and indoor heating. 31 Collecting wood for making charcoal is now considered burglary and is explicitly prohibited by the Bureau of Forestry, with a punishment of not more than five years in prison and a fine of up to five times the value of the stolen wood.32 29

See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 8. See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 9. 31 See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 10. 32 Forestry Bureau, The Forestry Act, Chapter 6, Article 52. 30

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Approximately five kilometers from Yanglao, a distance that can be covered on foot in two hours, the trail comes to the site of the former community of Mawan. A sign explains that the Mawan Police station was built here in 1922.33 The area was named after an early Atayal settler who farmed the land in the area. Wood from the trees in the area, Formosan sweet gums, was used to grow mushrooms. In the 1950s, the Atayal cultivated mushrooms to exchange for salt, clothing, food, and farming tools.34 Disputes over the use of wood from Bureau of Forestry land prompted the police to put a stop to the practice. The clearing where the community was located is now given over to vines and bushes, but a pile of old bottles indicates that the area was formerly inhabited. Another sign at Mawan introduces the birds that visitors can see in the area, and explains the significance of the Siliq bird, important to the Atayal because they believed that the bird had powers of divination. Atayal men on hunting trips observed strict taboos about the timing and direction of their hunts, believing that the calls of Siliq birds expressed both good and bad omens, depending on the side of the trail and the order in which they occurred.35 A few hundred meters past Mawan, the Xiakelo Trail turns sharply downhill and descends through a grove of bamboo to a stream. The Japanese-era trail continued along the hillside above, but a landslide destroyed that portion of the route, necessitating the detour down to the stream. An abandoned suspension bridge is visible crossing over the stream just upstream from the location where the trail leads hikers to the opposite bank. The bridge’s cables are rusted and broken in places, and the remains of the wooden flooring hang precariously over the water. From the stream, the trail ascends sharply to rejoin the historic trail as it continues to parallel the Baishi River to the west. Although I was unable to continue along the trail and did not reach the abandoned police station at Baishi, I know that it lay just a few kilometers from where I stopped. Beyond that police station, a suspension bridge carries hikers over the Baishi River, and from there the trail continues along the contour line of the hillside, past the abandoned Atayal community of Jiaori and up and over Mount Shilu, before descending to the trailhead at Shilu.

33

See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 11. Hsiao, ’Ecology’ and indigenous political and cultural struggles, p. 4. 35 See Appendix C: Signs, Sign 12. For more information on Siliq bird divination, see Shinji Ishii, Mountain people, pp. 131-132. 34

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10. The Third Visit to Shilu I returned once more to Shilu, not with the intention of walking to Yanglao, but to explore the other communities on the western side of Mount Shilu. I tried to reach Minsheng, but a large truck was completely blocking the road less than a kilometer off the main road to Shilu. A group of laborers were harvesting bamboo from the hillside below the unpaved road. The winch on the truck was used to drag bundles of the bamboo up to the road, and from there to be loaded onto the truck. The way forward blocked, I returned past several uninhabited houses to the main road. I continued upward until I came to an unmarked road heading uphill. I followed this, and after climbing for a few minutes, passed several farms with fruit orchards. The gates to these farms were closed and locked, and no one was present, but the houses appeared to be looked after, and packs of dogs ran to the gate and barked at me when I approached on my motorcycle. Continuing up the road, it dipped into a coniferous forest, and then passed several empty houses before coming out at a large, flat clearing at the community of Shansongben. There were also houses located here, and several large fields of green onions, but no people were present; only dogs came out to greet my arrival. From Shangsongben a small road heads down to the main concrete road. I took this, and then continued up the road to Shilu. Upon arriving, I parked and took another look around the vacant community. While I was in the orchard, I heard the sound of a vehicle engine, and then car doors opening and closing. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, and I began walking quickly toward the sound, thinking it was best to inform those with the gun that I was in the area. When I walked out from the houses, the Atayal men standing by the blue truck seemed surprised to see me. The handmade rifle that one of the men was holding was quickly laid into the back of the truck. One of the men explained that they were not shooting at an animal, just firing their weapon for entertainment. I explained that I was interested in the village and had spoken to the He brothers in Qingchuan several weeks earlier. The men pointed to the man sitting in the passenger seat of the truck and told me that he was a member of the He family. At that point, the men got back into the truck and drove off down the road toward Qingchuan. The gun was like the several others that I have seen Atayal men carrying in the mountains, handmade from piping with wooden stocks, and approximately two meters in length. The next morning in Shilu, I had the chance to see a very similar weapon. From my hotel, I could see into the courtyard of the Atayal home next door. One man was warming his hands by a fire in a can, a child was sitting next to him and reading a book, and then a third man exited the house. In his hands was a rifle, and he squatted down next to the fire and turned the rifle over in his hands, looking at it. He held the gun in the air and sighted down its long muzzle before lowering it, and then carrying it back into his house. Hunting is one of the ways that the Atayal men express their identity and gain status in society. Taiwan’s indigenous people are currently allowed to hunt for ritual purposes and to provide food for their private consumption, but they may not engage in it in National Parks or wildlife conservation areas.36 Engaging in hunting is one way that Atayal elders can pass along their knowledge of the environment and cultural values to their 36

