This session presents the results of the Continuing Education Program. The main purpose of this action research is to cultivate Korean students’ awareness of Taiwan indigenous culture and facilitate cultural interaction between two ethnic groups.
Course Design Concept
The researcher thinks about the method of letting Korean students realize that Taiwan's indigenous mythologies are full of “the beauty of concealment and ambiguity”
(Sun, Da-Chuan, 2016): Because of proximity, Paiwan people have many chances to interact with Lukai and Puyuma people. Their culture is easily mixed with these two groups’. Therefore, Paiwan’s creation myths are extremely complicated, including versions like sun egg, snake, pot, stone, dog, bamboo, etc. (Wang, Fang-Ping, 2009).
To make things even more complicated, each creation myth has multiple versions. For example, according to Wang, Sin-Ying (2004) study, there are 17 plots in the story of the sun egg.
To pick out creation myths related to the most representative totem, the Sun, hundred-pacer snakes, and ceramic pots can demonstrate indigenes’ people’s rich imagination. The audio storybook, The Paiwan Kingdom Under the Sun20 was selected. This research used three stories in it: “the Sun’s Precious Egg,” “The Hundred-Pacer Snake as Protector,” and “The Magic Pot” (Chen-Yu Wei, Chao-Ling Kuo, Li-Rong Xiang& Yi-Ching Yang, 2009)
In the teaching process, the picture book would be supplemented with relevant
20 In 2009, the National Taiwan Museum held an exhibition, entitled Sons of the Sun the Myths and Legends of the Paiwan People. After the exhibition, they published the audio story book, The Paiwan Kingdom Under the Sun, containing 11 stories about the origin of life, cultural core, mysterious rituals, death transformations, love stories, and life experience, etc.
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animation. Thus various interpretations of a single-creation myth can be showed.
Finally, the researcher set up this course’ topic as “The Mythology of Paiwan People’ s Origin: How ‘We’ Came to the world?”. The teaching goals are cultivation of awareness toward indigenous culture in Taiwan and cultural interaction with indigenes in Taiwan or at an international setting in the future.
Course Practice and Analysis
Introduction to the Paiwan Group
The course begins with an overview of the physical distribution and characteristics of the Paiwan people and allows Korean students to have a preliminary understanding.
At present, the Paiwan tribe has four branches, and they are mainly located in the southeastern part of Taiwan, including Pingtung and Taitung counties (Figure 28).
Paiwan costumes are among the most gorgeous of Taiwanese indigenous people. There, the first Paiwan’s language for Korean students to learn is “Sepaiwan,” which means
“Paiwan people” in English (Figure 29).
Figure 28. The Distribution of Paiwan People.
58 Figure 29. The Characteristics of Paiwan People’s costumes
And, then it goes on to explain the course theme and selected materials. Before the course’s main section, namely the LVDS teaching strategies, the prelude in the “picture book animation,” Indigenous Legends Animation--Hundred Steps Snake21 (Chen, Mao-Sheng, 2014) (0:10-0:43) was utilized as the course opening (Figure 30) and followed by a warm-up question. The animation integrates the three elements of the origin stories that the researcher picked out, The Sun’s Precious Egg, The Hundred-Pace Snake as Protectors, and The Magic Pot, into a less-than-one-minute prelude.
21 The compositional sources are the picture books produced by the students of De Gao Elementary School in Tainan City.
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Figure 30. Indigenous Legend Animation--Hundred pacer Snake (Chen, Mao-Sheng, 2014)
The concise plot is: The sun has laid two eggs in a pot and then ordered a hundred-pacer snake to guard them until they hatched in the clay pot. This is the way the ancestors of the Paiwan people were born. And the question is: Are the ancestors of Paiwan people sun-born, snake-born or pottery-born?
(L) Listening to the story
The original ancient mythologies would first be presented before the picture book’s stories were introduced. The purpose of such a course arrangement is to present the differences between the literary nature of the oral myth and the interesting tone of the picture book. Both texts and paintings from the picture book were demonstrated on power points. For college students, the researcher told stories orally, emphasizing attentive listening to text and appreciation of the pictures; therefore, students could form mental imagery by a combination of the two elements.
