國立交通大學
語言與文化研究所
碩 士 論 文
Traditions and Pingpu Cultural Revival Movements
—Kavalan and Ketagalan as Examples
研 究 生：莊欽閔
指導教授：浦忠成 博士
—Kavalan and Ketagalan as Examples
研 究 生：莊欽閔
Student: Chinmin Zhuang
指導教授：浦忠成
Advisor: Zhongzheng Pu
國 立 交 通 大 學
語言與文化研究所
碩 士 論 文
A Thesis
Submitted to the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Graduate Institute of Linguistics and Cultural Studies
National Chiao Tung University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Art
in
Graduate Institute of Linguistics and Cultural Studies
July 2005
Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China
中文摘要
本 文 借 用 霍 布 斯 邦(Eric Hobsbawm) 對 於 傳 統 的 創 發 (invention of traditions)，以及巴斯(Fredrik Barth)所主張的族群邊界(ethnic boundary)理論，來 觀察在噶瑪蘭族與凱達格蘭族的族群文化復振運動之中，當傳統做為一種運動策 略與族群邊界的時候，族群內部以及內外部之間成員互動的情形。本文將指出， 儘管這兩族之間因為漢化程度、族群成員鬆散程度不一而形成不同的運動策略， 但是兩個族群在運用傳統文化或是文化傳統來恢復族群文化與回復族群認同的 過程中，族群成員內部之間以及內外部的互動均是讓此種運用傳統的運動策略能 夠有效帶領文化復振運動的原因。因此，本文想藉由這兩族族群文化復振運動的 比較，一方面補充噶瑪蘭族復振運動的觀察，另一方面針對凱達格蘭族復振運動 做出更深入的分析。 本文分為四章。第一章將大略描述本文的架構與田野背景，並且在文獻回顧 的部分會將族群理論中關於族群意識來源的探討做整理分析，再輔以台灣與西方 的例子來探討傳統在文化復振運動之中的情況。 第二章則是以噶瑪蘭族的部分進行探討，這部份將以族群的族語教育、藝術 的表演與文字藝術創作者權威，以及運動中後設的(metaphysical)組織統合力量做 為探討的對象。這些傳統之所以能引領整個族群運動是因為在型塑的過程之中， 是以族群內部及族群內外部之間的互動做為基礎，而發起族群復振運動。 第三章的部分則是以凱達格蘭族為探討對象，在這個章節的分析將放在族群 的族名、族群文化遺址遺跡，以及分散的族群力量，這三個傳統除了與噶瑪蘭族 的三個傳統成為對比而可供觀察差異之外，卻也歸納出與前一章相同的關鍵因 素—族群內部以及內外部之間的互動，才是讓到目前為止凱達格蘭族族群運動得 以進行的原因。 第四章的部分則是首先將本文當中提到的兩個族群利用傳統來進行文化復 振的策略進行比較，指出其差異點以及相似點，而最後再總結本文。
ethnic boundary, interactions
Abstract
This thesis tries to explore the interactions among the ethnic members and between members and nonmembers, when traditions are taken as the movement strategies and ethnic boundaries in the Kavalan and Ketagalan cultural revival movements. This thesis will adopt the notions “invention of tradition” by Eric Hobsbawm and “ethnic boundary” by Fredrik Barth. This thesis will indicate that although these ethnic groups adopt different strategies due to the various degrees of loss of indigenous culture and of unity of ethnic members, the intra-group and inter-group interactions are the similar, crucial trait for either group successfully to revive their ethnic culture and to arouse ethnic identity while they are using traditional culture/ cultural traditions as their strategies. Therefore, this thesis hopes to, with the comparisons and contrasts between Kavalan and Ketagalan, complement the observations in the Kavalan cultural revival movements on the one hand, and to further analyze the Ketagalana cultural revival movements on the other.
The thesis will be elaborated in four chapters. The first chapter will briefly describe the structure of the thesis and the background of field study. Besides, the literature reviews will analyze traditions in the cultural revival movements with the theories of ethnicity formation and similar examples in Taiwan and other regions.
The second chapter will focus on the Kavalan traditions, including the mother-tongue education, the artistic performances, the authorities of the word-makers and artists, and the metaphysical collectivity. The reason why these traditions can arouse the ethnic identity and revive the ethnic culture is that their formations depend on the interactions among members and between members and nonmembers.
The third chapter will turn to the Ketagalan traditions. Our foci are the ethnic title, the cultural heritages and ancient relics, and the separate labor for identity striving. Aside from the contrasts between traditions of either group, this chapter also proposes the similar reason discussed in the former chapter to make the movements attractive to members and nonmembers as to earn more recognition and to arouse ethnic identity.
The final chapter will first compare the traditions as movement strategies of either group to revive ethnic culture and to arouse ethnic identity, and then sum up the differences and similarities. Finally, there lies the conclusion of the thesis.
After having burning midnight’s oils in piles of books at nearly every night of three years, and after having commuted from Taipei and two Pingpu tribes in several months, I finally finished my thesis paper. These efforts make me realize that any achievement in my life does not solely come from my own endeavors; without assistances and encouragements from many people would not this paper be completed.
I would like to thank Professor Pu Zhongzheng (浦忠成), since he granted to instruct my thesis without much hesitation and he has been directing me to a much wider vision so that my thesis has been enriched. Moreover, I would like to thank Professor Zhen Sujuen (詹素娟), since she has been providing a lot of empirical insights and theoretical inspirations for me to brainstorm, especially when I got perplexed in arguments. Also, I would like to thank Professor Yu Junwei (余君偉), since without his guidance would I forget I am a graduate student in a department of foreign languages; he has reminded me of so many perspectives I have learned but missed, while the anthropological and historical investigations have prevailed in my thesis.
Besides, I would like to thank my family. With their financial and spiritual supports, I could concentrate on my thesis paper. I would like to thank Sarah, my dear girlfriend, since her ever-lasting warmth and never-ending company have underpinned me to survive in every hardship coming to me.
In addition, I must thank my interviewees, since their hospitality, wisdom and experiences have helped me save a lot of time to be quickly aware of the whole ethnic phenomena. No matter where they are, Kongliao, Hualien, or Taipei, I must give my sincere gratitude to them all, and the completion of the thesis will not be end of our friendship.
Furthermore, I would like to thank many people, including my old friends in my neighborhood, my friends in HSNU, my elderly friends in NCTU helping me solve every tiny but vital problem during my days in NCTU, my classmates in my graduate school and in the Department of Taiwan Literature, NTHU. Their encouragements have saved me out of difficulties, and the memories in the days with them all will be engraved upon the bottom of my heart.
Abstract……….. I
Acknowledgements……… … II
Contents……….. III
Chapter 1
Introduction ……….1
Chapter 2
Kavalan: Traditions as Movement Strategies in a
Culturally
Well-Preserved
Ethnic
Group………...
24
Chapter 3
Ketagalan: Traditions as Movement Strategies in a
Culturally
Vacuous
Ethnic
Group………..
