A Taiwan knowledge keeper of indigenous Bunun: An ethnographic historical narrative of Laipunuk (內本鹿),southern mountain range

Research design and presentation

Questions presented to the informant were generated by the author. Nabu Istanda, Tama Biung’s nephew, who is proficient in Bunun, Mandarin, Japanese and English, served as the main interviewer and translator. Nabu presented questions to Tama Biung. The language used was Isbukun Bunun, which is actively spoken in Bunun daily conversation, yet influenced by Han culture and other Formosan languages. Tama Biung primarily replied in Isbukun Bunun with the occasional use of Japanese and Mandarin when describing, for example, people, places, and events. Questions regularly initiated short exchanges of dialogue between the interviewer and the informant. The informant’s sister, Langus Istanda, participated in some interviews, supporting her brother and sparking his memory (Figure 5).

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Figure 5.

Interview setup with Nabu Istanda (left), Langus Istanda (informant’s sister, centre); and Biung Istanda (right).

Questions, vocabulary and narratives were regularly re-presented to the informant for clarification. As Bunun cultural behaviours are based on gender, lines of questioning were inevitably gender specific, and narratives spontaneously generated new categories as Tama Biung shared experiences and stories important to him. Thus, the nature of expression and the content revealed by the informant generated the categories chosen (Figure 6).

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Figure 6.

Ethnohistorical Narrative Research Flow Chart.

Translation was provided solely by the interviewer (Nabu Istanda) and written solely by the author, thus not all of the texts were transcribed, and joint discussion and consideration resulted in the final English text translation. At the discretion of the interpreter and author, Bunun vocabulary was incorporated and presented in italics to preserve the language’s nuances and epistemology, and are defined the first time. Place names have been integrated on Figure 3, Map of Laipunuk. Orthography applied here is based primarily on the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) (2020b) Online Dictionary of Indigenous Ethnic Languages and Li (2018), A Grammar of Isbukun Bunun. Specialized vocabulary not available on the CIP website was fact-checked for spelling and meaning with Nabu Istanda prior to publication.

Introduction to Tama Biung

Name: Tama Biung Istanda (1920–2007)* (Figure 7)

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Figure 7.

Tama Biung Istanda (1920–2007).

Japanese name: Nishimura Yasu

Chinese name: Hu Yun-Lin

Family names: Takihusugan (Father’s side); Istanda (Mother’s side)

Siblings: Kiwa (c.1917–c.1967); Ibu (c.1919–2004); Langus (1926–2015)*; Nabu (1929–2005)*

Birthplace: Suncik village, Taiwan

*original birth dates vary among sources; dates given here are those inscribed on available tombstones.

Takivahlas community

I was born in Suncik (see Figure 3), the mountains above the Laipunuk watershed, in approximately 1917. I consider myself to be from the Takivahlas (taki- meaning living/place, and vahlas meaning river) community of Laipunuk. From Takivahlas to Suncik took about one hour to hike. Suncik was a cold place. I remember that when it was cold, our family all sat around the habu (ashes, but inferring a stove). In Suncik we had forty people in our family, all of us living in the same house. When we moved to Takivahlas we separated and each group built their own house. I remember when we moved to Takivahlas that our family had to decide whether to stay together or separate.

Our family moved because of the marriage relationship. When you have marriage exchange, you have information exchange, and families may move together. Also, when Bunun go out to hunt, the hunter finds and learns about a new place. The hunter knows – these are the reasons we move.

We carried the banil (Taiwan cypress) bark to Takivahlas from Suncik, so our first house was made of banil tree bark, but later we used tagnas reeds (Pacific Island silvergrass/Miscanthus floridulus) for the walls and roof in Takivahlas, then later we built a slate house. We had seen houses with slate roofs before, so we learned from other people, maybe from the Rukai or Paiwan. I think when the men went hunting or headhunting, we saw the Rukai or Paiwan slate house. In Laipunuk everyone was making the slate house.

Our clothes in Suncik were just tapis (men’s traditional skirt), habang (open front vest made with two pieces of cloth), and pituh (men’s long-sleeve shirt). We already had cloth from Han people, so we had cloth and leather, but many things were made from fibre. We weren’t naked like the natives on TV. We had cloth to wear as a loincloth, it was small and just covered our genitals, but our backsides were open. After we came down to Takivahlas we had lots of good cloth.