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The Sun’s Precious Egg
There are many versions of the mythology related to this particular story. The Sun lays eggs. The stories are slightly different in different tribal segments, but their shared point is that the Paiwan people’s ancestors were hatched from the eggs, produced by the Sun. Paiwan people were the son of the Sun. First, take Parilario’s (the Southern Paiwan family) ancient story (Tian, Jhe-Yi, 2002), circulated by the Peony Society, for example:
Legend has it that in ancient times, the Sun gave birth to two eggs in a clay pot in a white small stone house on top of the Dawu Mountain. Later, the two eggs hatched out a pair of man and woman. They became husband and wife. Their offspring, under the guidance of spirit dogs, set off toward the Dawu Mountain to find a new world and build their homeland. This is the origin of the Paiwan
people.
And then this is the story in the picture book:
In an ancient time, the sun hung alone in the sky. One day, the Sun decided to go for a stroll on the Earth. The Sun meditated as it paced beside a giant pond,
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when all of a sudden, a giant dye of vibrant red spread evenly across the sky as a faint breeze whispered across its expense. ‘Bloop－’ a giant egg sank into the
great pond. The sun had laid an egg.
The researcher would explain that in general picture books authors intend to attract children or the general public to read mythological stories. They would simplify the content to construct thematic characteristics; for example, the omission of locations or subsequent episodes. In addition, the adoption of anthropomorphism and vivid description granted stories’ characters with greater vitality.
Finally, the story pointed out that Paiwan people are the “Children of the Sun:”
The egg was bathing in sunlight as the cat began to fiddle with it. Kkkkkrrt- the egg cracked open, and from within came a baby boy with blush-red cheeks. The sight awed every animal in its immediate surroundings. The child that came from the sun was later named Ljemedi.
The Hundred-Pacer Snake as Protectors
The ancient mythology does not particularly emphasize that the hundred-pacer
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snake was a Guardian, but the picture book plot revealed that the hundred-pacer snake had been granted with the responsibility of protecting ancestors. Firstly, ancient mythology (Tian, Jhe-Yi, 2002.p47) is presented:
A long time ago, God selected the most beautiful snake among snakes and heaved a sacred breath at its egg sack with an order to hatch them into human
beings. The eggs hatched a boy and a girl. When they grew up, they became the Paiwan Chief’s family.
In the Hundred-Pacer Snake as Protectors, the first half of the story is the same as the content mentioned in the ancient legend, while in the second half of the story, God spoke in the dialogue and directly gave the Hundred-Pacer Snake the task of protection.
In addition, the story explained why people always address the common name,
“Hundred-Pacer Snake” instead of the scientific name, “Deinagkistrodon.”
God was satisfied with the outcome. In order to protect His children, he further ordered the snake to keep them out of anyone’s reach. He gifted the snake with
a pair of razor-sharp teeth that are effective against evil-doers, and capable of inflicting a fatally poisonous bite that will kill its victim within the time it takes
to complete a hundred paces.
Today, the Paiwan people believe that if they worship the hundred-pacer snake as an ancestor, they will be sheltered from snakes’ attack. Therefore, the hundred-pacer snake is the patron saint for Paiwan. They created a variety of hundred-pacer totems, presented on themselves, costumes, appliances, and so on.
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The Magical Pot
Currently, Paiwan people’s mythologies concerning clay pots bearing people have a total of 10 varied plots (Wang, Sin-Ying, 2004). Take the myth circulated in Northern Paiwan for example:
A long time ago, there was an unknown pot on the mountain. Someone saw this
rare pot and took it home. One day, the sunlight shone on the pot through the wall’s gap. The pot cracked open and from the pot walked a man and a woman.
Later, they had their offspring.
Compared with oral mythologies with direct narrations, the picture books’ story, The Magical Pot vividly described the clay pot’s magic power. People who could pick
it up would have magic power. In addition, the clay pot would develop like a living creature:
Sapili was lured in a direction by a strange noise and came across a spinning pot. He tried to grab hold of the pot, but every time he neared it, the pot would spin and sink deeper into the soil. Satail came to his aid and, with his supernatural abilities, managed to pick up and place the pot in his backpack.