43
Chapter 4
Different Fates, Similar Approaches: Inter-Personal
Relationships
in
Constructions
of
Ethnic
Boundaries
and
Traditions……….64
Chapter One
Introduction
In this thesis paper, I intend to explore traditions in two Pingpu tribes, and to see how they have been practiced respectively in the formations of the ethnic identity of the Ketagalan（凱達格蘭族）and Kavalan（噶瑪蘭族）. Traditions, along with kinship, language, religion, territory and experiences of suffering, are major cultural characteristics which form the basis of the ethnic identity. Besides, social and political interests can also establish the basis of the ethnic identification. Different situations would lead to different choices of these characteristics or interests to draw the ethnic boundaries, while the ethnicity would come from both cultural heritage and social needs. Take Taiwan indigenous people for instance; traditions have been playing key roles in searching for their self-identity. The heritage arouses not only the memories deeply buried in people’s minds, but also the group consciousness among them. This consciousness oftentimes unites people to complete some goals. Judged from the experiences of Taiwan indigenous people, it is often found that they ask for more social rights, privileges and status while the acquisition of their identification with the ethnic group is being formed. Official recognition, for instance, is one of the commonest appeals local indigenous people have desired for. Because of the contributions from the revived culture, the cultural revival activities relevant and helpful to self-identification are so important that they have been frequently held in the indigenous regions. Traditions, therefore, prove to be one of the vital parts of the identity formation in the local indigenous communities.
identity, cultural characteristics and social interests, I will then explore the traditions in the cultural revival movements of Ketagalan and Kavalan respectively. The anti-nuke movements have gathered groups of people to defend the Ketagalan sacred cultural inheritances; the kinship with a remote Kavalan tribe aroused the buried memories and the ignored ethnic relationships. Different factors have influenced the formations of these Pingpu identifications. However, for a community in which the Pingpu culture is hardly preserved due to the prevalent Han culture, how do the Ketagalan traditions cope with the modern situations for survival? Do they have to change to adapt to the present circumstances? If they are changed, how can these adapted traditions still play as the key element to draw the ethnic boundary? Could the non-Ketagalan traditions function similarly to mark who the Ketagalan are? On the other hand, in such a community where the Pingpu traditions are influenced by the Han and Amis, how does the Kavalan traditional culture cope with the challenges from the cultural interactions? If traditions were changed, how do these adapted Kavalan traditions continue to distinguish the Kavalan from others? If traditions remain as they were, do they still draw the same line between the Kavalan and others? In this essay, the Ketagalan Xinsher in Xandiao tribe and the Kavalan Xinsher in Hualien are my main cites for observation. Based on the different backgrounds of the Ketagalan and the Kavalan, this essay tries to explore how traditions have been influencing the formations of the ethnic identity in each community. Not only the differences but also the similarities lying between these two ethnic groups are my primary concerns. The differences will tell us how the local factors of these two ethnic groups have made impacts on their individual identity formations, whereas the similarities of two groups reveal that the mixed cultural traditions brought about by ethnic interactions can still draw the ethnic boundary. This essay tries to prove that the cultural boundary does not mean the ethnic one, and that cultural interactions
within traditions in these two Pingpu communities are complicated but worthy of our more attention to study them.
Literature Review and Theory
i. Ethnic group, ethnicity, and ethnic identity.
When it comes to the studies of the ethnic groups, the ethnicity and the ethnic identity, the controversies between primordialism and instrumentalism should not be ignored. Although two camps of researchers took different sides to explain the origins of the ethnic groups and of their derivatives, their desires were the same for finding out how the ethnic groups are formed, how the ethnic identity is aroused, and how the ethnicity is produced.
The primordialists put more emphases on the given attachments which come with the birth of people. Pierre van den Berghe (1981) proposes that “ethnic and racial sentiments are extension of kinship sentiments. Ethnocentrism and racism are thus extended forms of nepotism—the propensity to favor kin over nonkin” (18). He argues that the more genetically and biologically related people are, the more likely they will be altruistic to each other, trying to “maximize their inclusive fitness” (35). The degree of the nepotistic relevance, along with the rational calculation of interests, will entail people decide to cooperate or conflict.1 Clifford Geertz (1996[1963], 43-5) indicates that not only the consanguinity of blood but also the kinships of
1 Despite that I take van den Berghe’s primordial viewpoint on the ethnicity, I did not mean that he
denied the instrumental perspective. In fact, he combines these two separate viewpoints, saying they can complement each other. He argues that aside from the nepotism there are still two factors—ecological and cultural ones—influencing human behaviors. This compromised stance is the often-seen perspective many following researchers have taken, after the debate of many years over why people choose to stay together. For more details, refer to van den Berghe, 1981.
marriage and adoption, language, region, shared religious beliefs and customs can produce the primordial attachments which might arouse ethnic discontents that require the notice of every modern sovereignty. Charles Keyes implies that the cultural characteristics of primordial attachments are the basic elements and the standard of categorizations of the ethnic groups (Zhong Yolang, 1995: 9).2 Among these cultural traits, Keyes (1976) proposes that the “shared descent” is the most vital element in the ethnic identity formation (Hsieh Shizhong, 2004a: 75). Keyes stresses the advantages of the consanguinity in the formation of the ethnic identity, but he did not agree to the socio-biological perspective that the gene decides what ethnic group people choose to identify with. Instead, Keyes indicates that the cultural heritage people identify with is not decided by the consanguinity, but learned as cultural symbols to mark the members in the ethnic group (Su Yuling, 1995: 2; Yang Linghwei, 1996: 1). Generally speaking, the primordialists assert that the ethnicity comes from the cultural traits and what is passed down from the ancestors plays the most important role in the ethnic identity formation. This decent is not only genetic, but social which means that people will learn the cultural characteristics after birth and that people try to distinguish themselves from others as well as to establish their ethnic identities with the acquired cultural traits.
Although Keyes is classified as one of the defenders in the primordialism camp, his propositions are not consistent with others’ perspective that every identity comes from the consanguinity; he turned to a point-of-view that the ethnic identity is culturally constructed (Zhong Yolan, 1995: 9). Obviously it is impossible for the primordialists to ignore the human intentions in the identity formation, and it leads us to the perspective of the instrumentalism.