My father

In the beginning, my ancestors lived in the earliest lineage. My grandfather and his people often fought with other indigenous peoples and the Japanese. I remember when my grandfather and his people sang malastapang (ritual recollection of events) to show off their headhunting achievements, they always sang loudly and described proudly how many heads were taken. I still remember that there were many human heads on the shelf.

My father was from Ismudan, his family name was Husungan. My mother was from a Takibanuan family. I remember my mother and father, how they walked to their fields. Mama worked at the house. Papa went hunting maybe four days a week, and when he came home, he would work with Mama.

My father hid me from the Japanese to protect me, but he was stubborn. I was six or seven then, and the Japanese already knew about me – they had a name list paper. But each time the Japanese came my father said, “No, no one named Biung.” He would push them out. But the Japanese could never find me, I was in the forest. He always said to our family, “Don’t talk about that, I will hide him.” Papa was worried the Japanese would halav (force/grab) me. Papa said, “Biung is my only son, he is our family treasure.” But eventually, the Japanese ended up taking me to fight in the Pacific war – it was to be my obligation.

My father trained me in Bunun traditions from a little boy. I started hunting much earlier than other boys my age. Papa was mamangan (valiant/spiritually powerful); he took me when I was so young. I already had a short gun, a bow and arrow, a dog, and a backpack. His way to train me was different and earlier than others’ ways. If Papa hadn’t trained me so young, I would have died already. I never would have survived the war.

The Japanese

When I was young, I heard that the Japanese would come to Laipunuk and open up a road there. Maybe it was far from Takivahlas because I never saw them. Then, when I was around ten years old, they really came, and all of the kids had to study in the Japanese mission at Pisbadan (renamed Shou in Japanese), but my father hid me in the forest because I was the first son in my family. In Bunun culture, the first son should always stay with and serve his family, and, importantly, go hunting with his father. I remember my father used to say to me, “We are hunters and don’t need to waste time on studying.” He said Japanese were really wordy when speaking, and they have too many rules, so we don’t have to listen to them: “We can kill them all.”

That was when my younger brother (Nabu) and my younger sister (Langus) were sent to the Japanese elementary school at Shou. Because I stayed with my father, I never learned to write Japanese like my brother and sister, but I did eventually learn to speak it.

Then suddenly in 1941 the Japanese forced us to move from Takivahlas to the lowlands near Tulandan (today called Nuan-Shan). I was about twenty years old. My sister, Langus was fourteen. Except for the Takivahlas families, nearly all the other communities had already moved down to Tulandan. I didn’t feel there was much choice about Japanese governance; they were powerful and we knew that we must obey.

When the Japanese came, the Bunun were scattered in the mountains, but as the Japanese gained control of the mountains, it brought Bunun family groups together to Takivahlas. I think in many ways that our lives got better. Today, I don’t harbour bad feelings about these events; the Japanese brought better cloth and nice clothing, and they brought a sense of unity and peace. The Japanese taught Bunun not to steal, and not to kill or headhunt.

During the Japanese time, they never pushed any religion on us; they let Bunun follow our own beliefs except for headhunting and some cultural practices. When World War II came, we had already been living near Tulandan for some time, and I was very proud to join and serve in the Japanese imperial military. In Bunun culture the man should be brave. Traditionally we fought with other peoples and were headhunters. At that time in my life, it seemed the same: be brave and fight with other groups, so joining with the Japanese was like joining a strong tribe. I respected the power of the Japanese weapons.

I felt I should be honest to the Japanese emperor and not be afraid to fight, and I presented myself to the powerful Japanese. My decision was spontaneous. In Bunun culture, when we are needed, we go to fight. Bravery is rewarded in your social standing in our community. I was not afraid of getting hurt or killed. That’s why today we show this ancient custom on the stage at the Bunun Culture and Education Foundation [representing the Bunun community]. We show tourists our music, traditions, ceremonies, drink alcohol from the gourd, and encourage each other to be brave in terms of life.

I was around twenty-one or twenty-two years old when I joined the Japanese Takasago Volunteer Service (indigenous military units). Shortly after, our military group left from Kaohsiung for the island of Palau to train for two months. Then I was transferred from Palau to New Guinea for a period of three years, from March 1942 to 1945 when the war ended.