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They brought the pot back home with them. Strangely, the pot would grow larger by the day. One day, a ray of sunlight shot through the balcony opening, and a thunderous clap shattered the silence. The brothers heard the noise and promptly raced back to the house. They arrived at the scene to see that the
ceramic pot had cracked open, and a baby girl lay on the ground beside it.
In addition, the final paragraph implies that the ancient clay pot has still been a myth for Paiwan people. Its production method, era, and excavation sites have no evidence to offer further explanation.
The infant was the offspring of the Sun and the ceramic pot and considered of noble lineage since her existence is the direct will of the gods. She is also an
ancestor of the Taljimaraw clan.
The important meaning of the story to be passed on to future generations is that in the traditional society of Paiwan people, the clay pot was considered to be a magical thing with supernatural ability of its clan. It not only represents the ancestors but also their temporary residence. When they visit the earth realm, they would live in pots.
Therefore, Paiwan people must preserve clay pots properly, and would not randomly throw them away. Nowadays, the possession of clay pots is a limited privilege that indicates nobility and prestige. It is usually considered as an heirloom and a dowry for courtship as well (Taiwan society humanities digital video and audio database).
(V) Reading the story
After one student representative from each group is designated to read the assigned stories, there is an oral competition: The researcher draws a word and students raise
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their hand to answer quickly in both the Paiwan and Chinese languages. The researcher would play correct recordings and explain cultural connotation if required.
Important cultural vocabularies were picked out to make word cards with QR codes used to learn Chinese, English, and indigenous languages. As a warm-up, students were encouraged to directly read out the Paiwan language pronunciation of some easier vocabularies, such as sun, egg, dog, and water because of their equipped ability to speak English. As for advanced questions, some complex vocabularies or important cultural elements, such as a whistle, a nose flute, a chief, a hundred-pacer snake, and a clay pot were picked out. Students could scan QR codes, which directed their cellphones to the recording positions in the dictionary, Taiwan Indigenous History, Language, and Culture Dictionary. The followings are the word cards:
Figure 31. Word cards from “The Sun’s Precious Egg.”
Figure 32. Word cards from “The Sun’s Precious Egg.”
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Figure 33. The word card from “The Hundred-Pacer Snake as Protectors.”
As shown in this card, the cultural connotation of “Mazanzangiljan” is: In the traditional indigenous tribal organization, tribes are an important autonomous unit.
Each tribe has its structure and operations and possesses a center of society. For Paiwan people, the center of society is the chief. Nowadays, the class of chief still exists because of indigenous autonomy (Tan, Chang-Guo, 2004).
Figure 34. The word card from “The Hundred-Pacer Snake as Protectors.”
“Vulung” is the indigenous tongue for Hundred-Pacer Snake, and is used to
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suggest “elders.” Paiwan people respect it very much and even address themselves as
“The People of Hundred-pacer Snakes.” The Hundred-pacer Snake is considered a guardian among the Paiwan people and is a motif in various myths and legends of their tradition. If time is sufficient, teachers could mention more mythologies associated with them. For example, the roofing method of Paiwan slate house is said to suggest the enlightenment from the hundred-pace snake. Finally, ask students a question, “How do the Paiwan people communicate with the Hundred-Pacer Snake?” to connect to the next two vocabularies. This extension idea comes from the part, “VuVu’s Treasure Chest”
in The Paiwan Kingdom Under the Sun.
Figure 35. The word cards from “The Hundred-Pacer Snake as Protectors.”
The purpose of introducing these two vocabularies is that they are useful to explain: Besides the older people’s telling, mythologies and legends could be narrated by ancient songs, produced with a whistle and nose flute. With the video clips, Sauniaw Tjuveljevelj (Chen, Wen-Shan, 2013)22 played flutes, so that students can appreciate the sound of these two instruments, which simulate the hundred-paced snake’s sound.
This sound similar to human trembling cry vividly expresses the sorrowfulness and longing of the tribe people.
Finally, the researcher designed two quick answer races: One is with indigenous
22In the beginning, whistles could only be played by tribal men. However, Sauniaw Tjuveljevelj overcame the traditional binding and has made her achievement in this musical world.
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language pronunciation and the other is with creative thinking questions.