The instrumentalists claim that the ethnic group is an interest group which may change its identity when people pursue the fulfillment of a certain interest. Therefore, the ethnic group is not fixed, but fluid. People can choose their identities at their will, and move from one ethnic group to another, according to what they identify with. The fluid categorizations of the ethnic groups, therefore, imply the formation of the ethnic identity can be varied in order to accomplish certain goals or to fulfill some desires. All in all, the ethnic identity in the instrumental sense is no longer fixed to the kinships or the consanguinity which the primordialists stress, but varied according to different social circumstances. Based on a dialectical mode of ethnic variation, Keyes (1981) proposes that when people have interactions as individuals or groups to pursue their interests, people will take new cultural meanings and modes to adapt to the new situations, and then a new identity or the old identity with new meaning will be constructed to differentiate members and nonmembers. Keyes turns to assert that “[B]oth the cultural attributes that are presumed to be associated with an ethnic identity and the social uses for which groups are mobilized with reference to their ethnic identity can vary through time” (27), re-evaluating the importance of the circumstantial factors in the formation of ethnicity. Moreover, Cohen (1981) has provided an example from the Creoles in Sierra Leone who establish their ethnic identity in order to look for official services in the government. The creoles had intermittently changed their identity in each phase Cohen implies according to their social and political needs. He finds that the “[C]reole ethnicity came to its own . . . when the first time they faced a cataclysmic challenge to their hitherto privileged position, at times to their very livelihood and to their possessions” (318; my emphasis). Based on his example, Cohen proves without striving for the political and social interests would these Creoles not unite to form a group. He proposes thus “[E]thnicity is a communal organization that is manipulated by an
interest group in its struggle to develop and maintain its power” (325). Moreover, Fredrik Barth (1969b) has studied the Pathan people around the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan and he finds that, instead of the cultural traits, the outer menace from other ethnic groups is the primary factor in the formation of the Pathan identity. Judged from the examples mentioned above, the instrumentalism leads us to a different perspective to observe how the ethnicity is formed. In this sense, the ethnic groups are no longer categorized by certain cultural characteristics; by contrast, people can subjectively choose their identity according to their individual social and political interests. Furthermore, people can change their identities as they desire. They move in and out of ethnic groups, depending on how their interests are coped with. In the instrumentalist sense of the ethnic identity formation, people take the initiative and subjectively select their categories. The ethnic boundaries are no more unchanged; they will vary with people’s intentions.
Judged from the discussions above, both primordialists and instrumentalists give us detailed explanations of the formations of the ethnic identity, but we can not have a full vision of the ethnic identity formation just from either side. People of a certain ethnic group inherit or acquire the cultural traits to mark the boundary between the ethnic members and others; meanwhile these traits can form a system of symbols to unite the ethnic members. This symbolic system, including race, language, region, religion, aesthetic culture patterns and the shared suffering, is not only given by birth but also learned after birth (Keyes, 1981; Yang Linghwei, 1996: 5; Su Yuling, 1995: 5-8; Hsieh Shizhong, 2004b: 175.). On the other hand, when facing changes from the social environment, people will draw new ethnic boundaries of their own to strive for some social interests, privileges and status with the cultural bases. Re-forming the ethnic group can make it possible for members to unite to ask for more economic
and social supports, for example. Therefore, the ethnic identity is not only a biological and cultural product, but also a social one.
Although each has their insights into the identity formation and they seem to have much room for any overlap, the primordialist and instrumentalist senses do not lie at either side of a spectrum. Instead, they often cooperate when the ethnic identity is formed. The primordialists claim that the ethnic identity is fixed and unchanged is quite correct because the consanguinity and cultural traits indeed form the basis of individual identification with a certain ethnic group. The kinship and the shared suffering can gather some people and arouse their belongingness. On the other hand, the instrumentalist perspective should not be denied, since their insights into people’s wishes for more social advantages lead to more advanced observations that when people are influenced by the social and political interests, how could they, based on the cultural traits at hand, manipulate their ethnic boundaries to recruit more cooperation to fulfill their needs? It is likely that the history and shared cultural heritage of an ethnic group can be re-written and re-interpreted in different ways, just in order to accomplish some common wishes (Kuo Qienting, 2002: 9).
Based on the comprehensive analyses of defining the ethnic group, a compromised but not vague definition can be drawn. An ethnic group means a group of people who really exist, of people who naturally get together, of people who are given the common primordial consciousness, of people who define themselves based on their subjective affection, of people who strive for common interests, and of people likely to lead the contemporary ethnic movements (Hsieh Shizhong, 1993; Quoted from Su Yuling, 1995: 16). In addition, the “dialogue between inside and outside” (Kuo Qienting, 2002: 14) which requires equal attention to influences from
the society and within the group should be emphasized as well. The support and challenge from the environment where people live too play key parts in the identity formation. Thus, although “people can define their own ethnic identities by manipulating the cultural traits inclusive of language, religion, race, region, and aesthetic cultural forms as a system of ethnic symbols to mark the differences between ethnic members and others”(Hsieh Shizhong, 2004b: 175), they are not the only one who holds the power of interpretation. The interactions between them and others enable the latter to have some impacts on drawing the ethnic boundaries. That is, the ethnic boundary is not only decided by the cultural traits, given or acquired, which the primordialists have implied, but also formed through the interaction of the ethnic members with others. When defining what an ethnic group is, “‘what the ethnic group is?’ and ‘who belongs to the ethnic group?’ should be included, [because] the former elaborates the ‘outer’ field where people interact with the nation-state and the society, while the latter the ‘inner’ field where the traditional culture functions independently” (Hsieh Shizhong, 2004c: 221) .
ii. Local examples
From the deterministic aspects of the primordialism and instrumentalism to the interactions between inner and outer forces, previous pages of discussion remind us that the formations of the ethnicity, of the ethnic group and of the ethnic identity should be examined by the influences from both the cultural traits and the social interests people long for. With this approach, several essays reflecting on the local experiences of the identity formations can be useful examples. Although they may cover different cultures and ethnic communities, their discussions reveal how the two forces mentioned above work together in the local communities.
Su Yuling (1995) tries to elaborate the how the cultural traits and social interests influence the identity formations of the people in Peipu. She indicates that although the identities of Peipu people can be divided into several layers where the kinship extends everywhere as the basis of group identity, they will not be completed without considering the interactions among ethnic members. Su discovers that the shared religious ceremonies and activities become the cultural symbols to differentiate them from others, but the social and political conflicts among interest groups in Peipu also make impacts on the identity formations (78). To sum up, Su uses Hakka identity formations in Peipu to prove Abner Cohen’s assertion that the subjective identifications are often emphasized as long as the social and political needs appear in the situations people have to deal with (83). The mechanism of Hakka identification comprises not only the kinship which extends to every corner, but also the striving for the social and political interests in the Peipu Hakka community.
Yang Linghwei (1996) observes that while the language along with food, clothing, taboos and the historical past as the cultural traits can theoretically form the ethnic identity, the Truku proves the language is the best to mark the boundary between the Truku and the Atayal. Moreover, although two tribes within the Truku share a lot of the common cultural traits, the kinship still plays as the line of demarcation between the two. The solid ties given by the consanguinity provide people with the basis of identification, and at the same time with the standards to recognize the group members. Furthermore, since the Taroko National Park has robbed the Truku of their lands and ways of living, the movements to strive for their social and economic rights too gathered a lot of people to speak out their rage and desires. The ethnic boundary was thus drawn in the process of social movements. All in all, Yang clearly indicates that the Truku identity formation is mutually
determined by the cultural heritage and the interests people ask for, and that the identity is a product not only of one-way assertion, but of interactions between the Truku themselves, as well as between the Truku and the Han.
