Chi-fang CHAO

Various dimensions of rituals among

the indigenous peoples in Taiwan

What is a ritual? What made it important to most societies? Whether or not is it still significant to the contemporary societies? for what reasons? Will festivals replace rituals? Anthropologists have tried to argued for its universality, (van Gennep 1960[1909]) indispensability, (Durkheim 1992) performativity, (Tambiah 1979; Turner 1977, 1990) and implication for researchers. (Bell 1992) Focusing on the Taiwanese indigenous peoples’ rituals, this presentation intends to respond to the above questions, under the framework of a three-year collaborative research project funded by the National Science Committee in Taiwan.

The indigenous peoples (yuan-zhu-min) in Taiwan belong to the Austronesian-speaking family. There are currently fourteenth officially-recognized ethnic groups. Before the Japanese scholars classified the indigenous peoples based on linguistic criteria, the peoples mostly formed of a tribe-based inhabitant unit and separated themselves from each other. This unique collectivity was the root of the traditional rituals which differed much from the large-scale contemporary festival celebrating indigenous cultural distinction such as the Festival of Austronesian Culture held in Taitung since 2000. 

Taking the Amis (Pancah) people, the largest ethnic group, as the example, whose stylistic songs and dances have been nurtured in the annual ritual cycle. Many collective rituals are named by Pancah with a prefix of ‘mi-‘ which means ‘to do something,’ such as milishin (to worship), miholo (to visit) or mirecuk (to peek). Ritual is something that people DO and DO TOGETHER. This collectivity has been highly visualized in the dance formation seen in most Amis rituals, in particular the biggest annual ritual of intensification ilishin or milishin.

In addition to the collectivity, however, the dance formation also highlights the social hierarchy and order at large. The Pancah has been known as a matrilineal society. Parallel with this mainly domestic power structure, however, the males are dominant in the public sphere. Crossing family and clan boundaries, the male’s age-grade system help structure the male human resource to handle the tribal affairs. There has been a strict ethic of respecting the elders among the male age-grade. Many scholars have noticed the dance formation in the ritual of ilishin or milishin as a visual reflection of this ordered male line based on the hierarchy of age-grade.   

In addition to the dance formation, another core element which symbolizes the value and attitude toward the ritual is the movement of holding hands. Elsewhere I have argued for the important root metaphor of holding hands. (Chao, forthcoming) The Pancah people have been aware of hands as the conduit for connection, either to the deities or to the human beings. Holding hands to dance together, which is called maliguda by some villages, hence explicates the essence of ritual, and even sociality.

Under a contemporary nation-state political framework and nationalistic ideology, a new criteria of ‘indigenous people’ has been created and imposes new dimension of collectivity on the originally tribe-based identity. I shall argue it is under this new criteria of grouping that contemporary festivals, such as the Austornesian Cultural Festival held in Taitung where has most diverse ethnic groups in Taiwan., can be realized.

Contemporary festival has its intention to reach beyond immediate geographic boundary, which is contrary to traditional rituals that are always bound to a specific locales and even time spans, most often considered sacred in some ways. It allows encounter and flow, but not exclusiveness, of different peoples. It is a celebration of cultural survival based on shared commonality, but not boundary-defining. As seen in the Austronesian Cultural Festival, it is an idealized blue-plan created out of the cultural multiplicism. After the success in the first years, however, the festival started to struggle: it becomes difficult to find groups, the weather (it is held in December) is not comfortable for peoples from most Oceanic countries with whom the term Austronesian is supposed to build strong connection. In other words, the intended celebration of commonality and cultural sharing has become somewhat abstract and formal. Without a specific group of people who hold hands to dance TOGETHER over years or certain period of time, a festival is hard to sustain and becomes sacred.

It is not my intention to divide ritual and festival into two poles and to evaluate them or make a dichotomy between them. It is clear for me that both ritual and festival are society’s search for celebration of collective survival, in the realm of religion or art. It is a symbolic production created out of the very real living condition. It hence reflects the changing mentality and adapting strategy that we as human beings treat as meaningful.

References

Bell, Catherine. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chao, Chi-fang. Forthcoming. ‘‘‘Holding Hands”: Movement as Cultural Metaphor in the Dance of Indigenous Peoples in Taiwan,’ Journal of Anthropological Study of Human Movement.

Durkheim. Emile. 1992. The Elementary Form of Religious Life. Taiwanese edition. Taipei: Kuei-Kwan.

Tambiah, Stanley J. 1979. 'A Performative Approach to Ritual,' Proceedings of the British Academy, 65: 113-69.

Turner, Victor. 1977. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

----------. 1990. 'Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual, and Drama?' in R. Schechner & W. Appel eds., By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual, pp. 8-18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Van Gennep, Arnold. 1960[1909]. The Rites of Passage. Intro. S. T. Kimball, tran. M. B. Vizedon & G. L. Caffee. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press.