Figure 36. The Word card from “The Magical Pot.”
Firstly, “Ceramic pot” has two Paiwan pronunciations, “reretan” and “djilong.”
The previous one means “a pot with glyphs” and has the extended meaning, “honor.”
The latter one is a general term; “djilung.” Secondly, students are asked the creative thinking question: Which one is the male pot? And which one is the female pot? The answer is: The clay pots of Paiwan group are divided into three types: the male pot, the female pot, and the yin-yang pot. The male pot is characterized by the hundred-pace-snake pattern; the female pot with nipple pattern; the yin-yang pot with two of them.
(D) Drawing the story
Students were divided into five groups and asked to draw images of the Paiwan origin mythologies. The drawing provides an opportunity to learn both the Paiwan and Chinese languages. They are allowed to combine their cultural background, such as Korean origin mythologies with what they were to draw. The purpose of the activity was to help students gradually expand their knowledge boundaries through an
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examination of self-culture, appreciating others’ culture, and finally export cultural knowledge.
(S) Telling the story
Finally, each group would have one student to share their work on stage. The following is the researcher’s analysis after this teaching practice. From an inclusive perspective, the researcher was able to appreciate the beauty of multi-culturalism.
Intertwined views, perhaps echoes or conflicts both within and without the Paiwan culture, would be exposed. A colorful story about the origin of Paiwan ancestry might be built and internalized by the students.
The Drawing Results of Each Group:
Group One
In the first drawing, there is both the indigenous language and Korean language.
The drawing showed vocabulary they learned from the course, including: an egg, a snake, and a chief. These terms have corresponding words in Korean, while a clay pot
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seemed to have no similar concept in Korea. Students added two extra Korean words at the bottom of the right corner of the drawing: 김수로(gimsulo) and 가야 (gaya). It turned out to be similar mythology passed down in the history of the Korean Peninsula.
According to the myth, six golden eggs fell from the sky. Later, six princes were born from these same golden eggs. Jin, Shou-Lu was the first to be born, so he was named the Shou-Lu King. In Korean history, he was considered to be the ancient Korean people Gaya’s founding monarch before the 1700s.
Some details are interesting: The symbolic signs, nibbles, were drawn to depict the “female” pot. In the myth, the Sun laid eggs in the pot. Similarly, it was a reasonable detail that females bear infants. In addition, students did not distinguish between hundred-pacer snakes and the general term for snakes. The previous one is “vulung.”
The latter one is “qatjuvi.” Because the students did not draw a hundred-pacer snakes’
pattern, only “qatjuvi” was used.
Now look closely at the composition of pictures. In the middle of the paper, an egg expresses the shared theme for the Paiwan and Gaya origin story. In terms of the story’s theme, the “ancestry of the chief” for Paiwan people is equal to “Jin, Shou-Lu” for the mythical Korean Gayan country. This analysis demonstrated that: A complicated cultural concept could be explained by a corresponding term in the learners’ original language (Korean). This case is very significant because it is the very embodiment of culturally relevant teaching.
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Group Two
Paiwan culture and Western culture are integrated into this picture. The symmetry of composition and interesting images allow for deep analysis. Directly focusing on the center, a Paiwan leader plays the role of a judge, presiding over a court trial to decide people’s “good or evil.” In addition to the aid of text, the student drew the decoration of hundred-pacer snake to express the identity of the chief. It was a very surprising aspect to find because in the class the researcher didn’t introduce differences found among all classes of Paiwan clothing.
In addition, the Western monarch’s crown was used to express the concept of the Paiwan leader as well. For the Paiwan tribal group, a chief is like a “king in the honeycomb.” He or she is responsible to manage all things in a tribe, including naming the newborn and hosting important rituals and festivals. Moreover, the Paiwan community does not particularly emphasize the two opposing concepts of good and evil.
Instead, it is the Atayal tribe who emphasize the nature of good and evil during one’s lifetime, which influences whether people can reach the destination of the Rainbow Bridge after death and join their ancestors. These mixed elements showed Korean students’ misunderstanding of Paiwan culture.
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Group Three
The students from this group have an overall view of this course and creative
The students from this group have an overall view of this course and creative