Hsieh Shizhong (2004c) argues that the categorization of a certain ethnic group at least includes, for example, what the Thou is and who belongs to the Thou (221). He finds that the Lu-ju (爐主) is a special mechanism for the Thou to recognize a wife of non-Thou descent as a Thou. Lu-ju has been an important person in the ancestor memorization ceremony, since Lu-ju will read all names to the ancestors to ask for their blessings onto the family members. If a wife of a non-Thou descent acts as Lu-ju, the ceremony is endowed with another function to admit the wife to become the Thou. However, this recognizing mechanism is in fact the compromised result of the cultural traits and interest fulfillment. On the one hand, if the wife of non-Thou descent does not act as Lu-ju, her name won’t be read to the Thou ancestors, let alone receive their blessings, since she is not seen as one of the family members. Only by acting as Lu-ju will this wife acquire the Thou identity and ancestors’ blessings. On the other hand, the wife’s acting as Lu-ju is a solution to the sense of crisis of the Thou people. For fear that the Thou will disappear when numbers of outsiders move in by marriage, the Thou think out a mechanism for these wives of non-Thou descent to acquire the Thou identity. Also due to the sense of rarity that this ceremony is held annually and that only one wife can be assimilated for each time, the Thou feel safe that even though outsiders can make use of this ceremony to become insiders, and their number won’t be too great for the Thou to deal with. Moreover, as far as the wife is concerned, the ceremony also means a chance to “earn more blessings for her and her family” (225). Although Lu-ju has its own function of assimilation, it does not matter in her daily life since whether the wife acts as the Lu-ju does not erase
her original identity. A wife of Han descent, for example, won’t desert her Han identity after marriage with a Thou husband, and more importantly neither will the Thou forget her Han identity. Therefore, since Lu-ju does not influence too much the life in Thou community, Lu-ju turns out to be an opportunity to “return the wishes” she has asked the Thou ancestor to fulfill. The ceremony and Lu-ju are given a function of interest accomplishments, therefore. All in all, the whole mechanism of identity formation is the result of interactions among the cultural heritage and social interests. While Lu-ju is a cultural marker for the Thou, it is a media through which some social interests can be fulfilled. Although being a wife of non-Thou won’t matter much, and although the original identity of the wife still remains, Lu-ju as the mechanism of identity formation becomes “the mechanism of adjustment” (233). Whenever and wherever there is a crisis, whether it is related to identity or personal interest, this mechanism can ease the stress, with fewer changes in reality.
Based on the theories and local examples of the formation of ethnic identity, we can say both of the primordialism and the circumstantialism should be put into consideration. The cultural essence as the basis of identification usually underpins the interest pursuits in appearance. People will manipulate the cultural traits when they strive for more social, economic and political interests. In this essay, I tend to explore the role of traditions in the formation of identity, to see how they are practiced, for what purpose they are practiced, to what extent they are adapted to the present situations and the environment, and how they can help draw the ethnic boundaries.
iii. Traditions in the identity formation
including familial identity, the identity of “a certain class” (Hobsbawm, 1983b:. 283-291), and “the national identity” (Hobsbawm, 1983a: 6). Traditions in these identity formations help to solidify the family, the class and the national members. In this essay, I would like to focus on interrelationships between the ethnic identity and traditions. Hobsbawn (ibid.) provides his insights into the formation of the ethnic identity with the invention of traditions. He has been curious about the role of the past in the formation of the ethnic identity. He proposes that the traditions we have been asked to believe they were coming from a long time ago are not as natural and traditional as they look; instead, they are “invented”, and they are novel products. They are intentionally arranged, created to fulfill some kinds of social and political needs. The invented traditions are the outcomes of intentional construction, institution and repetition. Since the invented traditions are manipulated to give people senses of unity and belonging, people will thus be endowed with the responsibility for building a nation and the loyalty to it; this enthusiasm will sustain people to sacrifice their families, careers and even their lives. All in all, the invented traditions save the ties of identification with a shared past, offering the explanations of the ethnicity and the unity of the ethnic members. Hobsbawm emphasizes the intentions of people when the traditions are manipulated to interact with the world outside the ethnic group. Although the economic, social and political interests are the goals to pursue, the ethnic members still need the cultural traits as their basis of identification. In this way, inventing traditions becomes the way to produce the historical past, making use of the links between modernity and antiquity to imagine the ethnic boundary and the ethnic communities.
While Gellner (2001) tells us that the nationalism which can revive the dead language and create the traditions produces the nation-state, a smaller scale of the
collective consciousness, or the ethnicity, can be produced with the similar approaches in my opinion. Wang Mingker (1994; 1997) use the structural amnesia and the collective memory to explain the essence, the formations and the changes of the ethnic groups. He agrees with van den Berghe that the ethnic identity is the extended relationships of the kinships, and that nepotism which helps to support the primordialist sense of the identity formation establishes the basis of the identification. However, Wang does not consider this biological basis determines the ethnic identity; instead, he emphasizes what counts in the kinships is what people believe (my emphasis), not what the real relations are. Because of much room for man to manipulate the identification, people will intentionally forget as well remember something individually and collectively, constructing their common memories to produce the nepotism which is therefore not only biological but also social. Moreover, the “cultural nepotism” (Wang Mingker, 1994: 126; 1997: 52) will be expressed in all kinds of media. Mostly, the memories structurally forgotten and massively constructed are passed down through the folklores, the mythologies and traditions. Wang indicates that it is important to see how and why people try to preserve the memory, rather than to look into the historical past. That is, when it comes to the formations of the ethnicity, the ethnic group and the ethnic identity, we must probe into how and for what people would choose what they believe, “how an event in contemporary society becomes the social collective memory, and how the memory is created, combined and preserved with collective activities, literature and artifacts” (Wang Mingker, 1994: 134). Wang reminds us of the relationships among traditions, the formations of memories and the ethnicity. The shared past is produced in the process of forgetting and construction, and one of the media through which the historical past can be represented is tradition. Therefore, with the manipulation of traditions, the inheritances underpinned by willful selections become
the basis of the ethnic identity.
While people’s desires intervene in the construction of the collective historical past of the ethnic group, the traditions leading to the ethnic identity formations may come from official “regime of memory representation” (Wang Zhihong, 2005: 11). Hsieh Shizhong (2004c) has mentioned the two forces influencing the Thou identity formations, and the traditional ceremony plays a vital role. In his other essays (2004d; 2004e; 2004f; 2004g), he shows that the indigenous traditions in Taiwan have been represented and exhibited, under the influences of the members of the ethnic communities, the academic researchers, the tourists of different ethnic descents, and the cultural affairs departments of the local and central governments. These influences imply that the traditions in the modern society would not be shown mostly in the old ways; new traditions would be produced by old ones adapting to the desires of the ethnic members, the academic researchers and the bureaucracy. No matter what they are, the textile, dance, or ceremonies, the novel traditions are understood now in a creative sense, due to the official policies and the promotion strategies. Therefore, new traditions, whether they are results of people’s amnesia and construction or of official policies, preserve the ties between the present and the past for the ethnic groups and establish the cultural basis of the ethnic identification.
