Taiwan Indigenous News
Tuesday, 25 October 2005
Female head of the national park system seeks to improve parks
... She said she could sense the wisdom of the mountain forests as passed down throughout the ages by Taiwan's indigenous peoples. The ...
Hsieh reveals moves to help indigenous students
... crystal display television to the students at an elementary school in Taitung County and announced more measures to help Taiwan's indigenous children secure ...
Tribe wants official recognition
... "Taiwan's indigenous tribes are all unique minorities in this country, but we are all the original residents of the island. Every ...
In cultures without written language, song and dance are not just the glue that holds the community’s life and ceremonies together, but also figure importantly in preserving the tribe’s collective cultural memory. Through their rituals, the Amis keep the teachings and admonishments of their ancestors alive. The dances they perform, always holding each other by their hands, are a way of reminding each other of the tribe’s unity. They also serve as a symbol for their shared beliefs and customs and help to strengthen the social fabric and political system of the settlement.
The ceremonies and rituals connect the individual with nature and its spirits, as well as giving structure to the year and its activities. During the Sowing Festival, a sowing song is sung. During the Weeding Festival, a weeding song is chanted. During the Expelling-the-Insects Festival, a song to get rid of harmful insects is performed, and so on. All these chants and ballads originally developed as work songs and were passed on orally from one generation to the next. There are summoning songs, praying-for-peace-and-prosperity songs (song by the shamans), working-in-the-field songs, completion-of-work songs, songs of happiness, praying-for-rain-songs, and many more.
The Amis’ musical style is rich and full of variety. It features a wide tonal range and complex canon patterns, but also simple and distinctive rhythms and easy-to-learn melodies that invite you to sway and dance with the music.
Just like their traditional garments and trappings, the Amis’ music differs from area to area and from settlement to settlement.
In 1943, the renowned Japanese ethno-musicologist Kurosawa Takatomo, who researched Taiwan’s aboriginal music during the Japanese colonial period, wrote a book entitled “The Music of Takasago’s Peoples” in which he divided the music of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples into seven categories:
The above description provides a rough picture of the central concerns of aboriginal life. After the Nationalist Government came to Taiwan, Mr. Lu Ping-chuan, also a renowned scholar and researcher of Taiwan’s aboriginal music, divided the Amis’ songs into the following four categories: