Taivoan people
Taivoan, Taibowan, Taiburan, Shisha | |
|---|---|
 Taivoan elders in traditional dress at the Night Ceremony in Xiaolin, Kaohsiung. | |
| Total population | |
| More than 20,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Kaohsiung, Tainan, Taitung and Hualien in Taiwan | |
| Languages | |
| Taivoan, Taiwanese, Mandarin | |
| Religion | |
| Animism, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Siraya, Makatao, Taiwanese indigenous peoples |
| Taiwanese indigenous peoples |
|---|
 |
| Peoples |
|
Nationally Recognized Locally recognized Unrecognized |
| Related topics |
The Taivoan (
pronunciation; 大滿族) or Tevorangh (pronunciation; 大武壠族) people or Shisha (四社; 'Four tribes'), also written Taivuan and Tevorang, Tivorang, Tivorangh, are a Taiwanese indigenous people.
The Taivoan originally settled around hill and basin areas in Tainan, especially in the , which area the Taivoan called Tamani, later transliterated into Japanese Tamai (玉井) and later borrowed as Chinese Yujing. The Taivoan historically called themselves Taivoan, Taibowan, Taiburan or Shisha as endonyms.[1][2]
According to some scholars, there should be more than 20,000 Taivoan people nowadays, estimated based on the records during Japanese rule of Taiwan, ranked as the second largest non-status indigenous people in Taiwan, only second to Makatao people.[3]
Many scholars propose that the name of the island Taiwan actually came from the indigenous people's name, as the pronunciation of Taivoan is similar to Tayovan, the people that the Dutch met around the coast of Anping or the bay around Anping, which later became the name Taiwan. Also the Taivoan established a settlement called Taiouwang, which is the only indigenous community that sounds like Taiwan.[4][5]
History[]
The Taivoan people are ethnically called "Taivoan" or "Tevorangh". While the former term comes from the self-identification of the indigenous people recorded by Japanese linguists in the early 20th century, the latter comes from one of the four main tribes or nations established by the Taivoan in the early 17th century, well-recorded by the Dutch and Chinese people in a couple of documents, in different spellings including Tevorang, Tevoran, Tefurang, Devoran, Tivorang, Tivorangh, and the like.[4][6] Farrell also noted that the two terms "Tevorangh and Taivoan are probably dialectal variants of a common name (< *tayvura-n)".[7]
In December 1628, George Candidius, the first missionary to Dutch Formosa, wrote that there were eight tribes around modern-day Tainan, including "Sinkan, Mattau, Soulang, Bakloan, Taffakan, Tifulukan, Teopan and Tefurang", among which "the most remote village is Tefurang, which lies between the mountains".[6] In 1694, Chinese officer Kao Gong-qian (高拱亁) recorded the first Chinese record of Tevorangh in "Taiwan Prefecture Gazetteer" (臺灣府志), stating that the tribe was located to the northwest of Ma-an Mt.[8] Both records show the tribes' location and living environment in mountainous area of Taivoan or Tevorangh, compared to the Siraya and Makatao – the two indigenous peoples with a close relationship to Taivoan – who inhabit the lowland only.[4][9]
Mattau Incident[]
In 1629, the third governor of Dutch Formosa, Pieter Nuyts, dispatched 63 Dutch soldiers to Mattau with the excuse of "arresting Chinese pirates". The effort was impeded by the local indigenous people, as they had been resentful at the Dutch colonists who invaded and slaughtered many of their people. On the way back, the 63 Dutch soldiers were drowned by the indigenous people of Mattau, resulting in the retaliation of Pieter Nuyts and later the Mattau Incident (麻豆社事件) in 1635.[10]
On November 23, 1635, Nuyts led 500 Dutch soldiers and 500 Siraya soldiers from Sinckan to assail Mattau, killing 26 tribal people and burning all the buildings in Mattau. On December 18, Mattau surrendered and signed the Mattau Act (麻豆條約) with the Dutch governor Hans Putmans. In this act, Mattau agreed to grant all the land inherited or controlled and all the properties owned by the people of Mattau to the Dutch. The Mattau Act has two significant meanings in the history of Taiwan:[11]
- The Mattau Act is the first sovereignty grant act signed between Taiwanese indigenous people and a foreign sovereignty in the history.
- The sovereignty of the Formosans or the Taiwanese indigenous peoples was recognized by the Dutch government.
Resistance against Japanese[]
As a resistance to the long-term oppression by the Japanese government, many Taivoan people from Jiasian led the first local rebellion against Japan in July 1915, called the Jiasian Incident (甲仙埔事件). This was followed by a wider rebellion from Yuchin Basin in Tainan to Jiasian in Kaohsiung in August 1915, known as the Tapani Incident (噍吧哖事件) in which more than 1,400 local people died or were killed by the Japanese government. Twenty-two years later, the Taivoan people struggled to carry on another rebellion; since most of the indigenous people were from Xiaolin, the resistance taking place in 1937 was named the Xiaolin Incident (小林事件).[5]
Classification and self-identification[]
The Taivoan people used to be classified as a subgroup of Siraya; however, regards Taivoan as an indigenous ethnic group according to 17th century documents, and believes there were at least five indigenous peoples in the south-western plain of Taiwan at that time:[7]
- Siraya
- Tevorang-Taivuan
- Takaraian (now classified as Makatao)
- Pangsoia-Dolatok (now classified as Makatao)
- Longkiau (now classified as Paiwan)
That Tevorang is sometimes considered to be a Siraya village is mainly based on George Candidius' inclusion "Tefurang" in the eight Siraya villages that he claimed all had "the same manners, customs and religion, and speak the same language". Ferrell mentioned that this is erroneous and that Candidious' assertion that he was well familiar with the eight supposed Siraya villages including Tevorang is extremely doubtful, as "he had not visited Tevorang when he wrote his famous account in 1628. The first Dutch visit to Tevorang appears to have been in January 1636".[7]
Japanese anthropologist and many modern scholars including , , , , , , and also regard Taivoan as an independent Taiwanese indigenous people from the aspects of linguistics and anthropology.[1][12][13][4][9][14]
On October 6, 2016, Taivoan people across Kaohsiung held the first Inter-tribal Consensus Conference of Taivoan People and made a consensus statement that both "Tevorangh" (the classification recorded since the 17th century) and "Taivoan" (the classification since the 20th century) are accepted by the Taivoan people, but they refuse to be identified as "Siraya" or a subgroup of the Siraya people.[3]
Distribution[]
According to the oral history, Taivoan people originally lived in Taivoan community in nowadays Anping, Tainan and later founded two communities and in Xinhua. As invaded by Siraya people, Taivoan were later forced to migrate to Zuojhen and Shanshang, establishing two communities and respectively. The indigenous people were later driven by Siraya again and migrate to Danei, setting up the community (Nunamu). Siraya eventually invaded Danei and forced Taivoan to move to Yujing, where Taivoan later founded four of their most important communities, Tevorangh, Sia-urie, Vogavon, and Kapoa.[15]
Historical Documents[]
According to the Dutch records in the 17th century, the Taivoan were settled in four main nations or tribes around the Yuchin Basin,[16] and therefore they had been called Shisha (四社熟番, literally "four tribes") in the history of Taiwan.