Zhong Yolang (1995) takes the Pazeh in Dasher region as her example to elaborate the relationships between identity formation and history in the Pingpu community. She found that different people in Dasher would take different understandings of the historical past to draw their ethnic boundaries. The legends, the folklores, the religious ceremonies, and so on are the most reliable sources for Dasher people to identify with the ancestors, but the historical heritage is interpreted
in varied ways to produce ethnic markers. Elders of the Han and the Pazeh take different viewpoints to decipher an old story, and they draw the ethnic boundaries according to the ethnic images revealed in the story. Besides, elders of the Pazeh call themselves as “Fan” with the name passed down from ancestors, while the younger Pazeh deny the “Fan” and call themselves “Pazeh” to avoid the barbarity the word “Fan” is implied in written records. Moreover, the anthropologists and historians since the Japanese rule have been trying to define what the Pazeh used to be and are now, and different perspectives bring about varied boundaries of the Pazeh. No matter how far the Pazeh can be traced to, Japanese rule or the Qing dynasty, the categorizations have been done again and again and the ethnic boundary between the Pazeh and others has been changing all the time. To sum up,
people re-construct the “past” through varied forms; the subjective consciousness, feelings and the ethnic stances oftentimes make impacts on what has been re-constructed. These re-constructions not only record the interactions between ethnic groups, but also show the contemporary ethnic relationships. (43)
Whenever an ethnic boundary is drawn, we can see the traditions or the historical past would be interpreted in several ways to satisfy all kinds of needs to define what the Pazeh is, since varied explanations of the past mean different intentions in the Pazeh identity formations. The formation of an ethnic group is a process of interactions, and traditions are where different forces tend to make impacts on. Thus, traditions are not only the media through which the historical past is passed down, but also the ethnic boundaries to categorize people.
Furthermore, Kuo Qienting (2002) takes the Amis in Tzishang as the example to discuss the interrelations between the formation of the Amis identity and traditions. She finds when the Tzishang Amis think out ways to show the harvest ceremonies of
their own, the traditions in the festivals passed down by elders become the symbolic system to classify who the Amis is and to solidify the ethnic identity of the Amis, and what matters among all traditions is the preserved traditional social hierarchy. Since the social system of age remains, the elders are respected and they give their credits to the traditions which are either passed down by them or qualified by them if any adaptations are made. With this system, although the traditions may be changed owing to the impacts from the surroundings, they can play as the mechanism to hand down the Amis cultural inheritances and to mark the boundary line between the Amis and others, because of the endorsements from the social hierarchy. The system of the age, Kuo concludes, therefore “seals the leaks between consanguinity and region categorizations” (71) to consolidate the Amis in Tzishang. In a nutshell, this social hierarchy helps the ethnic-specific ceremony to act as the identity mechanism. With the elders’ endorsements, any adaptation does not lead to less identification with the ethnic group, as far as the Amis are concerned. In face of the drastic changes outside the Amis community, the representations and exhibitions of the harvest ceremony provide opportunities for the Tzishang Amis to show who they are and what the Amis is. Traditions of the Amis in Tzishang are not only the media of cultural inheritances, but also the ethnic boundary when the cultural interactions are too prevalent to differentiate the Amis and others.
Judged from the discussions above, when we try to probe into the relationships between the ethnic identity and the traditions in the ethnic community, we should not ignore the cultural interactions among the people of different ethnic groups. The traditions influencing the ethnic identification would change their contents due to several forces from inside and outside. The religions and the customs from the neighboring ethnic groups make up the space where people fail to learn the original
traditions; the new ethnic members might have different thoughts about the old traditions when they try to present these traditions to others; the academic and official people too have their perspectives of the traditions, pushing the traditions into where the ethnic members could never imagine. What the studies mentioned above focus on is how these results of cultural interactions, or the invented traditions, could still act as the main instrument to mark the ethnic boundary. That is, although the people cross-cut the ethnic boundary, the dichotomy is still firm; people all know who they are and what ethnic group they belong to. Barth (1969a) has reminded us that “we should shift the focus of investigation from internal constitution and history of separate groups to ethnic boundaries and boundary maintenance” (10). In this essay, I tend to explore the traditions under the influences of ethnic interactions, to see how they function in the Kavaln and Ketagalan communities, and to compare how the local and cultural differences affect the influences of the traditions on the ethnic identity.
Indigenous Instances to Reflect on
i. Kavalan Xinsher
People in the Kavalan Xinsher have depended on many traits to distinguish them from others. The “Batohogan” and “Bakalavi” which were, however, changed due to the influences from the Amis still draw the boundary between the Kavalan and the Amis in Xinsher (Zhang Jenyue, 1998: 18, 119). Besides, after Jie Wanlai searched for his relatives in the homeland Yilan, the consanguinity has become a strong tie in the Kavalan ethnic boundary. In addition, the regular meetings in the ethnic community, including the Mass in the church, the harvest festivals and the ceremony “Palilin” to memorize the Kavalan ancestors in the end of the year, help to preserve
the belongingness within the ethnic group (Zheng Jingqi, 2001: 69). With these unique traits, Jiang Mengfeng (1996) indicates that the older and young generations could have kept their Kavalan identities, and the Kavalan ethnic movements were underpinned by these cultural bases, while after imploring the bases of the ethnic identification, Zheng Jingqi (2001) reminds that the changes of these traits should not be ignored (49). Many Kavalan can not speak the language, but claim their Kavalan identity; although the Kavalan identity in Xinsher and other villages was established on the consanguinity, people in these villages have been experiencing inter-ethnic marriages and the modern Kavalan are not “pure” in terms of their consanguinity (21); since some villages do not practice the ceremony and many visitors come to Xinsher to ask for joining the ceremonies, it is still a doubt whether the Palilin is so exclusive and representative as to draw the ethnic boundary of the Kavalan.
Thus, Zheng Jingqi discovers that instead of the differences of language, consanguinity and religion, it is the re-created healing ceremony “Kisaiz” that can explain the relationships between the traditions and the Kavalan identity formation. Although Kisaiz has been lost since 1950s, it has been recreated to present what the Kavalan is to others since the activity “The Night of Fengbin” was held in 1987. Moreover, due to different situations, whenever it was exhibited and represented, it was revised more or less to fulfill varied interests. Thus, Zheng concludes that
the Kavanlan identity formation is through the inventions of the traditions . . . to produce new ones. This process is elaborated by taking the “Kisaiz” as the blueprint, and when the internal identity was expressed by ceremonies, the identity movement was upgraded to the official recognition while the indigenous movements were being prevalent in Taiwan. (23)
By asking what became the focus of the Kavalan identity when the language, consanguinity and religion had lost their particularities to draw the ethnic boundary,
Zheng Jingqi has clearly indicated that the revised, exhibited, re-interpreted and selected tradition by Kavalan themselves, the Kisaiz, takes the responsibility for Kavalan identifications. Even though the Kisaiz has lost it authenticity like Palilin, Bakalavi and Batohogan, it is the value to be memorized by the Kavalan that makes it the result of intentional creation and manipulation. More importantly, the recreated and mixed Kisaiz can symbolize the Kavalan who are also discovered after the neglect of many years, and who try to establish their own identity in spite of many influences from the interactions with other ethnic groups.
