Inter-Personal Relationships
in Constructions of Ethnic Boundaries and Traditions
Comparison and Contrast
The Ketagalan and Kavalan people had been believed to be siblings, having many traits in common. Some words in both languages are pronounced similarly.
Some oral legends reveal they emigrated from the same place, called Sanasai or
Sansai depending regional differences. However, what had happened to the
traditions of these two ethnic groups which have been connected with brotherhood, when their ethnic members both have been governed by alienated sovereignties and affected by the dominant foreign cultures? They have encountered problems and difficulties during they have been strived for cultural survivals. What differences lie in both ethnic movements when they revived, manipulated, and instituted their traditions to attract more recognition from within and out of the ethnic group?
Moreover, are there any similarities in their cultural revivals, when they both suffer the loss of their ethnic identity and culture, though they are dispersed in different regions and they are surrounded by different foreign ethnic groups? Looking into these paradoxical phenomena will enable us to be aware of the dynamic processes in the ethnic movements of the Ketagalan and Kavalan, as well as to discover more about what the ethnic traditions that have not been discussed in details, but crucial to the movements have been practiced.
i. Differences—environmental factors
The environmental differences have led these two ethnic communities to heterogeneous strategies when they have been thinking out ways to revive their cultures in their ethnic movements. The Kavalan Xinsher is the community where some of the Kavalan ancestors escaped the Han invasion in the Qing dynasty to the Yilan Plains; the economic pressure had pushed them to the places far away from homeland. The Ketagalan Xinsher is the community where some of their ancestors moved to, escaping the outer invasion as well, but their ancestors did not emigrate from such a far place as the Kavalan ones did; the Ketagalan people just moved to the neighboring sites. In addition, their environmental differences also include their relationships among the neighboring ethnic group. While the Kavalan people have been interacting with the Amis, the Ketagalan ones should learn to live with the Han people. Therefore, the degree of dominance in culture and economy of the neighboring ethnic group has influenced how much the Pingpu culture and identity could be preserved.
The Amis whom the Kavalan people in Xinsher live with are one of the minority groups in modern Taiwan society. Both of the Amis and the Kavalan here lack chances of making livings and almost every young people would leave their hometown to big cities to earn more money, with their parents and children staying lonely in the Xinsher tribe. However, due to the lower industrial developments in this area which is isolated along the eastern coast, the conflicts for the living resources among ethnic groups have not been strong, and people of every ethnic group mainly live by agriculture and fishing. The ethnic dominance has not been so obvious that either one has taken lots of advantages. Therefore, the Kavalan have successfully preserved most of their ethnic culture without totally being assimilated. Apart from
this advantage, the ethnic educations of mother-tongue and culture have been practiced in the Xinsher Primary School. Almost every Kavalan child can speak fluently their mother tongue with their family members, and even the Kavalan in Xinsher can speak the Amis language as well other languages because of their frequent interactions with other people. The religious ceremonies, the songs and ballads, the dances and other customs have been passed down to the following generations. Therefore, we can see why the Kavalan cultural revival movements could have been practiced by manipulating the traditions of language education and artistic performances. They are not only the daily experiences which ethnic members sense their differences from others, but also cultural residues of ethnic interactions, which authenticate their ethnic existence.
Comparatively, the Ketagalan language and customs are not as well-preserved as the Kavalan ones, and they must take some alternative approaches to revive ethnic identity and to strive for more recognition. The environmental factors of the Ketagalan Xinsher have been playing pivotal roles in their loss of ethnic culture and identity. Long affected by the economic and cultural invasions of the Han people, the Ketagalan descendents have lost their traditional styles of living. Most of the lands around Xinsher originally belonged to the Ketagalan ancestors, but then these lands were lost because of the invasions of the Han people. Cheating by signing contracts the indigenes did not understand and by playing tricks on the farms, the Han people have acquired most of the fertile fields in Xinsher around two hundred years ago when they immigrated in this area. It is an often-heard explanation, therefore, of the Ketagalan descendents nowadays in Xinsher that the reason why they would become poor is the Han robbery of the indigenous natural properties. Furthermore, the loss of the lands entails not only the loss of the traditional life styles and the
means for making their livings, but also that of the mechanisms for transmitting the ethnic culture. The protests against the construction of the Nuclear Plants were partially based on this crisis in cultural preservations. All in all, without preserving the living sources and cultural assets, they have at first lost their traditional lives and their cultural roots and voices to claim their rights were deprived then.
Contrast to the Kavalan isolation of their tribes, their economy and to the Kavalan preservation of their traditional lives, the Ketagalan descendents could provide little evidence to prove their ethnicity, but turn to the dead cultural heritages and relics, depicting and imagining an ancient culture or a much more advanced civilization to convince their “un-awaken” ethnic members and nonmembers who wish to know more about the Ketagalan. However, the traditions the movements have been utilizing might be alien not only to the nonmembers but also to the ethnic members. Therefore, the traditions of the title Ketagalan, the cultural heritages and archeological relics have been challenged for their authenticity and legitimacy repeated by ethnic members and nonmembers. This phenomenon of inconsistencies in opinions could be traced to the vacuum ethnic culture which results from the loss of the indigenous traditional living styles due to the drastic changes in their surroundings.
