Ancient Religions of the Austronesian World

From Australasia to Taiwan

Julian Baldick

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780857733573
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Comparative Religion

Austronesia is the vast oceanic region which stretches from Madagascar to Taiwan to New Zealand. Encompassing both scattered archipelagos and major landmasses, Austronesia - derived from the Latin australis, 'southern', and Greek nesos, 'island' - is used primarily as a linguistic term, designating a family of languages spoken by peoples with a shared heritage. Julian Baldick, a celebrated historian of ancient religion, here argues that the diverse inhabitants of the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, New Guinea and Oceania show a common inheritance that extends beyond language. This commonality is found above all in mythology and ritual, which reach back to an ancient, prehistoric past. From around 1250 BCE the original proto-Oceanic speakers migrated eastwards from South-East Asia. Navigating by the sun, the stars, bird flight, the swells of the sea and cloud-swathed mountain islands, Austronesian voyagers used canoes and outriggers to settle on new territories. They developed a unified pattern of religion characterised by mortuary rites, headhunting and agrarian rituals of the annual calendar, culminating in a post-harvest festival often sexual in nature.
This unique overview of Austronesian belief and tradition - the author's final book, and published posthumously - will be essential reading for students of religion, prehistory and anthropology.

Chapter 1

TAIWAN

In our survey of the religions of Taiwanese aboriginal groups we shall begin with seventeenth and eighteenth-century Chinese sources. Then we shall proceed to twentieth and twenty-first-century publications by anthropologists. Finally, we shall end with conclusions about the general characteristics of Taiwanese aboriginal religion.

Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Chinese Sources

The seventeenth and eighteenth-century Chinese sources for the study of Taiwanese aborigines have been translated by the French researcher Chantal Zheng. Zheng has equipped her translations with copious notes, which include materials from early European sources and twentieth-century anthropological studies.

The earliest seventeenth-century source is the Notes on the Barbarians of the East [Dongfanji], by Chen Di (1541–1617), an army officer who wrote in 1603. He notes the Taiwanese tradition of headtaking: the aborigines remove the flesh from enemies’ heads and then hang them by their doors. Zheng comments that, up to the 1950s, in the courtyards of the Paiwan, one found display cases filled with skulls. The British explorer W.A. Pickering says that the brains would be mixed with alcohol and then consumed. The French writer Camille Imbault-Huart records a prayer addressed to the victim: ‘You are welcome among us. You must take your meal with us. Ask also your parents and your brothers to join us.’¹

Chen Di also reports that Taiwanese women break their teeth, this being thought to add to their beauty, and that, at the age of 15 or 16, the girls have two incisors extracted. Zheng observes that this extraction of teeth has been practised among the Atayal, Bunun, Saixia, Shao, Tsou and some of the tribes of the plains. Among the Atayal the teeth are placed beneath the overhang of the roof, while among the Bunun they are put near the central pillar of the granary.²

As regards death and burial, Chen Di tells us that the corpse is dried by means of a fire before being exposed in the dead person’s house, without a coffin. When the condition of the house deteriorates and it has to be rebuilt a hole is dug in its foundations and the body is buried in it, standing up. Zheng comments that this is in effect ‘double burial’, as is done elsewhere in the same region, on the Ryukyu Islands, and on Darnley Island, Krafto and Sakhalin.³

Chen Di continues by informing us that when agricultural work is being done nobody speaks or kills anything. The aborigines explain that otherwise Heaven would not help them, the spirits would not grant their favours and they would have one year’s famine. Zheng notes that among the Paiwan, during the sowing season, nobody can talk on the roads and in the countryside.⁴

Chen Di’s account of ‘double burial’ is echoed by the teacher Lin Qianguang, who seems to have lived in Taiwan between 1687 and 1691, and wrote Brief Notes on Taiwan [Taiwan jilüe]. He says that when someone dies he is buried in the house. Three days later the people of the village gather, exhume the corpse and fill it with alcohol before reburying it, without a coffin. When the family moves house they exhume it again in order to rebury it in their new house.⁵

Lin Qianguang also tells us that as soon as women give birth they are washed in cold water, at the same time as the new-born babies. He explains that the aborigines have no medicines, but, whenever they are ill, bathe in rivers, claiming that there are medicines in the water.⁶

Much more extensive information is provided by the administrator Huang Shujing (1677–1753), in his Notes on an Inquiry Overseas [Taihai shichalu], probably composed around 1736. He divides the aborigines into 13 groups, ten in the north and three in the south. Huang Shujing gives us details of the aborigines’ funerary customs for each of the 13 ‘sectors’ into which he divides the island.