I served as a guard in the commanding division where my job was to protect my Japanese commander. We fought with the Americans in New Guinea. It was my duty. I decapitated two Americans on the beach, and felt it was the proudest event of my life. But now I am a Christian, and the Christian God may well punish me someday for what I did.

When the Japanese lost the war, the Americans suddenly sent us home to Taiwan. As soon as I got off the American ship in Taiwan, I went back to Tulandan to find my father, but he had moved. The town’s people told me that all my family had moved to Lu Ming (Pasikau or Tao-Yuan Village), and I went there to look for him.

I will always remember how my father gave me a big hug, held me tightly, and said, Biung, you finally came home. He couldn’t believe I was still alive. I was so happy that I sang a traditional Bunun song for him.

People said I was the only Bunun from Laipunuk who came back alive from the Takasago Volunteer Service in New Guinea.

Lamataxinxin – Our Laipunuk hero

Lamataxinxin was from Mundavan, and my grandpa was also from there. I’ve seen him. He was a big man. His knees were big; like a giant. His hair was long. He came for mapa-tangtunguan meaning a regular visit. Mapa-dulap means a rare and special visit. He came to see my father at Takivahlas, but not at the village; rather at nearby areas. We moved from Suncik to Takivahlas area (in the high mountains) for a period of time. People of the put (Min-nan speakers, but referring generally to Holo or Hakka Chinese) were in lower places. Lamataxinxin was a relative of our family so he would come to visit if he passed by. From hunting and headhunting, a strong man should move through the mountains: Hualien, Kaohsiung, and Taitung.

Lamataxinxin was Husungan, my family name. He was mamangan. If you kill Japanese you are mamangan, because Japanese were a strong people who killed our people. The Japanese always caught the Bunun who resisted. The Japanese caught Lamataxinxin but they didn’t kill him. They made him promise not to kill Japanese. But Lamataxinxin continued to make gunpowder, went secretly to headhunt, and killed a police chief. Bunun villagers who lived in the area informed the Japanese and Lamataxinxin was recaptured. I believe they killed his family.

Tekansui was the man who helped catch Lamataxinxin. Tekansui’s family then opened a store in Laipunuk. He was known as maiput (a Taiwanese indigenous person from mixed parentage, namely Chinese). The Japanese gave him a high position because he could speak Japanese and Bunun, and he was a businessman. He was the one who always caught our people so the Japanese liked him. His Japanese was good and clear. He then came to live at Shou. His family name was Kimlan, a put name. The Kimlan family married to Bunun. Tekansui also married to a Bunun.

I know that Lamataxinxin got his gunpowder from Laipunuk.

Hunting

The first time hunting, I was with my father. I just thought, “let’s get the meat.”

In the old times every family had their own hunting place to get meat. You could go to hunting areas of other people, but you should ask first.

I learned from our father where the rivers go and about the mountains; he wanted me to know every region of the mountains: “You should know everywhere.” He taught me that there are many types of hunting style, such as humul (ambush/wait for prey), Mapu-asu (hunting with a dog), or go looking for the animals. Humul and mapu-asu can be done at the same time. Matahavan (mat- referring to hunting) is when you use a bow and arrow or gun, and you go looking for the animal. Ismuduan (around a fire/heating) is hunting by fire. That’s good in a razor grass area. You burn, and in the area not burning you humul for them. I’ve hunted that way. Yes, we have burned the mountain. We don’t use that burned area for growing maduh (millet) because our hunting areas were far away in the high mountains. Father taught me that I must “know each region and know the winds, then you know how to hunt in that area.”

Taiwanese guns

I know about old-Dutch guns, but I never saw them in Laipunuk. Our guns all came from trade with Taiwanese.

Husung was a Bunun man who made guns and gunpowder. My uncle Adul’s kid, my cousin, made very good guns. Single shot. Good for long distance. It uses one single bullet. He can make the bullet and the iron barrel with a hole. He must have had a machine to make that. We had the machine to make iron.