Council of Indigenous Peoples, The Indigenous Peoples Basic Law, Article 19.

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descendents. The area traversed by the Xiakelo Trail was formerly a hunting ground for the Atayal living in the area, but hunting was outlawed for decades. Now, Atayal hunters with their long rifles are once again stalking game in the forests, but prey is scarce. Nevertheless, groups of indigenous men, young and old, venture out into the forest to engage in an activity that was so long denied to them. While contemporary hunting expeditions probably bear little resemblance to those of earlier generations, the Atayal men are reestablishing their status among peers and family through taking part and bringing home game to be divided among families in the community. Even these hunting practices are controversial, with environmentalists opposing them on the grounds that Taiwan’s wildlife has been seriously threatened by past hunting and needs to be protected from further harm. To finish my third trip to Shilu, I drove to the end of the road at the Xiakelo trailhead on a Sunday afternoon. Unlike on my past visit, this time I encountered half a dozen cars and trucks parked in the clearing. Two colorfully dressed bicyclists rode up just after me, and they leant their bikes against the railing and sat on the benches to enjoy the view. Next to them, a man with binoculars scanned the opposite hillsides for birds. In the forest, groups of hikers could be heard laughing and talking on the trail.

11. Conclusion This research was intended to explore the issue of the Xiakelo Trail and its effect on the Atayal people living in the area through which the trail passes. It was found that no Atayal people live along the trail between Shilu and Yanglao. Evidence remains of the formers communities in this area, but because of resettlement policies in the past, the people who used to live there and their descendents now reside in nearby mountainous areas or in cities in the plains. There are people living in the farming communities located along the portions of the trail that are paved in concrete, i.e. between Yanglao and Hsiuluan and between Shilu and Qingchuan, but these people may not permanently reside in these areas. The houses in these two areas do not appear to be occupied, but the fields and orchards are being maintained. The community of Qingchuan and the village of Hsiuluan are currently home to many former residents of remote areas located along the Xiakelo Trail, but populations in these areas are falling as working age people leave the mountains to seek jobs in the cities. This trend will probably continue in the future unless the local people are granted a role in the management the resources in the area or efforts are made to develop tourism. The Forestry Bureau’s Xiakelo Trail will no doubt continue to attract visitors as long as the roads to the trailheads at either end are kept open. The vacant community of Shilu will probably continue to linger on its windy ridge, the buildings slowly being given over to the encroaching forest, as the bamboo poking through the concrete floor of the unlocked house demonstrated. Eventually, unless the police station is rebuilt as a historical monument, it too will be reclaimed by the forest, as occurred at the former police stations in Tarakkis and Mawan. The cemetery will almost certainly continue to be used, as its presence on the mountain is symbolic of the identity of the local Atayal. As long as the descendents of the residents of Shilu return to honor their ancestors, the