The Kavalan example has provided us an example to see how traditions are used to consolidate the ethnic identity and how they are invented, adapted and instituted in the ethnic movements, when reacting to the interactions with and the influences from other cultures. After looking into the Kavalan traditions I find crucial to the ethnic cultural revival movements, there will be interesting comparisons and contrasts between the Kavalan and the Ketagalan traditions. Especially they both have a “Xinsher” as their center of the cultural revival movements. Comparing the Ketagalan traditions of Xinsher in Taipei will lead us to see how all kinds of local differences affect the relationships between traditions and the formations of the ethnic identity, while the invention of these traditions of the ethnic movements is the common trait between among traditions of the respective ethnic groups.
ii. Ketagalan Xinsher
Located in the region formerly called Xandiao tribe, or “Xandiao sher”, Xinsher of the Ketagalan is one of the most active Pingpu communities striving for their ethnic identity. Based on the environmental and cultural issues, geographical differences, and historical as well as anthropological data, several ethnic boundaries defining who
the Ketagalan is have been marked in this region. The fourth nuclear power plant was planned to be erected around this region, and the Ketagalan ethnic movement was first the reaction to this nuke construction. The anti-nuke movement has been connected to the ethnic identity formation since people thought the plant would destroy the cultural inheritances of the Ketagalan. The tomb of their ancestors, the iron foundry site, and the symbolic tree would have disappeared as long as the nuclear plant would have been erected. Due to this sense of cultural crisis, people asked the government to stop the erection of nuke plant and to preserve the cultural heritages in this region. The voices from Xinsher people have attracted other people in Taiwan to notice the existence of the Ketagalan people and culture, and the Ketagalan identity has been established through interactions among people inside and outside Xinsher.
Besides, the Ketagalan boundary is as well formed in the cultural revival movements. The activists manipulated the historical and anthropological records, which entail that the place where Ketagalan ancestors landed was around the Xandiao tribe, to hold several activities like tomb-sweeping, visiting important ethnic memorial sites, chanting the ancient songs, and the language teaching (Pan Yinghai, 2003). While neglecting the linguistic evidence offered by Li Renkwei (1997) that the most linguistically diversified place is where the ethnic group originates, and that Damsui is therefore the landing cite of the Ketagalan ancestors (131), the Xinsher Ketagalan adopted the historical and anthropological data to support their beliefs and to convince others. Moreover, the Ketagalan ethnic boundary is also drawn with reference to the geographical differences. According to a local elder, she reveals that the Xinsher is the place where the Ketagalan live, while the Han people live in the Jousher which lies next to the Xinsher. An elder interviewee also comes up with the stories when the Han people immigrated into this place and then robbed many lands
of the indigenes. With the explanations from the elders, I think the Ketagalan ethnic boundary line is situated in the geographical separation, as far as the Xinsher folks are concerned. Thus, we can see how the Ketagalan have been categorized according to regional differences, the cultural revival movements, and above all the intention which made people choose what they want to agree in the pursuit of certain interests.
I have been discussing several factors influencing the formations of the Ketagalan identity. While different locations and the cultural inheritances to be saved, including cultural heritages and shared memories, have provided their powers of categorization, I want to explore the traditions in the Ketagalan cultural revival movements, which have encouraged the descendents to arouse their identification with the ethnic group and its culture. The ethnic title as a tradition has successfully drawn the ethnic boundary, because it has separated a group of people from the dominant Han ethnic group. Against the long-term ignorance and the misunderstanding, the ethnic title was proposed so that the movement enthusiasts and the descendents could establish a banner to gather more recognition from ethnic members and nonmembers. Moreover, the Ketagalan movements have been using their cultural heritages and ancient relics as the basis of the activities. The separate activities based on these old stuffs have attracted members and nonmembers to pay a visit and to be aware of the ethnic existence and culture. These symbols have triumphed in depicting a Ketagalan picture of the ancient lives. These traditions have helped the Ketagalan descendents emphasize their existence in the cultural movements, but these traditions are not as old as they seem to be. In fact, the ethnic title was a production at the beginning of the movements and the visiting tradition then a by-product as the ethnic enthusiasts changed their strategies. How these traditions are formed is relevant to the interactions among members and nonmembers,
because the purposes of these represented and exhibited traditions are to arouse the identification of the Ketagalan descendents and the recognition of the whole society. If these opinions of the Ketagalan and the non-Ketagalan upon the represented traditions can be clearly explored, we can have a fuller vision of how traditions are constructed and then influence the Ketagalan identity formation.
With varied perspectives inside and outside the ethnic group, I think the role of the traditions in the identity formation can be clearly deciphered. The ethnic group is the constructed through interactions in the society (ibid.). In both of the Kavalan and Ketagalan communities, the ethnic identity is not a process of one-way defining. Instead, it is concerned with the intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic relationships. With the comparisons and contrasts among the strategies of tradition usurpations, this thesis will elaborate the different factors leading to their choices, and what lies similarly in their traditions which help form the ethnic identity.
Brief Structure of the Thesis Paper
This essay will be divided mainly into four parts. The first part includes the introduction of the thesis and the literature reviews. The introduction will elaborate the basic ideas of this essay, and the literature reviews will provide the basis of whole discussion when the issues of ethnicity, ethnic groups, and ethnic identity formation are concerned.
Then the second part will focus on the Kavalan identity formation, and the role of traditions in the identity formation. The traditions of language education, artistic performance and religious consolidation as strategies in the ethnic cultural revival
movements will be our foci. Since the field studies and data of the Kavalan culture and its ethnic movement are quite abundant, this thesis will take the information at hand as the primary sources, but the interviews with the Kavalan people and others in the neighboring regions are as well important for more detailed explorations.
The third part includes the comprehensive examinations of the Ketagalan culture and its ethnic movements. Also, the role of the traditions is our main concern. This thesis is likely to explore the opinions from ethnic members and nonmembers when they faced the traditions proposed by the movement activists; therefore, the interviews will play a huge part in the discussion, since the information at hand put more emphasis on the historical researches of the Ketagalan and on the introduction of the cultural events in the cultural revival movements, but less on the individual feelings about the ethnic movements. With more detailed studies in these people’s opinions in response to the traditions of ethnic title, visiting cultural heritages and relics, and the separate labor of ethnic identity striving, we can have a different but clear picture of the developments of the Ketagalan cultural revival movements.