In Laipunuk we had four kinds of busul (guns) for hunting: cinpapatus was a single shot muzzleloader; tuabak was also a short, single-shot muzzleloader with a very large barrel and large shot; cintatasa was single-shot, different from a muzzleloader, which used a special shell with a casing; and cinnuum was a six-shot rifle excellent for hunting. These guns mainly came from the Taiwanese people outside Laipunuk. These guns didn’t come from Anu Magavan, the gun maker in Laipunuk.

The number of guns you have depends on how many men in your family. In Takivahlas we had two guns in our house. My father had a six-shooter, but mine was a single shot. My brother Nabu was too young to keep a gun. Normally, a young man should be fifteen or sixteen years old to have a gun, but I got my first gun when I was just ten or twelve.

Gunpowder

In Laipunuk we used to make our own gunpowder. You first must have a chicken house. Then we collected the mud under the layer of chicken manure. Then we cooked this mud with water. Next, we added saltpetre, which is a liquid we get from put people. When we add a little saltpetre the water turns white - that’s good, it will be a success. Then we just take the water and get rid of the mud. The water is boiled until reduced and becomes a powder. Then take the pot, make it cold, and wait until the next day. Then there is powder that’s white like snow, like crystals.

Next, we collect madiav (yellow/sulphur) from our local hot springs. If we can’t get sulphur from hot springs, then sometimes we got it from the Japanese telephone line connecters. If we can’t get sulphur from telephone insulators or hot springs, then it comes from the put people in Lakuli (Liu-kuei village) (See Figure 3). Finally, we make charcoal from the halus tree (Chinese sumac). Then we must cook it together, which is very dangerous. We need all three colours: white powder from the cooked chicken poop cooked with saltpetre; yellow sulphur from hot springs or line connectors; and black charcoal made from hulas wood. Then you have gunpowder. The elder men knew how to make gunpowder.

Hunting taboos

When you kill an animal, you should cut off different meats from the animal and put it on a flat stone or rock as a sacrifice to the spirits. We called this action mapatahu (discussion/appeal to each other). Meat from both inside and outside of the carcass are required. This is for hanitu (ghost/the spirit world). When we don’t do this the hanitu will bring bad luck, and our people really believe that. Before hunting, that night we send the kids out because their sneezing would bring masamu (taboo/bad luck).

Birds flying in certain directions were unlucky. And sneezing is bad luck too. I remember a story: “There was a man, a hunter, he heard a sneeze, but he went hunting anyways, and he got lots of meat. And when returning to the village he sang macilumah (a hunter’s homecoming song) so everyone would know he was back and had gotten lots of meat. Not long after, he fell down and died.” So, before you leave for hunting never hear a sneeze. You should believe that this is real.

Women cannot touch the hunter’s knife, sword, or gun. Husbungan (from husbu, heavy, and ngan, name) means if a woman or an animal touches or moves across it, that is bad luck, and you can’t use it. But she can prepare or touch the hunter’s backpack. I remember once when Dahu’s wife Ala-ala was carrying mukun (Taiwan Chenopodium) home one day to use for making wine and she accidentally knocked a gun over and it fired. Their son Husung was hit by the shot. He died. This happened in Suncik.

When we get the first animal in an area, we must make a sacrifice, only the first animal, and then if we go to another place and don’t get any game, we should still offer something from the first place’s kill. The meaning is to invite and mention to the ancestors that we are here, to ask them to protect us and to give us meat.

Types of meat

The meats we call cici (edible meat/prey) are vanis (mountain pig/tusks), sidi (goat/sheep), sakut (bark deer), hangvang (deer/sambar deer), and utung (monkey). Bear, deer, bark deer, goat, and pig, these are the biggest animals. But my favourite meat is bark deer, also wild pig because it’s so delicious. But wild pigs in the mountains are so skinny. We never used to shoot flying squirrel like people do today. We had plenty of meat, we didn’t need that.

There are not many bears in the mountains. We don’t consider bear to be cici, they are dangerous and have too many taboos. We don’t go hunting for bear, but if you meet one, you only kill it to protect yourself, “It is just taimuli (obligation) – I don’t want to meet you, but I will kill you.” When the millet field is growing, from planting to harvest, we try not to harm the bear. If you bring meat or any part of the bear to the village, or pass through the millet field, it will bring bad luck and change life in the village.