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headstones will evoke memories of the lives that were lived on the mountain. The farms, with their green onions and orchards of persimmons, maintain a tenuous hold on the mountain, reminders of the days when the Mukeraka Atayal, descendents of the Kinaji, ruled their mountain domain, before the Japanese pushed the Xiakelo Trail through the heart of their territory and forever altered the fragile balance of life. Shilu is a unique community in that it appears to be caught in a kind of suspended animation. Like the other communities located along the Xiakelo Trail, Shilu is slowly being reclaimed by the forest and in several decades, it may be indistinguishable to visitors. For now, walking in Shilu is like entering a place that is in the process of becoming an archeological site. Unless the buildings there are preserved, what now stands above the ground may become part of the soil. This is not a surprising end for a community that was once populated by Taiwan’s indigenous people. It has been said that one could unearth former dwelling places in almost any part of Taiwan that one chose to dig, so long and widely has Taiwan been inhabited. Visitors to Shilu today can see a relic of Taiwan’s history, but they can not gain a deep appreciation of the significance of this site merely by reading the signs that the Forestry Bureau has erected. While those signs tell a story of the mountains and the people who inhabited them, the tale is one-sided. The role that the Forestry Bureau has played in the lives of the Atayal is absent from the content of these signs, and only the briefest mention is made of why the area has been depopulated. For now, it seems unlikely that the Atayal of Shilu will regain control of the lands on Mount Shilu that they once ruled, but the door is not yet closed on this chapter. As long as the relic that is Shilu Community continues to stand, it will remind the local Atayal and visitors from outside the area that dramatic changes have taken place there, and that the current situation need not be permanent. As much as the Forestry Bureau might like tourists to see the Xiakelo Trail as a nature reserve devoid of people, the remains of human habitation are undeniable signs that this was not always the case. A historic trail is an artifact of communication and human interaction, and as such it engages the minds of those who walk on it, transporting them backward in time as they leave footprints atop the tens of thousands that trod the trail before them. Walking the Xiakelo Trail, one hears the echoes of footsteps and senses the enduring importance of Mount Shilu to the Atayal.

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Bibliography Chang Bien. 2001. In-house burial and bilateral namesakes: House and access to the past among the Paiwan. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Austronesian Cultures: Issues Relating to Taiwan, Institute of Linguistics (Preparatory Office), Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei. Chu, Jou-juo. 2000. From incorporation to exclusion: The employment experience of Taiwanese urban aborigines. The China Quarterly. No. 164:1025-43. Chung, Yi-shyr. 2001. Who is telling stories in the mountains? The government, scientists, NGOs or villagers? – An ongoing story about the co-management of national parks in Taiwan (Draft). Paper presented at EECOM, Whitehorse, Yukon. http://www.taiga.net/eecom2001/papers/Yi-shyr.pdf, last accessed January 15, 2009. Digital Museum of Taiwan Indigenous People. 2008. Atayal. http://www.dmtip.gov.tw/Eng/Atayal.htm, last accessed January 15, 2009. Harrell, Steven. 1994. Playing in the valley: A metonym of modernization in Taiwan. In Cultural Change in Postwar Taiwan, edited by Steven Harrell and Huang Chun-chieh, 161-83. Taipei: SMC Publishing. Hogan, Tim. Retreat. 2003. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_4DWeJQwmU, last accessed January 15, 2009. Hsiao, Huei-chung. 2008 ‘Ecology’ and indigenous political and cultural struggles in Taiwan: a case study of two Atayal villages. Paper presented at the Fifth EATS Conference, Prague. Hsieh, Shi-chung. 1994. From shanbao to yuanzhumin: Taiwan aborigines in transition. In Murray A. Rubinstein (ed.). The Other Taiwan, 1945 to the Present, pp. 404-419. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. _____. 1994. Tourism, formulation of cultural tradition, and ethnicity: A study of the Daiyan identity of the Wulai Atayal. In Steven Harrell and Huang Chun-chieh (ed.). Cultural Change in Postwar Taiwan, pp. 184-201. Taipei: SMC Publishing. Ishii, Shinji. 1917. The life of the mountain people in Formosa. Folklore. Vol. 28, no. 2:115-132. Kuan, Da-wei and Yen, Ai-ching. 2003. Traditional institution and the institutional

