CHAPTER 3- CONFIGURATION OF IDENTITY
3.5 GAGA: ATAYAL JUSTICE AND GOVERNANCE SYSTEM
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located as the criteria for classification. Wei distinguished the following river basin into separate classifying units. It is a unique classification which can efficiently explain the distribution of the Atayal (Wei and He,1 2017). However, this classification became more unreliable after collective resettlement policy that
dispossessed Atayal communities to the plains in the mid Taisho period (1912-1926) during the Japanese colonial period.
3.5 GAGA: ATAYAL JUSTICE AND GOVERNANCE SYSTEM
Within the organization of village level, the ritual group gaga which derives its member based on kin tie, local bound and friendship is the most important social unit in the possession of full function (Li, 1963). Before their integration into the
successive Japanese and Chinese (Republic of China) states, the universe was structured according to a moral order called gaga. Any violations of the moral order were perceived to bring misfortune upon both individuals and the entire community.
Individuals who violated gaga, for example, would fail to catch wild boars while hunting, would fall easily on dangerous mountain slopes, and would be bitten more easily by insects. Major violations of gaga, including the breaking sexual taboos, required certain rituals to restore order (Mowna, 1998) Traditional gaga, just like state law is comprehensive. Scholars translate the word into modern concept as customary law, or even culture, religion system, governance system. It is the philosophy to govern the people and people to land relations.
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In the social organization perspective, gaga had wide-range flexibility. An individual can choose to join or withdraw from a gaga by his own will. However, joining and withdrawing gaga has to go through the strict ritual ceremony.The informant told me:
“When I was a kid, I saw a man want to leave the gaga to join another gaga. At beginning, the man who wan to leave he talk to elders and drink alcohol with elders. The elders agree but tell the man to kill the pigs and share the meat with all the gaga member. Also, to offer the alcohol the the members. And he eventually can leave.”9
In addition, gaga is flexible enough to divide from or combine with another gaga, and a single community can hold a gaga or several gaga groups. Owning to its
nature, it develops into the community leader (mraho qalan), under which there are several gaga leader (mraho gaga)10. Community leader are representative of foreign affair and gaga leader are in charge of the internal affair of each gaga. Each gaga does not intervene to other gaga’s internal affairs. The leader of gaga has the authority on the the executive of customary law, and ritual (Li, 1963).
Wang demonstrated that gaga is not just a term identifying a special social organization as previous researchers had believed; rather, it stands for “cultural norms” related to beliefs about the supernatural (Wang, 2008). In ritual practice, gaga may apply to several kinds of social categories, including the community, utux nekis (literally, ‘one-ancestor’), household, person, and now the Christian church. Through obeying norms and practicing rituals, the social grouping is therefore dynamically
9 Interview conducted by the author with DK on March 12, 2016.
10 Interview conducted by the author with AJ on March 19, 2016.
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built. Apart from examining the complexity of social grouping. From the informants and the scholars’ research analysis, the profound meaning of gaga can be explained in the multiple and dimensional perspectives. The gaga refers to norms, regulations and ritual proscriptions, a person’s identity or good luck.
In the political perspective, without formal political institutions or written law, the moral code known as gaga was crucial for maintaining social equilibrium. A
‘gaga’ can be considered as an egalitarian community. When collective activity was needed, the members of the community will share the labor, take responsibility for food, bear the risk and guilt together. In the Atayal community, gaga systems have the following functions: (a) to maintain the common security; (b) the function of religion and economy: agriculture, ritual ceremony and sharing of the food; (c) labor groups: exchange time of mutual assistance systems.11
Despite experiencing serious shifts in the political, religious, and economic setting in which they live, the Atayal people continue to show the flexibility and adjustment as the meaning of the gaga. The Atayal have not grown alienated from each other and from their products because of change. In deciding whether to become involved in growing new crops, they are not solely influenced by market price and stability, but they also take into account how the new crops fit into their traditional understanding of work and the values they place on it (Wang, 2001). In addition, following gaga, the Atayal doesn’t put economic surplus as the priority and rejected the creation of permanent positions of power. Individuals who accumulated wealth or
11 Interview conducted by the author with AJ on March 19, 2016.
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power for themselves or their own families were perceived as selfish and greedy and would be ostracized. The moral principle of sharing is strictly observed at large social event such as weddings, or completion of the new house when the sacrificed pig is correspondingly distributed to families on a list of community members and to whom had contributed their labor and time. Incompatible with capitalist development, as capitalism depends on private accumulation of wealth, whereas the Atayal governance system of gaga is centered around an egalitarian ethos of community-based sharing.
A territorial grouping or band was known as an alang which egalitarian political organization implemented through Mraho, and gaga was replaced with formal political offices to manage relations between communities and states. In effect, this was the end of the alang as limited, sovereign entity. (Simon, 2010) Work groups saw the emergence of Mraho, temporary leaders who is considered courageous, intelligent and industrious, for the immediate needs of hunting, work organization, and,
formerly, migration, but these men rarely had any influence beyond the task at hand.
Simon Scott regards him as the Men of influence who “perform conciliatory and redistributive tasks” (Simon, 2010).
In summary, before foreign political powers entered Taiwan, the Atayal indigenous people had enjoyed autonomy according to their own cultural model on our traditional territory. The Nan’ao Atayal is the example of the statement. A community which is located mostly on a terrace or mountain ridge is an autonomous entity in the political sense. The authority of the community is exercised by the
community leader (Mraho). The community leader is elected among the leaders of the
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local ritual group (gaga) on account of his personal character and knowledge on productive and ritual affairs.
Atayal of Nan’ao constitutes an important and integral dimension of their collective self. Yet, these configurations of Atayal identity are now being subjected not only to contesting claims advanced by the mining company and the state, but also counterclaims that have erupted among the Atayal people themselves who are now divided between religious groups, political factions, mining development. However, they are resilient enough to accommodate to and adopted influences from the outside world.
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