There were five of us kids. We all slept together, ate together, and everyone should have equal meat from the soup. Everyone got a piece of meat, even the baby. Even though the baby can’t eat it, a baby is a person too. We always ate with the piece of meat in one hand and a spoon in the other. The spoon was used to eat rice, millet, or soup.

Headhunting

When we arrived in Takivahlas, we still did some headhunting but not much. When my brother and sisters were at home, we remember waiting and worrying about our father when he went headhunting.

I don’t really understand about hanitu, about masial (good) and makuang (bad), maybe that’s a dream, maybe that’s a ghost. But the elder, a leader, may know how to answer this question. Anyhow, I am Christian now. In my dream hanitu I never saw a ghost. Our people were afraid of that; we got the unlucky things from hanitu, like falling down while in the mountain. Hanitu has many meanings, such as spirit or ghost. When my memory goes back, the hanitu goes back with me: “All the places I’ve been my hanitu doesn’t fall asleep.”

I do remember that hanitu was clever. Before makavas (headhunting), early in the morning, the leader will wake everyone - maybe ten people, and ask about our dreams. The elder will interpret or translate the dreams. He may decide that some men cannot go based on this.

Once a man dreamt that when meat was distributed everyone got a piece, but the dreamer didn’t get anything. Then a stranger came and gave him just a small piece of meat. Lavian (community/military leader) thought about the meaning of this dream. He knew it was a bad sign that the man dreamed about not getting meat. He figured it was okay because he did get a small piece form the stranger. He reasoned that as long as you get something, that’s okay, and he let the man come with them to headhunt. In the battle the man who had the dream got shot in the back. Then the leader realized that the small piece of meat was a small bullet. The hanitu had fooled Lavian.

Now there are no more Bunun taboos since I have been a Christian for about forty or fifty years. I can’t translate dreams; God can’t even do that.

I remember before the Japanese came how we were always anxious, aware that there were enemies around us. We were always on guard, ready with guns. Every day you must prepare your gun. If you see an enemy come and you haven't prepared your gun, it’s too late. The gun must be loaded and ready. But I think life in the mountains was better than today’s way of life – men were always hunting, women always in the millet field. It was natural to headhunt and feel on-duty. That was our way of life.

When we went headhunting depended on our leaders’ dreams and the feelings. If he felt he should go – then he would go. He may just go, and plan to be alone. Yet if the others in the family knew he was going, they may want to increase their social position and request to go along. It may start in this way. Everyone who wanted to go, could do so.

You don’t invite anyone to go with you. We are individual in that way. But you won’t refuse someone who is determined to come with you. The person will just come to you and ask if they can come with you. The leader will answer, “That’s up to you.”

When a man has the feeling to makavas (headhunt), he cannot stop the feeling. It’s an individual event, just how you feel. The wife should not try to stop the husband, but she can, and should, feel worried. The wife’s action in the house should be fast and serious. If she is slow and lazy the husband will be made slow and weak. Before you go headhunting you should hide the kids. Only the wife stays to help, and the woman should work very fast – make her man fast, and then he may be the first to have a head. We never knew where our father was going to headhunt.

You should not kill as if their personal possessions will belong to you; it’s for the Bunun man to participate and to be proud for Bunun social standing. We didn’t take cloth or other things from headhunting; we only take the head. If someone says you never participated in makavas, you will try to join a group so that you can go. When you come back, you can be proud. If you never go, no one will respect you; they won’t share meat and wine with you.

I’ve seen the skulls hanging, but you should never go near them or you will get sick. This is samu (taboo) – you’ll have bad luck. This place was not near the house. Mapatus (talk with/feed the spirits) is the name for eating a piece of meat and then giving a piece to the skulls. Only men do this. We only did this during malahtangia (Ear-shooting Festival).

There was a special place for our ceremonies but it wasn’t near the house. We were only allowed to go to that place if there was a ceremony, otherwise we shouldn’t go there. There was a building where we kept animal jawbones from hunting. We called that time lus-anan (time of celebration/sacrifice) because lus-an (worship/sacrifice) is an animal ceremony place.