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choice: Two CPR self-governing cases of Atayal Tribe in Taiwan indigenes. Presented at Joining the Northern Commons: Lessons for the World, Lessons from the World, Anchorage. Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 2001. The dispersal of the Formosan aborigines in Taiwan. Language and Linguistics. Vol. 2, no. 1:271-278. May Bo Ching. 2001. Naming and ddentity among the Atayal people in Miaoli County, Taiwan. In David Faure (ed.). In Search of the Hunters and Their Tribes: Studies in the history and Culture of the Taiwan Indigenous People, pp. 79-115. Taipei: Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines. Republic of China, Executive Yuan, Council of Agriculture, Forestry Bureau. The Forestry Act. Taipei. January 20, 2004. http://www.forest.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=21160&CtNode=1870&mp=3, last accessed January 15, 2009. Republic of China, Executive Yuan, Council of Agriculture, Forestry Bureau. National Trails System, Xiakelo Historic Trail. http://trail.forest.gov.tw/NationalTrailSystem_En/TR_E_01.htm, last accessed January 15, 2009. Republic of China, Executive Yuan, Council of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous People’s Basic Law. Taipei. February 5, 2005. http://www.apc.gov.tw/english/docDetail/detail_official.jsp?docid=PA000000001 795&cateID=A000432&linkRoot=231&linkParent=231&url=, last accessed January 15, 2009. Republic of China, Executive Yuan, Council of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous People’s Employment Rights Protection Act. Taipei. October 31, 2001. http://www.apc.gov.tw/english/docDetail/detail_official.jsp?docid=PA000000000 802&cateID=A000432&linkRoot=231&linkParent=0&url=, last accessed January 15, 2009. Shih, Lei. 1986. Social contact and religious change among the Formosan aborigines. New Asia Academic Bulletin. Vol. 6:219-228. Wilhelm, Richard. 1967. The I Ching or Book of Changes. Translated by Cary F. Baynes. Bollingen Series XIX. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Appendix A: Population Statistics Jan. 2002 Wufong Township 4,987 Taoshan Village 1,893 Jianshi Township 8,389 Hsiuluan Village 1,610 Nationwide 22.5 million Figure 2. Population change 2002 to 2008.

Dec. 2008 4,413 1,647 8,161 1,520 23 million

# Change -574 -246 -228 -90 +500,000

% Change -11.5% -12.9% -2.7% -5.5% +3.9%

Sources: Xinzhu County Government

http://w3.hsinchu.gov.tw/houseweb/Wufong/WebPage/PeoCount/List.aspx, last accessed January 15, 2009. ROC Ministry of Interior

http://www.moi.gov.tw/stat/english/monthly.asp, last accessed January 15, 2009. Appendix B: Photographs

Figure 3. Basket that resembles basket in Fig. 23, Baskets, A. Atayal, in Material Culture of the Formosan Aborigines, p. 95. The rattan frame and handles with mid-handle support correspond exactly with the basket pictured in Material Culture.

Photographs by author

Figure 4. Mortar that closely resembles Fig. 8, Mortars and Pestles, H., Atayal in Material Culture of the Formosan Aborigines, p. 56. The top and bottom of the mortar are of the same diameter.

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Figure 5. Earthenware pot in the orchard at Shilu Community. A pot with identical marks was found in Neiwan in the garden of an abandoned Japanese-era house.

Figure 6. Xiakelo Trail (road with paving stones) that begins at Shilu.

Figure 7. Beyond the trailhead near Shilu.

Figure 8. Japanese-era telephone pole (with wires attached) along Xiakelo Trail west of trailhead at Shilu.

