Taiwan Indigenous News
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Political whisk: Angry Taiwan aboriginals throw eggs
"It's about our land, and the Council of Indigenous Peoples doesn't support us." The protesters, organised largely by aboriginal legislators, ...
Tea, aboriginal beads, cakes win contest for Taiwan's best products
Handcrafted with clay, they were used as a symbol of nobility and power in the aboriginal tribe. Now they have become one of the must-buy tour souvenirs in ...
Indigenous people call for minister to resign
6 (CNA) Over 300 members of the indigenous people's alliance for safeguarding the Aboriginal Basic Law staged a protest Tuesday in front of the Council of ...
Protesters slam interference in media affairs
PTS, Hakka Television Service and Taiwan Indigenous Television Service (TITV) are all affiliates of TBS, which is funded mainly by the government. ...
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.
