According to Puyuma tradition, when a teenage male reaches puberty he should spend half a year, every year until marriage, preparing to be a man. In the past, teenage boys from the Puyuma Aboriginal villages would leave their families to live and study together under the watchful eye of an elder. The exercises, mostly aimed at perfecting their hunting ability and house building skills, were necessary requirements of becoming an adult and providing for one's family.
At the end of their half-year training, the young men would return home and take part in one more test: the ceremonial slaughter of a monkey. In addition to the Harvest Festival held at the end of the summer, the Monkey Festival is organized and attended by the entire village. Although it has been modified greatly over the years, the ritual is still of major significance to the Puyuma and it is also open to the public.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BEINAN TOWNSHIP
The songs and dances during the ceremony are the same as those used traditionally to simulate the behavior of a monkey. The major difference in the ritual comes after the singing and dancing when the boys come to the center of the circle and use spears to stab a monkey to death. After the persistent lobbying of animal rights groups, real monkeys are no longer used in the ritual killing and in their place are grass dolls. After the killing ritual is re-enacted, another rite is performed to mourn the spirits of the monkeys.
Visitor involvement in the ceremony is left up to the discretion of each individual, said Shu Jan-mei (
A week after the boys return from their manhood training, a three-day Hunting Festival takes place when the men retreat to the nearby mountains.
Visitors do not normally attend the hunting excursion but there is a ceremony open to the public honoring the men upon their return home. The women and children serenade the men as they enter the village and treat them to a showcase of song, dance and food.
The Hunting Festival is a joint celebration with several of the villages taking part. It will be held in front of Beinan New Station in the Cultural Park on Dec. 31.
Dec. 31 also marks the Burial Festival for village ancestors and is followed by New Year's celebrations on Jan. 1 and 2 to give thanks to the gods in anticipation of an abundant summer harvest. Marked with singing and dancing competitions, Shu said this is the liveliest of the winter festivals.
The Monkey Festival begins tomorrow morning at 6am and continues until mid to late afternoon. There are 10 villages throughout Beinan Township, Taitung County, that will be performing the ritual and each is open to the public.
Public transportation, however, will not be available and it is recommended to rent a scooter or hire a taxi for the day, depending on how many villages one wishes to visit. The Nanwang village is a five-minute walk north from the train station.
Event Information:
What: Puyuma Monkey and Hunting Festival (
When: Dec. 18 to Jan. 4
Where: Beinan Township (
Cost: Free
Contact: For more information in Chinese contact the office administration in Beinan at (08) 9381368. For further details in English and Chinese on places to stay and where to eat in Beinan and Taitung city check online at http://tour.taitung.gov.tw.
Getting there: (Taipei to Taitung):
By air: More than 20 daily flights to Taitung with Far Eastern Air Transport and UNI Airways Flight (approximately 1hour). Shuttle service to Taitung's new train station provided at airport.
By rail: Three express train services daily between Taipei and Taitung (6 hours). Now a train service available from Taitung to Beinan New Station (approx. 30 mins.), although it is possible to rent a scooter or hire a taxi from Taitung.
By global standards, the traffic congestion that afflicts Taiwan’s urban areas isn’t horrific. But nor is it something the country can be proud of. According to TomTom, a Dutch developer of location and navigation technologies, last year Taiwan was the sixth most congested country in Asia. Of the 492 towns and cities included in its rankings last year, Taipei was the 74th most congested. Taoyuan ranked 105th, while Hsinchu County (121st), Taichung (142nd), Tainan (173rd), New Taipei City (227th), Kaohsiung (241st) and Keelung (302nd) also featured on the list. Four Japanese cities have slower traffic than Taipei. (Seoul, which has some
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
Writing of the finds at the ancient iron-working site of Shihsanhang (十 三行) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), archaeologist Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華) of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology observes: “One bronze bowl gilded with gold, together with copper coins and fragments of Tang and Song ceramics, were also found. These provide evidence for early contact between Taiwan aborigines and Chinese.” The Shihsanhang Web site from the Ministry of Culture says of the finds: “They were evidence that the residents of the area had a close trading relation with Chinese civilians, as the coins can be
During her 2015 trip to Taiwan, Sophia J. Chang (張詠慧) got fewer answers than she’d hoped for, but more revelations than she could have imagined. “That was the year I last saw my grandmother. She was in hospice care in Tainan, and it was painful to see her in bed, barely able to open her eyes,” says Los Angeles-born Chang. “The grandma I’d known, a fantastic cook and incredibly kind, was already gone.” After their visit, Chang and her grandfather went back to his apartment. There she asked him how he’d met her grandmother. “He hesitated, then started talking a bit.
RSS