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Appendix C: Signs All signs created by the Bureau of Forestry, Hsinchu Forest District Office. Sign 1. Location: Shilu Tribe / Wurau Title: Xiakelo Not translated: 250 Ping, 1,680 meters in elevation Xiakelo, or Wurau, means a place of soft, sandy soil in the Atayal language. It was the earliest strategic post set up by the Japanese police to control the aborigines. The post commands a good view of the Mukeraka— the largest Xiakelo tribe—in the southeast and Tenton across the river. In the late 1940s, the Nationalist government renamed Xiakelo Police Station, which was built by the Japanese in 1922, as Wurau. The wooden houses—rebuilt into a Chinese style in 1964—were released of their police duties in 1989. The old battery and dormitory site is now a vegetable garden while the upward concrete path by the station was originally a 1.8-meter flight of stone steps leading to a Japanese shrine. Only the tall and straight Japanese black pines and Chinese guger tree bear witness to the past. Sign 2. Location: Xiakelo trail head Title: History About two hundred years ago, the Kinaji Group branched out to the west of Yaduf Xiakelo and settled down in the river valley. Generations of the Kinaji people have lived their life here by cultivating and planting the land. The spirited hunters in the forest are the Xiakelo people. Sign 3. Location: Xiakelo trail head Title: Wu-feng’s Xiakelo Tribe In the early days, the four fearsome Xiakelo tribes were very active on this land. In the north of the river was Mukeraka while Tenton, Yabakan and Rokkaho lived across the river. The Tentons, who often played the role of guides and porters, later moved near Seto Police Station (today’s Minsheng tribe). Sign 4. Location: Xiakelo trail head Title: Foreign Attacks Culture—In Atayal culture, Headhunting has multiple meanings. Facial tattoos are symbols of honor and glory. Only men with heroic accomplishments and woman with meticulous weaving skills are qualified to be tattooed on the face. Habits—It is Atayal tradition to share food so as to ensure that the elderly, children and woman have enough to eat. The Atayal people like to help each other and their sense of community far exceed that of Han farmers. Religion—The Atayal people believe that everything in nature has a soul and that the ancestor’s spirit controls everything in life. People should follow the ancestor’s spirit and different Gaga (or rules). Sign 5. Location: Hsiuluan Police Station Title: Xiakelo Trail Xiakelo is the name of a mountain, a river and a community of Atayal People who have lived here for centuries. In the old days, Kinaji and Xiakelo people living in the Sakayachin and Xiakelo river valleys maintained a close relationship. They depended on the old trail for all sorts of activities, including hunting, harvesting and visiting friends. During the Japanese colonization, the tribes people clashed with the Japanese who were rebuilding the roads. Two major confrontations took place in 1917 and 1920. This led the Japanese to build a path along Sakayachin River that stretched from Kongsi Police Station (today’s Hsiuluan tribe) in the west to Taoshan in the east. The path—about 1.2 meters wide and without any stairs —was built along the contour line. Part of the 49.5-kilometer path across the Yaduf Xiakelo (Xiakelo Mountain) is today’s hiking trail. Most of the path has been covered with asphalt leaving only 23 kilometers of the old trail from Wurau to Yoro. Sign 6. Location: Hsiuluan Police Station Title: Route