The final part will cover the comparisons between the ethnic movements in two Xinsher of the Kavalan and the Ketagalan. Through the comparisons and contrasts, it is interesting to note how people react to the individual cultural movements of different cultural backgrounds. These contrasts and comparisons will help us to know better the attitudes of the ethnic members and others around them.
Chapter Two
Kavalan:
Traditions as Movement Strategies
in a Culturally Well-Preserved Ethnic Group
Introduction
The forefathers of the Kavalan descendents in Hualien Xinsher had lived in Yilan Plains before they migrated into Hualien. Owing to the Han robbery of the lands on the plains, some of these forefathers migrated into the Karewan Plains which was named after one of the tribes on the Yilan Plains and which is now located near the Hualien airport. After many conflicts with the local Amis and migrating Hans, these forefathers chose to move south to where their descendents live now. Other ancestors escaping the poverty then went to these newly-moved places as well (Taiwan Committee for Documents and Archives, 1999: 235-7). Situated at the peripheral area of this island, the Kavalan people in Xinsher could still have preserved some of their living styles, while the modern life and the Amis culture have been influential forces. Moreover, since one of the movement activists searched for people whose first name is the same as his and who might be Kavalans in late 1980s, the cultural revival movements have begun to look for and preserve the remaining Kavalan culture as the means for cultural exhibition and the identifiable symbols. So, we can say the Kavalan is an ethnic group where the ethnic culture is well-preserved, and how traditions have functioned in such an ethnic group and its cultural revival movements is the focus of this chapter.
In this chapter, I would like to elaborate on the traditions the Kavalan have been carrying out in their cultural survival movements. Some of these traditions claim the historical continuity with past as the legitimate evidence to be the Kavalan; the others support the formation of the ethnic boundaries and of the Kavalan ethnicity. I will put emphases on the Kavalan language education which has been practiced for a long time, the songs and dances they have been practicing in the festivals and the invited performances, and on the religious tradition which has been playing as a spiritual strength while the Kavalan there have been reviving their culture. These Kavalan traditions have been not only passed from one generation to another, but also invented and instituted in order to fit in the miscellaneous needs in their movements. Along with the processes of invention and institution have been going the interactions within the Kavalan in Xinsher, and between outsiders and the ethnic members. After examining each of these traditions, we will find these traditions are not as given as they seem; the ethnic boundaries are the consequences of a series of producing, constructing, instituting and interchanging. These traditions are not as arbitrarily self-claiming as they appear; on the other hand, they are the negotiated results in which multilateral influences take and give in some advantages to strike a balance.
Language Education and Word-makers’ Authorities
As far as the Pingpu are concerned, the Kavalan language is the most well-preserved language among all (Zheng Jingqi, 2001: 15). Not only many words are saved and passed from their ancestors, but also most of the people in Xinsher can still speak the language. However, every language must deal with the impacts from novel changes in the modern society, and the Kavalan language is no exception. The Kavalan have to produce novel vocabulary to describe the new things around them.
New terms here are often made by a group of people through long discussions, produced with vivid imaginations. The consequences of creativity would be put in the textbooks of the mother tongue education. Therefore, the linguistic traditions of the Kavalan Xinsher mean not only repeated practices of their mother tongue, but also systematic productions of the language and an effective institution through the compulsory education in the Xinsher Primary School. Moreover, the process of producing and instituting the Kavalan language is an interchange between people inside and outside the ethnic group. This reminds us that what counts in discussions of linguistic traditions as the ethnic boundaries is not what words are originally passed from their ancestors while others are invented, but how these words are produced and practiced to maintain the ethnic boundaries of the Kavalan.
i. Language education as a tradition
One of the active advocates in Kavalan Xinsher, who is also my interviewee, has explained why and how they would stress the teaching of their mother tongue. First, a sentence of a passage in the magazine he has read long time ago reminded him of the importance of preserving the mother tongue. The sentence goes that if the language of an ethnic group disappears, people in the world can not compensate for this loss.3 Second, a famous linguist from Japan, Tsujida Shigeru, came to Xinsher to meet my interviewee, and encouraged him to preserve the Kavalan language.
3 Although my interviewee could not offer the exact reference of the sentence, I have found a similar
view post on a web page. It was said that a linguist pronounced in an international Linguistic conference in 1992 that “the disappearance of any one of the languages in the world will not be compensated for, as far as the whole mankind is concerned. Owing to this, we hope that UNESCO can respond to our urgent appeals as follow. For those endangered and dying languages which have not been studied or fully recorded until now, the linguistic research intitutues should be encouraged and sponsored to keep records of them, establishing the grammar, dictionary, and historical records of these languages. The recording of the oral literature is included as well.” Please refer to Yang Yunyen, “Taiwanese Languages: on the policies of mother tongue and relevant problems.”
Therefore, with the warnings from the magazine and the researcher, he started to learn the mother tongue with the elders in the tribe. It took him three years to master the Kavalan language. Moreover, the principal of the local primary school also encouraged him to teach their kids the mother tongue. The principal had been staying in schools of different ethnic groups, including the Amis, the Bunun, and the Truku. While he was assigned to Xinsher Primary School and then knew there was no course to teach the Kavalan language, he was surprised that when the Kavalan people still existed, the extinction of their language was around the corner. Not reconciled with others’ ignorance, he asked my interviewee to teach kids there, in order to preserve the language and the ethnic group. Furthermore, the local governments helped to subsidize the edition and publication of the textbooks. So, the language teaching has been put into practice since 1991. With the financial support, the enthusiasm of the advocates and the participation of the folks, the Kavalan language education has been so successful that almost the kids in Xinsher can speak the mother tongue privately with their grandparents and publicly give a speech in the contest. Carefully examining the whole process, the interactions among people are very crucial when it comes to the promotion of the Kavalan language education as a tradition. Neither the determination of the enthusiasts, nor the wishful thinking from the academic researchers, nor the abundant financial assistances from bureaucracy could solely promise the construction and repetitive practices of the Kavalan language education. Only when the language education is seen as the consequence of these multilateral, exchanging forces will we be fully aware of the formation and maintenance of this tradition as an ethnic boundary.