There is a ritual before headhunting, called kahazam (from ka- meaning do/ask, and hazam, bird) done by a leader or an is-am-amminan (shaman). Success in headhunting depends on your dream, kahazam, and when we cut a short piece of tagnas reed, but not the flower, only the stem, and put it on the trail. This is called kus (reed stick). The kus is going to carry or bring the hanitu, so the spirit will go from that kus to everyone, so when they go, they will carry the kus. If that night they don’t have a good dream they won’t bring the kus. Hunters can have their own kus to put on the trail. If the bird sings on the right side of the trail that’s good, then you will get a head and not get hurt; bird on the left side is unlucky. We wait for bird’s singing; mix it with the dream. Dream, bird’s singing, the kus, it takes time. If everything is good then you take the kus with you. If everything is not good, then you throw the kus away. Kus is a symbol, a sign, but the person becomes one with the kus. Even if the dream was not good, Bunun can cheat lavian because he wanted to go.

Killing put people is not proud; it should be bingbingan, strong Taiwanese indigenous enemies (referring to bingan, a short hair style of the Mantauran and Paiwan peoples). When we showed up to kill put they always go “iu iu” (Oh no! Oh no!) and they try to run away. We should fight powerful people. When you malastapang, you cannot count in put. If we went to headhunt put we would not malastapang (ceremonially celebrate) this.

Because of the Japanese, we stopped headhunting. Because we stopped headhunting our people became foolish idiots. Other Taiwanese indigenous communities also became like idiots. So, now we can get along – there is no more revenge.

Our father went headhunting four times, so he was able to malastapang four times. Malastapang has its own counting system which follows the Bunun numbers but with some differences: one time is makatasa; two times is makadusa; three times is makaciun; four times is makapaat; five times is makaima.

The most times I ever heard of someone headhunting was Anu Shikish from the Palalavi family. He went 13 times. But his headhunting group had a member, a man from Asahi village named Biung Tangus (first to do something). He was always ahead of the others; he was always the first to cut. And I remember Biung Ikit also from Palalavi; he went fourteen times. For our Husungan family, I think the most mamangan person was my father Anu, he went four times. His oldest brother Biung had gone three times and Dahu went five times.

I remember a story about a woman whose husband went headhunting. The group came back successfully but the husband didn’t return. No one knew what happened to him. Every evening she went outside to wait for him and called out from her heart. There was a bird in the high mountains we call zizu that makes a similar sound. My sister always said she felt sad when we heard the zizu’s call in the evening.

When you’re headhunting, if someone in the group was hurt, we would leave them behind. Someone would tell his wife why he didn’t come back. The leader of the group won’t feel sorry or guilty, that was not his responsibility. No one could blame him. Each person went on his own will. It’s an individual decision. It was a gamble to go. You could win, or you lose. The wife can marry another, but I never heard of it. I never heard of a widow of a headhunter to remarry, but maybe it did happen. But today people divorce and remarry like it doesn’t mean anything.

Yesterday and today

We never thought about having our lands taken away from us, or being forced to leave. We didn’t know that behaviour – we just lived in the mountain woods, following the ways of our ancestors, and maintaining a community. We never made a decision to leave Laipunuk. We naturally grew up there – it would be natural to go back. Bunun culture and society is like a circle, we keep moving and end up back in our community.

To recognize our history, first we must observe pasihaal (examine/know each other). Our family system was destroyed by the Japanese, and again by the Chinese. The way to go back is to rebuild the family circle. Today the family doesn’t communicate; religions and politics have separated us: Christian, Buddhist, Daoist – different beliefs. This broke our ethnic socio-political structure.

I agree with my nephew, Nabu, that sharing ideas through the ‘four Pali-’ (talking together) is the ‘new headhunt’: we should observe palihabasan (oral history/tell the legends), discuss and talk about our history, why we are here; palihansiap (be known/understood), share our own opinions and what we know; palimantuk (speak sincerely/correctly), confirm truth and our agreements; palisnulu (what was said), review and remember our promises. For Bunun elders this was natural; for young Bunun this needs to be learned.

My grandkids now speak only Chinese. How can they be Bunun when they don’t even know their language? Now, my own family doesn’t use Bunun, and the grandkids don’t even try to learn Bunun. I asked them, and they know it is important to me, but they don’t try. I hope I am not the last of our family to experience mamangan (communing with the spiritual powers of nature). If today we are sisivu (still, implying lazy) and don’t keep moving, then that is our own is’uka (disappearance/loss).