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The trail largely follows the contour line, rising and falling only slightly. Weathering has caused damaged to the path in a couple of places, with collapse of the roadbed leading to diversions. The first is on the ascent of Yaduf Xiakelo at the saddle giving access to the mountain, the diversions circles around the peak and rejoins the path on the saddle. The second is on the east side of Baishi Suspension Bridge, where the path has been diverted along the side of the river and rebuilt with wooden ladders. Although the renovated trail is more undulating and taxing, it has been made more interesting for hikers, passing through some of Taiwan’s riches mid-altitude biodiversity, as well as relics of Atayal cultivation and a Japanese-period police station. The trail is ideal for enjoying cheery blossoms in spring, a forest spa in summer, and trees’ autumnal colors at year’s end. Recommended Hiking Route Two-day Complete Route Zhudong—Qingchuan—Wurau—Tamurada—Yaduf Xiakelo Trail-head –Hanheno (Narayama)—Baishi Police Station—Baishi Suspension Bridge—Mawan—Tarakkis— Yoro Trail-head—Hsiuluan—Zhudong One-day Partial Route 1. Zhudong—Qingchuan—Wurau—Tamurada—Gaociao (Return to Zhudong via the same route) 2. Zhudong—Hsiuluan—Yoro Trail-head—Tarakkis—Mawan—Baishi Suspension Bridge (Return to Zhudong via the same route) Sign 7. Location: Yoro Trailhead Title: A Beautiful Life The Atayal ancestors passed down these words. “We are the fine descendants of our ancestors who told us not to hide behind wooden planks, but to stand up against our adversaries. We are like bamboo shoots that keep on springing up. As aborigines, we must observe our Gaga (rules, habits and taboos), live a good life on this land and do not disgrace our ancestors. Let bygones be bygones and work together for our beautiful life together.” Sign 8. Location: Yoro (Yanglao) Trailhead Title: Migration The Kinaji, originated from Pinsabukan (today’s Ruiyan tribe in Nantou County) and later migrated to the riverhead of Dahan, settled down in Cinsbu. The latter generations migrated to different places around Takachin. Some even went to great lengths to travel across Yaduf Xiakelo and they are the ancestors of Xiakelo tribe. Even with a space of 2,000 meters apart, the two tribes still maintain a close relationship. They also hold dear to themselves their camaraderie. At the height of Xiakelo incident from 1917 to 1920, the Kinaji living in Sakayachin would help the Xiakelo tribe in its fights against the Japanese. Some offered shelter for the tribes people. Even until today, people praise their friendship and solidarity in time of adversity. Sign 9. Location: Tarakkis Title: Tarakkis Tarakkis, the name of an Atayal tribe, means millet in the Atayal language. The dense makino bamboo forest is proof of human activities in the area because the bamboos were essential to the aborigines who used them to build houses as well as making handicraft, musical instruments, and water pipes. In 1919, the Japanese built a police station here, which was abandoned in 1959. Today, the bamboos obscure the remains of the building’s foundation and loam walls. Sign 10. Location: Tarakkis Title: Charcoal kilns The well constructed round holes on the forest ground, especially near police stations, are the remains of kilns used to produce charcoal in the early days. The policemen stationed in the mountain would select timber that does not give off too much smoke when burnt as well as having low oil content and high density like Lagerstroemia subcostata Koehne and put it in the kiln. They used charcoals for cooking and warming the house in winter. Sign 11. Location: Mawan

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Title: Mawan Built in 1922, Mawan Police Station is named after an Atayal man who first came to cultivate the land. The station-located to the west of Yoro Mountain-was abandoned in 1959. Visitors can barely see stone steps leading to the door and remains of loam walls. Instead there are Prnus campanulata Maxim, Villebrunea pedunculata Shirai and other creepers around. The vast forest of Formosan sweet gums used to supply the wood for cultivating mushrooms. As the mushroom trade declines, the forest has become the best spot for enjoying spring’s budding trees and autumnal colors. Sign 12. Location: Mawan Title: Fortune-telling bird-Siliq Along the Xiakelo Trail is the mid-altitude forest rich with bio-diversity. Large animals may not easily be seen, but birds definitely keep visitors company. There are plenty of species in Xiakelo such as Serpent Eagle (Spilomis cheela), Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus), White-eared Sibia, (Heterophania auncutaris), tits, Fulvous-faced Flycather Warbler (Abroscoans albogularis), white-throated flycatcher warbler, Steere’s Babbler (Liocichia steeri), Lesser Scimitar Babbler (Pomatorhinus ruficollis), Swinhoe’s Blue Pheasant (Lophura swinhoii), and Arborophila crudigularis. For the Atayal people, the White-eyed Nun babbler (Alcippe morisonnia), or Siliq in the Atayal language, has the power to predict the future and in the old days hunters have to observe Siliq’s movement carefully to decide their hunting course.

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