ii. Language production as a tradition
boundary, is the process of producing teaching materials. After examining the whole process, the interactions among people will be found to maintain this tradition of producing language. There were four key people of the cultural revival movements in Xinsher, and all of them have been responsible for editing the teaching materials. When there are vocabularies which do not exist in the Kavalan language, they choose to produce new words with their vivid imaginations, rather than to borrow the foreign expressions. For instance, since there is no exact word to describe “baseball” in Kavalan language, these word producers thought out a compound word which combined the “pomelo” with the action of hitting, instead of using “bangqio” or “yakiu”. Still, they have produced words related to vehicle with a root “gaidun”. Therefore, the bike will be the action of pedaling plus “gaidun”; the motorcycle the action of revving plus “gaidun”; the train the image of fire burning plus “gaidun”, and the bus the action of puffing the smoke out of the tail pipe plus “gaidun”. However, these four language producers did not always reach agreements when words were produced; there were usually arguments of whether the words should be invented with borrowing from the foreign expressions or with their imaginations and life experiences. However, a language maker who owned a better academic training background always took advantages and authorities of making new words. In addition, as far as the local parents and grandparents are concerned, their kids must learn the new words from the textbooks these four language makers edited, and they would have doubts about why these new words were produced with imaginations and life experiences. However, they seem to have been satisfied with and fond of the creative productions, according to my interviewee. Their approvals did not hinder, but support the language teaching in Kavaln Xinsher. Furthermore, approximately two and half years ago, the teaching materials of mother tongue education were unified and the Ministry of Education took the control. Under the new policy, the
Kavalan language makers could not write and edit as they wished. Instead, what they had to do was to translate the standardized sentences given by the academic researchers. For example, the language makers should write a Kavalan translation of the sentence “Our people go to catch fish and share with their elatives and friends” (Jie Wanlai et al., 2005: 1). After more-than-ten-year efforts, the mother tongue education gained more attention from the central government, but the local people lost the authority of planning what to teach. Despite the lost, however, the local people compromised and kept the language going on. All in all, we can say the tradition of producing language teaching materials by a monopoly of four enthusiasts has been formed and maintained by the efforts of themselves, by the satisfactory evaluations from other ethnic members and, to some extent “disturbed”, by the government policy. Although this tradition of language production does not entail any boundary to decipher ethnic members and nonmembers, the interactions among people to maintain the tradition are the crucial factor when it comes to the formation of the tradition. Besides, although there have been many inner and outer influences, the language production has still gone to the four enthusiasts, and what has changed under these influences is the extent to which these language producers can control. Some members might challenge; bureaucracy might intervene, but the dichotomy between the language producers and non-producers remains. Therefore, aside from the interactions among people which make the tradition of the language production possible, this phenomenon of cross-cutting the boundary without changing the dichotomy should not be ignored, since the latter explains why the boundary persists while multilateral forces have been intervening the tradition formation.
Fishman (1996) has proposed that since “ethnicity is experienced as a guarantor of the eternity” (63), it should be recognized in reality. People can touch it, feel it,
and relate themselves to their ancestors with a tangible link. For Fishman, the language is the very link by which the being, doing and knowing of the ethnicity can be better experienced. The existence of the Kavalan ethnic group can be tangibly experienced when people speak their mother tongue which is different from the Amis and the Hans inside and outside Xinsher. Besides, the ethnic doings like songs, chants, rituals, jokes, and riddles are the means for the Kavalan members to “preserve, confirm, and augment collective identities” (65), and these means should be realized through the use of the Kavalan language. Furthermore, the cultural wisdom derived from the ethnic being and doing can be transmitted through the Kavalan language, since “any other mode of expression would be inadequate, shallow, and self-limiting in expressing the treasures that need to be enjoyed and sensed” (66). The knowing of the Kavalan, or the traditional Kavalan intelligence, is thus passed down and then used by the Kavalan to unite more people to identify the ethnic group. Judging from Fishman’s observations, we can furthermore realize the reasons why the Kavalan would make a lot of efforts to teach their children their mother tongue. The language is the medium on which the self-identity of the ethnic group can be noticed, the cultural activities can be held, and the traditional expertise can be inherited. Even though the linguistic differences neither arbitrarily determine which an ethnic group people belong to, nor definitely promise the sufficient fixation of an individual member onto an ethnic group (Balibar, 1996: 164-8),4 the functions of the language to express the being, doing, and knowing of the ethnicity are worthy of people’s
4 Balibar has elaborated the reason why a language community is not sufficient to produce ethnicity.
He thinks the linguistic construction of an ethnic group is quite “open”, and it fails to deal with the new acquisitions of the group members. Even though people cannot choose their mother tongue, they can learn other languages and turn to the bearers of the new languages. In face of these deviations, the original ethnic group can do nothing but to naturalize the linguistic multiplicity. It is a common phenomenon for the second and following generations, since the mother tongue of the individual generation differs from each other. The mother tongue of a single generation is not the “real” mother; the deciphering power of the original speech community does not last longer so enough as to guarantee the identity of the future generations.
never-ending interactions on the language education.
Artistic Performances and Artists’ Authorities
The cultural exhibition of an ethnic group is quite an often-seen means for establishing and claiming a boundary between the group members and others. However, the process of construction of the ethnic boundary is not just an intra-ethnic-group interaction, but an inter-ethnic-group one as well. Kuo Qienting (2002) has proved in her essay with the Amis in Tzishang that
the group members who have similar living experiences, who are inherited from the same elders, and who are aroused their historical emotions by performing these traditions, decipher themselves from others in these cultural exhibitions, accepting these symbols as the indexes of the ethnic identity. (74)
The Amis in these cultural performances maintain the ethnic boundary not only by performing traditions, but also by sharing their own opinions concerning how traditions should be shown, though the elders take advantages and authorities of interpretations. The maintenance of the ethnic boundary with traditions should therefore been seen as a dynamic process, requiring participations within the group. Besides, the ethnic boundary in terms of traditions is also preserved by the interactions of people inside and outside the ethnic group. The Taiwan indigenous people have been used to performing their cultures to others. The profits from tourism, the government policies, and the opportunities for introducing themselves to the nonmembers have been the main reasons why they would strive for performing their own traditions. Despite the audiences of different needs, the interactions between actors/ actresses and audiences are an inevitable factor during their performances are made and revised. Xie Shihzhong (2004b) has elaborated an
example from a Daiyan tribe where only few traditions are preserved, but people there still produce the “cultural exoticism” (175) to attract the tourists. While the tourists come to Wulai for the “authentic indigenousity” (180), the local indigenes and tourism industry try hard, cooperating with each other, to produce the authenticity of the indigenous culture, which the tourists visiting Wulai hope to see. The negotiations often entail that the tourists fulfill their curiosities and the local people solve their economic difficulties. Moreover, other than the commercial relationships, Xie Shizhong (2004d) has indicated that the authenticity of the indigenous culture is the consequences of the interchange between the material feedbacks from audiences and the non-material ones from performers. The traditions in the cultural parks of Nanto and Pintung County mentioned in this essay would be re-invented, re-interpreted and revised partly because of the audiences’ predetermined stances towards the indigenous culture, and partly because of the oscillations of the indigenous performers between traditionalism and profitability. Furthermore, the traditional culture would be influenced by the dynamic interactions between people and policies. Xie Shihzhong (2004e) as well has provided examples that explain the previous predominant role of government policies to define how traditional culture is represented with the advantages of subsidies, and the recent turnover which enables the indigenes to decide what to perform with the annually-guaranteed budget from the local and central governments. If the cultural exhibitions of a single tribe are put in the chronological order, we will see a tug-of-war between the policies and people; while the former took the lead in controlling the traditions before 1980, the latter retrieved their dominance after 1980 when the annual budget itself became a tradition, too. All in all, no matter what relationships the struggles for the representation authority of traditions are involved in, both of the intra-group interchanges and the dynamic interactions between the group members and non-members can lead us to
