中文

The Amis

A Store of Myths

The Amis of the Taibalang settlement have a legend that tells how their ancestors once drifted about in a huge wooden canoe. This is how the story goes:

One day a devastating flood submerged the whole world under a vast expanse of water. The flood was like a ferocious animal that devoured everything in its roaring path, and those who didn’t drown were swept away by the raging torrents. A girl named Dujee was desperately trying to save her little brother Lalakan and herself from the deluge. They jumped into a long canoe, and after many days the terrifying waves gradually died down. The siblings floated along on the vast ocean until at last they sighted land on the horizon. This was the place the Amis call Jeelayashan, which is today’s Yejinshan in Hualien’s Fengbin Township.

To save their tribe from extinction, the older sister married her younger brother and they had many, many children and grandchildren.

Their descendants, the Amis of the Taibalang settlement, still remember that their forebears made landfall at Jeelayashan many generations ago. It is said that in the Tungtsun Village within Hualien’s Fengbin Township one may still admire the long canoe in which Dujee and her little brother Lalakan floated on the flood waters before reaching Taiwan!