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 ...
The Amis worship nature and have strong animistic beliefs. For them, the cosmos is filled with numinous spirits. The Amis people’s fundamental religious ideas can be summed up as follows:
The sun is called “Ina”, which means “mother”, and the Amis believe that it was Ina who created heaven and earth. Ina is the highest and most revered deity, and the female goddess Foongi is viewed as her embodiment. The fact that the most important and powerful Amis deity is female is inextricably linked to the Amis’s origins as a matrilineal society.
The moon is called “Mema”, which means “father”. The Amis hold that Mema made the five grains, and revere him in his incarnation as the male deity Malataw.
The Amis believe that human fate is entirely in the hands of the Spirits. Female deities are in control of life and death, decide a newborn’s gender and a person’s lifespan, control health and prosperity and are responsible for the different peoples and races in the world. Male deities are in charge of plants and animals, the soil and its minerals, as well as water in all its manifestations (such as vapour, steam, clouds and mist), and other natural phenomena.