CHAPTER 3. LITERATURE REVIEW
3.2 Paiwan Society
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indigenous traditional culture is crucial to motivate indigenous youth to return home, and they searched for reasons for going back home and self-identification through learning local cultures (He, 2006) — their need for indigenous identity was evoked in an urban area.
Additionally, their familial identity is dependent on their parents’ attitudes (He, 2006). The research findings show that their parents’ possible attitudes include work-based measurement, traditional culture, and indigenous youths’ dynamic identity through their life stage (He, 2006)
However, firstly the study did not include interviewees’ contexts of their communities and did not specify their life experiences in both urban and community settings. Secondly, the selection of interviewees did not reflect the sense of place of a specific locality. Thirdly, the study focuses on their experiences as practitioners of returning home rather than how their social interrelation within and outside their communities produces a sense of place of their original communities.
3.2 Paiwan Society
3.2.1 Paiwan Social Structure
The social structure of a particular place is a crucial element to local peoples’
place identity. Massy (1994) suggested that juxtaposition and co-presence of
particular social interrelations of place produce and effect place identity. Furthermore, such social interrelations go beyond and will be more extensive than the area being referred to in any particular context of a place (Massy, 1994). Therefore, there is a
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need to address the Paiwan social structure in which the urban Tjuvecekadan youths grew up to shed light on their sense of New Tjuvecekadan.
In terms of social structure, traditional Paiwan society has a hereditary
aristocracy, Mamazangilan (chief), and Katidan (commoner) (Tan，2007). Paiwan people are divided into two subgroups, one is Ravar, and the other one is Vuculj. The Ravar group is situated in the northern part of the Paiwan region and has constant interactions with its neighboring Rukai people (Tan, 2007). The Vuculj group is the dominant group in the whole Paiwan people in both population and area.
Tjuvecekadan belongs to the Vuculj group. Vuculj and Ravar speak the same Paiwan language, however, with different accents and dialects. The distinct difference between the Ravar and Vuculj is that the Ravar group follows a patriarchal system in passing down chieftain and family property. In contrast, the Vuculj group assigns the firstborn of the family regardless of its gender as the heir of a family and the heir to the chieftain. Traditionally, a chief owns the community lands, and commoners rent pieces of the community land to grow crops and give the chief some corps as tax.
(Chao et al., 2013).
A chief enjoys certain privileges, for example:
“First, all the villages should respect the chief, and all the traditional Paiwan festivals will take place in the chief's house. Second, the chief can use certain totems such as patterns of the human body, human head, and hundred-pacer
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Third, certain names are limited to only the chief family”
(Chao et al., 2013, p. 67)
Paiwan geographical knowledge can shed light on its social structure.
Traditionally, in Paiwan society, there are five terms to describe a land due to its distinctive character and usage. In the Paiwan language, Kadjunangan is the general term for land; Vavuwa translates to arid land; Can means paddy fields — a borrowed word from the Southern Min language; Kasikasivan translates to a forest; Pana means river (Yeh 2002). Qinaljan means the community land where people build their houses (Yeh 2002). Qinaljan also refers to a ritualized domain that takes form at a chief family’s ritual site during a festival or ritual (Tan, 1992).
According to Kou (2003), the basic social unit of Tjuvecekadan society is Umaq, a slate stone house, suggesting one family, and several Umaq form a clan (Siruvetjek).
Finally, several clans constitute Qinaljan (Kou, 2003). The traditional rituals at a chief family’s ritual site is a medium that connects all the families spiritually and
consolidates the centrality of a Qinaljan (Tan, 1992).
In terms of Paiwan traditional rituals, both Ravar and Vuculj share the same tradition of the Masalut, the annual millet harvesting festival. However, the Ravar group does not have the Maljeveq ritual, the ancestors worshiping ceremony once every five years, nor the Pusau ritual, which takes place a year after a Maljeveq.
Pusau is to farewell those ancestral spirits who participated in the Maljeveq.
Tjuvecekadan people have continued practiced all the rituals mentioned earlier. There were currently nine Paiwan communities that have continued the tradition of
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Maljeveq, namely, Tjuvecekadan, Kuljaljau, Vungalid, Pucunug, Takamimura, Tjuabar, Pailus, Ralekeleke, and Kinayiman.
Additionally, there are ten sacred ritual sites for various purposes in Paiwan culture, where a chief (Mamazangilan), Paiwan male traditional faith practitioner (Parakaljai), and Paiwan Female traditional faith practitioner (Pulingaw) get involved (Tan, 2007). A chief is a leader in a ritual, involving a whole community, whereas Parakaljai and Pulingaw implement all the ritual process, called Palisi. Palisi means ritual, taboos, and sacred. Pulingaw is medium to the ancestral spirits and can communicate with the ancestral spirits directly.
One of the most important ritual sites is Vinqacan, a sacred place exclusive to a chief family (Kou, 2003; Kou, 2019) ; ritual specialists (Pulingaw and Parakaljai ) worship, call , and connect all the ancestral spirits from a community (Kou, 2003 and Tan 2007). Major rituals such as Masalut, Maljeveq, and Pusau start at a Vinqacan.
Traditionally, a vinqacan is built inside a chief’s house in a conventional slate stone structure (Kou, 2003). Nowadays, the vinqacan in New Tjuvecekadan is an individual structure built next to a chief family’s house, a mini structure imitating a traditional slate stone house, see Figure 2. Vinqacan is the house where the ancestral spirits returned to (Kou, 2003) during a ritual.
“Vinqacan is a benchmark to form a community, a symbol of a chief’s authority and such authority manifests during a ritual implemented by a group of ritual specialists (Pulingaw
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“Vinqacan connects the past, the present, and the future of a community, and enables the communication between people and ancestral spirit. The prosperity of a vinqacan affects a community’s fortune and continuity of future generations.” (Kou, 2019, p.88)
Linguistically, the word, vinqacan connotates the place of origin (Kou, 2013;
Kou, 2019), and a ritual site with sacred quality (Kou, 2013). Vinqacan also refers to the place where the first fire started after finishing building a chief’s house (Kou, 2013). Kou (2019) argues that a vinqacan is seen as a symbol of a chief’s legitimate authority in the contemporary context and such power is manifested in a ritual.
Furthermore, the rise of vinqacan revitalization among Paiwan communities has become a social practice in which a chief legitimates his/her power (Kou, 2019).
With Umaq (a house) as the basic family unit, and the Vusam (the firstborn child) in a Umaq is the core value of Paiwan society (Kao, 2018). Vusam in the Paiwan language means the selected seed to continue the next farming season (Chou, 2001).
The meaning of Vusam further suggests that firstborn, regardless of his/her gender and social position (both chief and non-chief family), are like the selected seeds, bearing a responsibility to continue the familyhood.
Moreover, a Vusam is entitled to inherit his/her family house, property, and family name. On the other hand, a Vusam bears a great deal of familial responsibility.
Paiwan people expect a Vusam to provide financial support to their families, taking
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care of parents, and helping younger siblings establish their family (Yang, 2005).
Vusam is a well-respected role by his/her parents, elders, and younger siblings (Li, 2010) as Vusam needs to take tremendous duties to maintain his/her family.
Matsuzawa (1976) suggests that primogeniture succession, bilocal or neolocal residential arrangement, property inheritance, and hierarchical social system are the mechanism that forms the Paiwan society.
Therefore, in an inquiry, would the Vusam (firstborns) of the urban
Tjuvecekadan youths feel a valid obligation for their family in New Tjuvecekadan, which leads to their motivation to return to New Tjuvecekadan to fulfill their familial duties and develop connections with the local people?
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Figure 2. Vinqacan in New Tjuvecekadan.
Photo taken in Feb. 19th 2018 by Chao Hsiu-Ying
3.2.2 Paiwan People’s Internal Migrating Patterns
In terms of the internal migrating patterns of urban indigenous peoples, there are distinct differences within various indigenous groups. In the case of the Paiwan people, the traditional Vusam system has played a crucial role in how Paiwan migrating between their original communities and urban setting. In general, Paiwan people move between their original towns and cities seasonally and periodically
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(Yang, 2005), as opposed to the Amis people, the largest indigenous group that settled in cities. Paiwan people base in their hometowns that their land, house, and household registration remain in their original communities; they move to cities merely for work (Fu, 1995). Yang’s (1999) case study on the Paiwan people of the Piuma community suggests that the local Piuma people hold an active connection to their hometown, Piuma, and they regard cities as places to temporarily stay.
Furthermore, the migration pattern revolves around a Vusam (the firstborn of the family regardless of his/her gender). The Vusam of a family is expected to remain in the original community; however, it is common that a Vusam spend time living in cities for education or work. Finally, a Vusam needs to go back and settle down in his/her original community after he/she finished education or get married (Yang, 2005). On the other hand, the rest of the younger siblings who live in cities for work would visit their original communities seasonally to help out the Vusam's local crop harvest, for example, mango harvest season (Yang, 2005). Such a situation, in the same way, manifests in the characteristic of the urban Paiwan people. Yang’s (2005) case study found that most of the Paiwan people of Piuma who settle in Danfeng, New Taipei city, are the younger siblings of their families.
Paiwan traditional social structure has significantly shaped the way of how Paiwan people migrate to cities and people’s relationships with their original communities.