This is like the headhunt, it’s your individual event, your own life business, and it’s up to yourself. It’s up to you. At least I have the opportunity to show what Bunun is. My body can still show the ceremony – the body movements and words.

Mamangan is to have spiritual power from nature (mana) – people who are not afraid – even in a fight they are not afraid. But if they don’t do anything then they are not mamangan, like people who eat too much or men who always stay home with the women.

I hope our younger generations can learn from my experiences and not forget about the history of our Bunun community. For example, I would never abuse alcohol, because alcohol is something sacred to Bunun culture. Young people today use it for entertainment.

For me it’s difficult to observe this happening.

I am doing my best to answer what you ask.

If later, I’m alive, we can talk again.

Constructing an ethnographic life history account

Although conducting oral ethnographies with highly technical video and sound recording equipment was a complex methodological process, for the Bunun recounting oral history comes naturally, and Tama Biung’s narratives were delivered with ease and confidence. His childhood memories and knowledge of hunting, family and kinship, Bunun cultural practices, and the arrival of the Japanese in Laipunuk were notably extensive. The outcome of the study was mutually beneficial to both researcher and participant, offering extensive sources of information and resolution for Tama Biung.

Tama Biung spoke of palihabasan (as oral history suggested by Palalavi, 2006) as a way forward, with himself representing the concept of mantuk (correct/true experience) (see Fang, 2016), such as knowing about places and doing things in the Bunun way, such as hunting, making gunpowder, and life in the mountain woods. In this way Tama Biung represents the importance of personal experience in Bunun culture as ‘embodied knowledge’ in understanding cultural behaviours, especially hunting (Yang, 2015).

The author and the translator (Nabu Istanda) agreed that Tama Biung’s father was aware of the threat to their cultural and way of life, and this was in part because he had met with Bunun cultural figure Lamataxinxin and understood that the Japanese control over Laipunuk was inevitable. Thus, his father was resolute in his determination to convey Bunun culture to his son as quickly as possible, and Tama Biung began hunting much younger than usual. Having learned the traditional Bunun skills, and lived through the experience of the Japanese era in Laipunuk as first-hand ‘embodied knowledge’, it appears that at the time of recording his narrative, Tama Biung may well have been the last surviving trained Bunun hunter from Laipunuk. He attributed this survival to the strength and courage gained as a young hunter which taught him to face life with bravery and to change with the changes of the world.

We learned from Tama Biung about his personal experience in Bunun culture of Laipunuk, including his recounting about family, guns, gunpowder, hunting, animals, meat, taboos, headhunting, local heroes, and pressures brought on by the arrival of the Japanese. He shared his knowledge of the basic techniques of Bunun of hunting of that time, such as ‘waiting or hiding’, using a dog, or the combination of the two; or looking for the animal, hunting by fire, or the use a bow and arrow or gun. We learned that there were different types of guns used by the Bunun in Laipunuk: single-shot (both long- and short- range); and those using shells (both single- and multiple- shot), and that guns were primarily locally manufactured by Taiwanese who intermarried and lived in Laipunuk. Thus, the narratives support the hypotheses first proposed by Huang (2001a) that suggest Laipunuk was moving towards integration of social systems, trade, and intermarriage.

We also learned how Bunun behaviour, language and culture evolved in the changing environment of the early to mid-twentieth century. Characteristics of this research included defining cultural terms in context. As suggested by Sturge (1997), the translation process inevitably impacts the outcome of the ethnographic documentation between source- and target-language cultures. Tama Biung instinctively replied in Isbukun Bunun with the occasional use of Japanese and Mandarin and English words were suggested by Nabu Istanda and clarified through a process of discussion with the author. Other challenges affecting the ethnography documentation include the construction of topics built upon conversations which took place over several years, yet were combined to generate the topics presented and the flow of English used.

The hunt, territorial boundaries and colonial resistance

Tama Biung’s narratives confirmed the relationship with Bunun rebel Lamataxinxin who came to Laipunuk regularly to share stories and obtain gunpowder. Lamataxinxin was heroic figure in the Laipunuk Bunun collective conscious – a steadfast resistance fighter and symbol of bravery in the region, even after his capture during the 1932 Daguanshan Incident. In contrast, memories of the 1941 Laipunuk Incident, headed by Haisul Takisvilainan, led to the forced evacuation and destruction of homes, livelihoods, and culture remain mixed between those who see him as a heroic resistance fighter and those who see him as troubled man who selfishly brought the demise of Bunun culture in Laipunuk (Binkinuaz, 2006; Martin, 2006, 2011a, 2011b, 2014).