As regards sector 1 of the north, Huang Shujing says that the aborigines put the corpse in a coffin, which is placed temporarily inside the deceased’s house. Zheng comments that several Taiwanese groupings bury their dead beneath the floor of the house. In sector 2 the aborigines build a little hut for the deceased inside his house, and adorn it with chicken feathers and little flags. A good number of the objects used by the deceased in his daily life are hung up inside the hut. In sector 4 a very big jar is used as a coffin and buried in the deceased’s house. Zheng notes that among the Paiwan, for example, some people are said to be dead ‘in a state of sin’ for various reasons, such as being killed by a weapon or a snake bite. They are seen as very inauspicious, and have to be put in a large jar filled with water, which is then buried. In sector 5, if someone is dying, all his clothes are placed on his body, but when he dies he is stripped completely naked before being buried in his home. An aborigine who dies in sector 6 is wrapped in a mat before being buried in his house, together with all his goods. In sector 7 four slabs of schist are used to make a tomb, in which the body is placed seated, the knees bent. Zheng comments that this resembles the customs of the Paiwan or the Lukai, among whom the tomb is inside the home. This practice was gradually abandoned under the Japanese occupation, owing to pressure from the Japanese – which met with incomprehension. For some aboriginal groupings putting the ‘good dead’ in a cemetery was tantamount to letting them live with evil ghosts and demons. In sector 8 the burial is again performed in the home. Mourning lasts 12 days, during which the family is forbidden to go out. At the end of this period the local shamaness is asked to pray and make offerings to bring the mourning period to an end. In sector 9 the body is taken to the summit of a mountain, where it is buried. Zheng suggests that here we may have a link with the beliefs of the Atayal, who believe that when someone dies his spirit goes to the summit of a high mountain. In sector 1 of the south the body is placed in a coffin, which is buried in the deceased’s house, but the latter is then abandoned. As for sector 2, a vault is built inside the house, with stone walls on all four sides. The dead are placed inside in order of their deaths, seated, without coffins. If a woman dies in childbirth she is buried on the summit of a mountain.⁷

Apart from funerary rites, Huang Shujing gives us other pieces of information about Taiwanese aborigines. In the northern sector 2, in one village, after a wedding the bride and groom break two of their front upper teeth. Each keeps those of the other to symbolize the fact that they will never leave each other. As for the aborigines of the southern sector 2, they have the habit of killing all those whom they meet, and cutting off the heads of their victims before running away. They decorate the skulls thus obtained with gold. When one of them is killed his male heirs must, after four months of mourning, go and kill someone else. They sacrifice the severed head to their dead relative. When there is a drought they pray, and do not go out for five days, during which time they do not light a fire or smoke, and eat just dry taro. If rain falls they remain inside for five more days, in gratitude. Every five years they have a feast. The local administrator and 100 other people form a circle, each holding a long bamboo pole, while one of them throws a rattan ball into the air. The others compete to see who can pierce the ball. Zheng comments that this quinquennial feast is held among the Paiwan: the village priest controls the game, and every player who succeeds in winning a ball shouts: ‘There’s an enemy!’ When the game is over the balls are hidden in the forest, in a special hut that evokes the presentation cases for skulls. The Maori have the same game. Huang Shujing tells us that the women of the sector play on swings, singing without interruption, day and night. Zheng comments that swings are indeed widespread among the Paiwan, and connected with shamanesses, who are chosen by the gods when swinging during the harvest festival: if a girl behaves unusually she is designated as a shamaness. The same custom is found in Borneo. In the southern sector 3 the birth of twins is considered inauspicious: they are attached to a tree branch until they die, and then the family moves house. Zheng observes that among the Paiwan the birth of twins is indeed very inauspicious, and they are sacrificed and buried in the house.⁸

