Anyone familiar with the cultures of Micronesia, the South Pacific Islands, or the hill tribes of the Philippine will be struck by the traditional art and artifacts of Taiwan's native tribes. There are overwhelming similarities among the forms and designs of these cultural items, attesting to the millennia of migration, trade, and other types of contact throughout the region. Two of the best sources of information in English on Taiwan's tribes are An Illustrated Ethnography of Formosan Aborigines: The Yami, by Tadao Kano and Kokichi Segawa (Tokyo: Maruzen Company, Ltd., 1956) and Material Culture of the Formosan Aborigines (Taipei: Southern Materials Center, Inc., 1988), by Chen Chi-lu.
According to Segawa, the first edition of the Illustrated Ethnography, published in April 1945, was largely destroyed by fire during the air raids at the close of World War II. Dr. Kano disappeared in North Borneo in July of the same year, while engaged in ethnological field work. Co-author Segawa was responsible for compiling and re-editing the 1956 edition, which corrects maps, charts, and photo captions.
And what a photographic work it is! After an eighteen-page background essay on the Yami tribe, the remainder of the 456-page large-format work is primarily black-and-white photographs illustrating major aspects of Yami life. The book is divided into nine sections: physical feature of the Yami, habitation, clothing and adornment, agricultural techniques, fishing and fishing gear, food preparation, boats and boat-building, arts and crafts, and family life. In each section, photo caption make up most of the textual material, not intensive analysis. But the photography on each subtopic is often arranged in self-explanatory series, such as how to build a house, operate a hand-loom, tie a G-string, or arrange female coiffure. There are also extensive sections on the important boat-launching ceremony and the catching and preparation of flying fish, an essential part of the Yami diet.
Moreover, the photography reveals no sense of embarrassed self-consciousness, either on the part of the Yami subject or the photographer. Although many of the shots are posed in order to illustrate specific ethnographic points, there is no stiff formality. The Yami have long been noted for their gentle good will, and these photos how it. The photographer draws reader into his camera lens, and makes them happy to be there.
Chen's 422-page Material Culture, first published in 1968, covers all nine of the major Taiwan tribes. In addition to twenty color plates of woodcarving, textiles, and beads, there are 135 pages of drawings and schema done by the author, who was trained in anthropology and sociology in China, Japan, the United States, and England.
Chen's artistic skills are considerable, and they served him especially well while doing graduate work at the University of New Mexico. "My English was not very good at that time," he says, "but when I turned in my first drawings of Native American pottery, my professor became especially interested in guiding my work."
Chen's elegant drawings of baskets include detailed sketches of the weaving techniques found among the tribes. The variety is impressive: checkered, coiled, latticed, twilled, twined, wrapped, and more. The drawings are a valuable record of skills already lost or in decline, and they may one day assist a revival of this aspect of material culture.
The beautiful basketry, such as that of the Atayal, Tsou, and Saisiyat tribe, has strong resonance with the tribal baskets found in the Philippines and Indonesia. This is true of the general shapes of the burden, hand, and storage baskets as much a their complex techniques of weaving, bordering, and knot tying. Beyond their practical functions in everyday life, the bamboo and rattan basket and tray - whether woven, coiled, or sewn have strong aesthetic appeal a well. Function is married with gracefulness.
Other receptacles, such a those for water or gunpowder, were carved from wood, gourd, or bamboo. These also have a special appeal because of the complex designs carved on their surfaces. Human figures, snakes, and repeated stylized designs cover their surfaces. Some of the latter appear to have ancient root, for they are quite similar to patterns found on Chinese bronzes and pottery of the Shang and Chou dynasties four millennia ago.
The book's final chapter, "The Aboriginal Art of Formosa and Implications for the Cultural History of the Pacific," examines the characteristics of these deigns. For example, carved squatting figures are found throughout the Pacific, and have been excavated from ancient Chinese sites as well. More detailed information is now available from recent archaeological finds, but Chen's discussion of the distribution of carved figures and animal motifs around the Pacific remain especially informative.
Like other Pacific art, Taiwan's tribal art is f1attish, decorative, and tends to fill entire surfaces with designs. Yami canoes are an excellent example: they are carved and decorated from bow to stern. The frog-shaped figure design found on many of the flat wooden pieces further illustrate a technique of carving found throughout the Pacific. In addition, some excellent Paiwan door posts have squatting or standing figures rendered two dimensionally by moving the arms and legs from the front of the body to the sides. The carvings of these figures also bring another comparison to mind, one much more modern. Many of faces look very much like the visages found in Modigliani's paintings of women, with their strong two-dimensionality and long noses.
The drawings of basketry and weaving in this book have a special quality to them, which may well be a product of Chen's own experience. In the course of his studies of Taiwan's native tribes, he learned how to do the crafts himself. "You have to get deeply involved," he says. In fact, his book is sure to entice readers into a deeper appreciation and concern about what is, at least at present, a vanishing material culture. •