We learned that before the Japanese came, the Bunun were always on guard, concerned, and preparing their guns expecting a sudden attack from other Taiwanese indigenous groups. Although Tama Biung recognized the benefits that came with modernity, including the friendships forged with other Taiwanese indigenous groups who were once enemies, he recalled life in the mountains as better than today’s way of life. It was natural for Bunun to protect their community and boundaries, to headhunt, and to feel ‘on-duty’. To be Bunun was to be strong and brave, yet with the demise of hunting and headhunting traditions, he felt that people became lost, weakened, and prone to alcohol.

The hunt and colonial modernity

Japan was the first non-Western empire in the Asia-Pacific in years leading up to the Second World War and brought an acute version of colonial modernity to Taiwan, transforming a unique community of indigenous people who had prevailed for over 400 years in the wake of numerous foreign cultural incursions into a politically-charged modern nation-state poised for expansion and the conquest of the Asia-Pacific. As the concept of colonial modernity can be applied both to the colonizer and colonized (Lee and Cho, 2012), as noted by Poyer and Tsai (2019), Tama Biung was not simply assimilated by colonial modernity, rather he, like many Bunun, connected his life experience with his indigenous identity. Although the Bunun language does not have conceptions of modernity per se, ordinary Bunun people recognize the concept as crucial to their current life experience, such as using video camera to record a cultural ritual (Yang, 2011). Tama Biung, like other indigenous peoples in Taiwan was keenly aware to the benefits of modernity, including education, better clothing, medical care (see Simon, 2005) and in his philosophy to keep moving ahead: “sharing ideas is the new headhunt.”

As Tama Biung’s testimony shows, many of the Bunun were steadfast in fighting to retain their cultural traditions, as in the case of Tama Biung’s father. The Bunun of this period faced overwhelming odds, both as courageous warriors confronted by the invasive military might of the Japanese, and later as servants of that Empire of Japan fighting in the Second World War. Tama Biung’s narrative offers insight to the sudden shift from rebellion to cooperation with the Japanese colonial military. As suggested by Poyer and Tsai (2019), wartime recollections of Taiwanese indigenous peoples, including that of Tama Biung, reflect their own understandings of the conflict and the centrality of bravery, heroism, and related cultural concepts of manhood. Tama Biung was proud to join the Japanese imperial military, originally unaware that the Japanese were actually fighting WWII and the Bunun at the same time: “At that time in my life, it seemed the same, be brave and fight with other groups, so joining with the Japanese was like joining a strong tribe” (Poyer and Tsai, 2019: 51; Martin, 2006: 52). Engulfed by the excitement of the highly organised and publicised military mobilization, and as his understanding expanded beyond the traditional boundaries of Laipunuk’s forest resources, so did his respect for Japanese power and influence across the island. His response was brave, heroic, masculine and spontaneous: “When we are needed, we go to fight… I presented myself to the powerful Japanese… I was not afraid of getting hurt or killed,” speaking as if enemies of the Japanese were hunters of another group who had entered Bunun territory. As suggested by Simon (2006), even as soldiers for the Japanese army, Taiwanese indigenous peoples were conscious of their actions as “members of the fierce tribe.”

A remembered life

Tama Biung Istanda passed away in 2007, and the ethnographic narrative presented here was constructed from his recorded material, with no further opportunity for direct clarification. The informant was elderly and frequently ill, as a result of which our interviews were at times suspended for weeks or months. These short, but impactful revelations were selected for this ethnography because of Tama Biung’s unique life account and historical knowledge of the Bunun way of life as a valuable eyewitness testimony. His narrative revealed their heroism and cultural wisdom, as well as their good luck, that any of the Bunun survived through that period to bring into being future generations of Bunun and to tell us their story.

In accordance with Tama Biung’s wish – these stories will now reach future generations of Bunun. His interviews have been uploaded for free public viewing via YouTube on the University Filmworks channel (Martin, 2020b).