Huang Shujing also provides more information about marriage. Among the aborigines of the north, in sector 1 the groom is taken to the bride’s house (as Zheng comments, here and elsewhere we see evidence of matriliny, descent through the mother). Divorce is easy (notably in the case of adultery) and extra-marital sex is not forbidden. The same tolerance is shown in sector 2, but here adultery is punished by a fine, as it is in sector 4, where pre-marital sex is allowed. In sector 7 marriage by capture is practised. As for adultery in sector 9, a cuckolded husband can kill the guilty pair, whereas in sector 10 the house of the adulterer’s parents is ransacked and they have to pay a fine: this is to show that the family has not brought its children up well.⁹

Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Sources

Ishii: the Atayal

In 1917 the Japanese anthropologist Shinji Ishii published an article on the Atayal people of Taiwan’s central mountains. He noted that, unlike nearby groups, they punished extra-marital sex severely. Often they committed suicide, when they lost face, and a wife did this if her husband was killed in war. They believed only in the spirits of the dead: if a man had been a successful headhunter his spirit would go to the top of their highest mountain, but if not it would go down to hell. The Atayal performed headhunting to propitiate their ancestral spirits, who, they believed, produced disasters.¹⁰

Ishii tells us that the Atayal had a sowing ritual, held in February or March, when the moon was on the wane. Before it the men would hunt and kill game for the feast, and new fire was prepared in every house. The use of metal objects was forbidden. During the feast itself seeds of rice and millet were sown at night, and another hunt took place. Previously, in one district, heads were taken. The harvest ritual also required new fire and a ban on the use of metal objects. Harvesting again began at night, and required silence or a very low voice. Soon after, in May or June, the crop was offered to the ancestral spirits, and then the men ran around shouting, ‘Stab wild pigs!’¹¹

The Atayal also had purification rituals for marriage, divorce, childbirth and crimes. A pig would be killed, the blood having the required purifying effect. In the case of a birth this had to be done within ten or 20 days, after a piece of camphor had been burnt and thrown out of the house. The dead were buried inside the house, in a contracted position, with their belongings, and often facing west. Men who were killed in war or headhunting were abandoned in the forest. The period of mourning lasted for eight to 20 days.¹²

Mabuchi: Myths of the Origin of Grains

Japanese researcher Toichi Mabuchi in 1964 published an article on the origin of grains in myths from Taiwan, the Ryukyus, Japan and ‘Malaysia’, in which he included the Philippines and Indonesia. He distinguished three types of origin: (1) heaven or overseas, (2) the underworld, and (3) the corpse of a deity or ancestor.¹³

As regards type 1, Mabuchi found, among the Paiwan in southern Taiwan, a story in which a man visited a friend in heaven, and found millet and tubers growing there. His friend refused to share these with him, and so he stole them by hiding them in his penis. Another story from the same area says that the ancestor deities had five children, who lived on a mountain: the fourth created millet and tubers. Type 2 is represented among the Bunun in central Taiwan, who have a vague idea of a supreme deity or deities, without any worship thereof. In one of their stories people go down into the underworld and visit its inhabitants. They discover rice and ask to be given its seed, but meet with a refusal and steal it, hiding it in their foreskins. Type 3 is not found in Taiwan, but the Ami people of the eastern seaboard tell stories of this kind with reference to tobacco and the betel nut. The former is said to have grown out of the grave of a girl who killed herself. In one story two kinds of tobacco come from the graves of a brother–sister pair who commit incest, are rebuked by their parents and kill themselves. Similarly, in another story, a shaman and a shamaness commit adultery, are found out and turn into the betel pepper vine and betel nut tree respectively. The Bunun have a story in which a buried corpse gives rise to the sweet potato.¹⁴

