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 ...
According to the records of Japanese ethnologist Ino Kanori, the chief of the Dimei community, Zhen Jinsheng, told him the following legend about the origins of the Kavalan: “My ancestors were called ‘Avan’, and they set out across the ocean in boats from a place called Mariryan. They landed in Tamsui in the northwest of Taiwan, and then proceeded along the coast in an easterly direction. They lingered for a while in the Sandiao Cape region, but then they marched on until they reached a place named Kavana (Gezitan). Back in those days, there was no sign yet of the Han Chinese, and only the ‘Shanfan’ populated that area. That’s why the Avan at first had to settle in the less fertile coastal regions. Even so, conflict with the ‘Shanfan’ ensued, and our ancestors emerged victorious, driving them into the mountains and taking possession of the Lanyang Plain. Thus, our tribe is now called ‘the people of the plains’ (Kurarawan), while the ‘Shanfan’ are ‘the people of the mountains’, or Pusoram in our language. All this happened several hundred years ago.”
According to the above story, it is possible that the Kavalan came to Taiwan from two different places, Sanasai or Mariryan. But today, most researchers agree that the ancestors of the Kavalan tribe originally came from the Polynesian archipelago, and drifting on the ocean in their boats eventually landed on the Lanyang coast (after a stopover on Sanasai).
This “Sanasai” (“Island of Fire”, i.e. Green Island) may have been a stopover not just for the Kavalan, but also for many other tribes who came to Taiwan across the Pacific, including the Ketagalan in the northeast, the Ami, the Bunun, and the Yami (Tao) who live on Orchid Island. What all these tribes have in common is a treasure trove of myths and legends about the Sanasai, the Island of Fire.