The essential differences lying between the Ketagalan and Kavalan traditions as movement strategies in their ethnic movements should be judged on the environmental factors.
ii. Differences—human factors
The human factors can as well explain the heterogeneous strategies when the traditions have been appropriated in the ethnic movements of the Kavalan and the Ketagalan people. As far as the Kavalan people in Hualien Xinsher are concerned,
the cultural revivals have begun when one of the ethnic members tried to find out people whose first name is identical to his, and to check if they are the Kavalan as his father had told him before (Taiwan Committee for Documents and Archives, 1999:
247). Moreover, the long-term ignorance of the ethnic members’ to be recognized as the indigenes by the government has been the reason why the Kavalan people in Xinsher hoped to revive their culture and presented their language and customs as the evidence of their existence. Therefore, we can see the initiatives of the ethnic movements were not personal or limited to some, but communal to all the descendents.
Although there might be misunderstandings of the movement activists’ intentions among the ethnic members, the zeal and the concerns for the ethnic culture and identification of the members and “un-awaken” members have proved their promotions of the official recognition and culture revivals did not earn much for the enthusiasts, but took them much money, time and effort to interview people around the island, to participate in many activities held by various people to spread their ideas, to maintain good relationships with the interested and helpful sources, including media and academic researchers, etc.10 Therefore, the activists in Xinsher have become not only the leaders, but also the ethnic symbols of the Kavalan ethnic group;
identification with these leaders usually leads to the identification with the Kavalan ethnic group.
Besides, the religious strength has assisted the Kavalan people to stay together to strive for the ethnic identity. There have been three sects of the western religion, and the ancestry worship which people of no specific religious belief have been practicing.
However, when the ethnic movements began, the movement leaders of different
10 What the leading activists of Hualien Xinsher in the Kavalan cultural revival movements have done for their people can been seen detailed in Zhen Yijun, 2003a. 83-6.
religions appealed that the ethnic members should discard the religious differences to look for the union and the identity of the Kavalan ethnic group. The Kavalan people not only have made it, but also cultivated a tradition of praying in respective ways before they departed to Yilan for the artistic performances of their songs and dances, for example, or before they edited their mother-tongue teaching materials. People of various religious beliefs, therefore, could find out their spiritual supports in the ethnic movements filled with fatigue and frustration. All in all, based on the unselfish diligence of the movement leaders and the religious supports crosscutting the religious boundaries, the tradition of union of the Kavalan people has been formed, and this tradition has provided a communal intention that convinced the government and nonmembers to recognize the Kavalan identity.
While the human factors have also led to the tradition of cooperation and union, the Ketagalan tradition of separate labor to strive for their ethnic identity have partly resulted from the human relationships. The beginning of the Ketagalan cultural revival movements could be traced to the protest against the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Plant around the Ketagalan Xinsher. Since the construction would destroy their cultural heritages, the Ketagalan descendents in Xinsher united many ethnic members to think out ways to revive their culture as well as identity. They have excavated a lot of oral legends about the ethnic origin and immigration. The archeological discoveries in the nuclear construction site furthermore have strengthened their beliefs that their ancestor had lived here and that these ancestors had created an advanced civilization. Even the government sent out official good will to take into consideration the appeals of the Ketagalan people by renaming the road before the Presidential Hall with the ethnic title. It seemed that everything was ready for the official recognition of the Ketagalan ethnic group.
However, the inconsistencies of opinions in the disposal of the financial support from the government destroyed the solidarity among ethnic members in the cultural revival movements. Some would like to use the money to remove the cultural heritages to the memorial hall built around the Xinsher tribe, while some would like to share the money with others without holding any ethnic movements. Due to the heterogeneous intentions, the ethnic members had no choice but to stop the whole projects of the cultural revival movements or some of them found their own ways to earn others’ recognition. For example, some would stay in the Xinsher tribe, introducing to others the cultural heritages. Some would resort to the archeological discoveries to create the imagination of the Ketagalan civilization, and put the achievement of the civilization into practice, that is, the comprehensive construction of the Mauao community. All in all, contrast to the solidarity of the Kavalan people, the Ketagalan descendents have separated their labor, striving for more recognition without uniting their strategies. Without the spiritual strength of religions, it seemed to be much harder for the Ketagalan descendents to have consensus over the revival of the ethnic culture and identity, solely based on the material consideration. The separate labor in the cultural revival movements not only hindered the whole ethnic movement of identity striving, but also confused the nonmembers with the far more incredulous explanations of the ethnic origin or with the incoherent descriptions of ethnic culture.
The environmental and human factors have caused the heterogeneity of strategies used in the Kavalan and Ketagalan cultural revival movements. The differences in territorial openness and the degree of dominance of the neighboring ethnic group, the different purposes of the movement activists for reviving ethnic culture and identity, and the control or loss of spiritual supports have decided what propensities of the
ethnic traditions would be taken to prove their ethnic existences. Although the Ketagalan and the Kavalan people have been heterogeneous in various ways, their appropriations of traditions still have one thing in common—the invention of traditions.
iii. Similarities—inter-personal relationships
Despite the fact that these two ethnic groups have a lot of differences due to various factors, there lies the invention of traditions which makes the strategies of the movements of these two groups are, to some extent, identical.
Even though the Kavalan people have preserved many traditional customs and most of their mother-tongue, they still have to deal with the needs in the movements and daily lives. The artistic tradition of performing songs and dances was invented.
Many songs and dances have been created to perform in different stages, including the local competitions, the invited shows in the 228 Memorial Park and the Green Expo in Yilan. Because the songs and dances were not all passed down or remembered by the members, the elders appropriated not only the traditional religious ceremonies to produce the dances, but also the melodies of the Amis and the religious hymns to make many songs for performances of different atmospheres. Apart from the invention of the songs and dances, this tradition of artistic performances would not be complete without the repetitive practices of the ethnic members year after year and the effective institution by the choice of the ethnic members whenever they would like to present the Kavalan culture. Besides, the tradition of mother-tongue education was invented, too. In order to save the Kavalan language, the movement activists cooperated with the academic researchers and governments to encourage the members to learn their mother tongue. After many years’ endeavor, children can
speak fluently with the elders and the ethnic members are glad to send their kids to learn the Kavalan language. We can say this phenomenon has resulted from not merely the invention of learning mother tongue, but also the effective institution in the basic education as well the never-ending practices of speaking the Kavalan language in daily lives.
Last but not the least, the group of elders who have promoted these ethnic traditions has become a tradition as well. Although their artistic inventions were sometimes challenged and their invented linguistic usages were quite depended first on personal experiences and then on the unified teaching materials given by government, their authority in inventing traditions has not changed since more than a decade ago. These changes and challenges have not altered their authority, but helped this tradition of production to be instituted effectively and repetitively practiced in the cultural revival movements. They are still the ones asked to add more contents to the movements. This tradition of production is not just a simple wish of several elders; it involves complicated processes of interaction among people, including ethnic members and nonmembers.
As far as the Ketagalan are concerned, the traditions of visiting the cultural heritages and relics were invented, then instituted and practiced daily or annually in the cultural revival movements. In order to authenticate the ethnic existence, the Ketagalan descendents took the cultural heritages and relics discovered and excavated by the anthropologists to convince others. They invented a tradition of knowing what the Ketagalan culture is by leading many ethnic members to these places to share this sense of imagined community; they also led nonmembers to visit these heritages and relics to experience the Ketagalan culture and civilization achievements,
hoping that this visiting can be the traditional starting point to know the ethnic traits.
I think they have made it a successful tradition, since every time when the ethnic activities were held, the cultural heritages and archeological relics would never be missed physically and verbally, even though some ethnic members and cultural workers did not agree to the perspectives from the Xinsher descendents. The regular activities have successfully instituted the tradition of visiting these old things in daily lives, and repetitive discussions of these old things, albeit opposing, have made this tradition much more solid in the movements.
In a nutshell, the invention of traditions is not made up with the creators’ wills, but inclusive of interactions among people. The interaction can bring about the institution and repetition of the practices of the traditions. Were it not for these three key factors, the language education would have been simply an impracticable wish of an elder in Kavalan Xinsher; the songs and dances would have been forgotten right after the members came back from these invited performances; the zealous elders in the Kavalan Xinsher would have lost their authorities with the burgeoning concerns for the Kavalan culture, and the Ketagalan heritages and relics would have been regarded as insane fabrications. Although the Kavalan and Ketagalan ethnic groups have many differences between them, the invention of traditions has become a quite common phenomenon in both cultural revival movements.
Conclusion and Self-Reflection
This thesis paper begins with the academic fights between the primordialism and the instrumentalism when it comes to the explanations of the formations of ethnicity.
The compromise of these two camps led to the transfer of the academic attention to
the maintenance of the ethnic boundary which the ethnic members may cross-cut without damaging the dichotomy, or they may deny without changing their ethnic identities. The perspective of the ethnic boundary provides us with an interesting viewpoint to look into how traditions in ethnic movements have augmented the formations of the Kavalan and Ketagalan ethnic identities. I will conclude my research that although there are many differences between traditions of these two ethnic groups due to the territorial and human factors, there still lies the similarity that both of their traditions in the ethnic movements are the consequences of the intentional production, effective institution and repetitive practices.
The primordial perspective has offered researchers the prescriptive traits of an
The primordial perspective has offered researchers the prescriptive traits of an