Ferrell: an overview of Taiwanese aboriginal culture

A survey of Taiwanese aboriginal cultures and languages was published in 1969 by the Paris-based researcher Raleigh Ferrell. He observes, with reference to all groups: ‘By contact times [i.e. times of contact with foreigners] flexed burial [i.e. with the legs drawn up under the chin] often under the house, had widely replaced more varied earlier burial practices in most of Taiwan.’¹⁵ All aborigines practised headhunting. Illnesses were treated by specially trained shamanesses.¹⁶

As regards individual peoples, Ferrell starts with the Atayal in the northern part of the island, and notes that they had no men’s houses or other public buildings. The Atayal believe that the first ancestors of humankind came out of an enormous stone or mountain. They have no gods, but only a variety of spirits, who are placated collectively. Unlike many Taiwanese peoples, the Atayal condemn pre-marital sex as offensive to the spirits and dangerous for the community: atonement requires fixed rituals and pig sacrifice.¹⁷

The Bunun, according to Ferrell, used to extract both men and women’s lateral incisors, like the Tsou and the Atayal. He says that other Taiwanese groups did not do this in the recent past, but quite possibly did so before. (Later he concedes that the practice was found among some other groups, and probably existed among others.) The Bunun, says Ferrell (contradicting Mabuchi), lack individual gods and spirits, but used to make offerings to the moon. They have stories of sexual relations between humans and animals, reflecting their dependence upon hunting, and they have shamans as well as shamanesses.¹⁸

As for the Paiwan, Ferrell reports that they believe their chiefly families to be descended from the sun. The sun is said to have come down to a mountain and produced a red egg and a white one. A giant serpent bit the eggs, and they yielded a man and a woman, the ancestors of the chiefly families, whereas the eggs of a green snake yielded the ancestors of ordinary ones. The Paiwan have specialized deities, such as a god of thunder and millet and a sky-goddess of creation and life. They placate the spirits of the dead collectively. Every five years, after the late autumn harvest, the Paiwan hold their ‘Five-Year Festival’ (described, as we have seen, by Zheng). The ancestral spirits are brought from their mountain home to the villages to see that customs are respected. They stay for five days, and take part in the festival’s special ball-game. Balls made out of bark are thrown in the air by an agricultural priest, and men in a circle round the priest try to catch them with long bamboo poles. Then the spirits are sent home to vouchsafe prosperity.¹⁹

Ferrell sees the Paiwan as closely linguistically related to the Saisiyat Saisiyat people of northern Taiwan, who also have specialized deities, such as a male–female pair with ‘jurisdiction over all living creatures’, and a god with a snake’s body, invoked only to remove evil or grant benefits. Some of the Saisiyat Saisiyat have four deities, concerned respectively with birth, death, rain and agriculture. Every two years the Saisiyat observe a ceremony of ‘worshipping the spirits’, in which the spirits of the dead are brought to their territory and taken round it before being sent home after five days.²⁰

The Ami of the eastern seaboard have complicated myths of the origins of the world and the gods. Ferrell gives us one, in which we are told that, before heaven and earth existed, the world was in darkness. A god and goddess appeared and had a son and a daughter. The son turned himself into the sky, which produces shadows or souls, looked after by his sister. This brother–sister pair produced more sons and daughters, including a goddess who became the sun, a god who became the moon, another goddess who created life, and, finally, a god who made the others assume their particular duties. Ferrell comments that these Ami myths are unlike those of other Taiwanese aborigines. He notes that the Ami say that they came from overseas or a small island to the south-east, and thinks that many cultural elements on the east coast suggest a foreign, southern origin.²¹

The Archaeology of Prehistoric China and Taiwan

In 1969 the leading Chinese archaeologist Kwang-chih Chang presented a study of the archaeology of prehistoric Taiwan. He devoted much attention to the site of Dapenkeng, near Taipei in northern Taiwan, where he found a ‘Corded Ware’ culture dating from the fifth millennium BCE. Chang also noted a human lower jawbone found on a shellmound on the south-west coast of Taiwan, where shellfish gathering was important from about 1500 BCE. This jawbone had a hole bored through it, evidently so that it could be carried with a string. Apparently it had been used as a handle for a gong, as is done today by...