Taiwan

Resurrection

In 1996, the village of Lalaulan on Taiwan’s east coast was an example of the worst-case scenario for Indigenous Peoples. The Paiwan people of the village had lost almost all of their traditional land, their language was not being transmitted, they did not perform or even remember their own ceremonies or spiritual practices, and they had abandoned their distinctive clothing. They had begun dressing, talking, and acting like the island’s dominant Han Chinese people, but they were not fully accepted by that society.

Stories From Home:<br>In Taiwan, Indigenous Peoples Redefined Their Image

Indigenous Activists Tell Cultural Survival What The Decade Meant To Them

For the roughly 400,000 indigenous Austronesian minorities of Taiwan, whose population comprises two percent of the island’s population, the last decade has been one of cautious optimism. Encouraging is that the view of the aboriginals by the dominant Han society has shifted in the past decade. Ten years ago, indigenous people were most commonly referred to as “Mountain People” (san-tee’-ren) or other slurs in the Mandarin Chinese dialect.

The Underside of a Miracle: Industrialization, Land, and Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples

Taiwan’s rapid economic development of the 1970s and 1980s inspired an entire development discourse on the "Taiwanese miracle." It was hoped that other developing countries, from Mauritius to Bolivia, could learn from development policies of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Taiwan and bring prosperity to their own peoples.

The First Nations of Taiwan: A Special Report on Taiwan's indigenous peoples

Taiwanese history has been shaped by its geography. In the shape of a tobacco leaf, the island is about 85 miles across at its widest point and 260 miles long, with an area of just under 22,500 square miles. The terrain varies widely between the relatively flat west and the mountainous and heavily forested east. The island’s position just more than 100 miles off the southeast coast of China and astride major sea lanes has long given it key strategic importance.

Presbyterians and the Aboriginal Revitalization Movement in Taiwan

When the new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration in Taiwan appointed Yohani Isqaqavut, a Presbyterian minister, to Chair of the Council on Aboriginal Affairs in May 2000, many wondered why the first non-KMT president of the Republic of China/Taiwan made such a choice. The relationship between Presbyterians and Aboriginal people in Taiwan is rarely examined beyond noting that most Aboriginal people are Christian, and that Presbyterians have been active in Taiwan’s Aboriginal movements.

	How much is a language worth?
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