Tribe faces obstacles on road to recognition

The Truku indigenous tribe's decade-long effort to be officially recognized as an Aboriginal tribe have not gone unchallenged.

Unlike Tera Yudau (鐵拉.尤道), who contends that his tribe deserves the official recognition as Truku, Unang Kasaw (烏納鞥.旮邵) of Hualien County has been trumpeting the idea that both the Truku and Sedeq tribes sit down and hammer out a name most suitable for the Sedeq's three sub-tribes.

"I don't have any problem with the Truku tribe taking the case to the Cabinet's agricultural council, but it should respect the opinions of the other two sub-tribes," he said.

Both Sedeq and Truku people agree that Sedeq has three sub-tribes. They are the Tagdaya (德克達雅), Toda (都達) and Truku (太魯閣).

While are about 20,000 to 30,000 Truku residing in Hualien's Hsiulin, Wanron and Choushi villages, about 7,000 Sedeq people are scattered in the 12 villages of Nantou County's Jenai Township.

The Truku people also believe that their ancestors came from Sedeq in Nantou County 300 years ago.

In Unang Kasaw's mind, the establishment of an Aboriginal tribe's dignity has to be for the tribe's benefit and not to create ethnic conflict.

To eschew tribal disputes among the three Sedeq sub-tribes, Unang Kasaw proposed to use a more neutral name such as "Putasan," or "facial tattoo" in the Sedeq language.

"Since Sedeq is one of the nation's two Aboriginal tribes whose people employed facial tattoos, the name `Putasan' appropriately represents the three Sedeq sub-tribes," he said.

"Besides, `Putasan' has a meaningful significance in the Chinese language because it means `unification,'" he said.

Watan Diro (瓦旦濟洛), whose father is Truku and mother is Toda, said he can accept the name of "Putasan" for the three tribes, but his first choice is Sedeq.

"The intricate relationship between Sedeq and Truku is like that of Taiwan and China," said the 33-year-old Presbyterian priest. "As the ancestors of Taiwan came from China, our ancestors called themselves Sedeq and that's the name for us if we're gonna have any."

Unlike Truku tribe's aggressive approach, Watan Diro, who has been fighting for the cause over the past 13 years, said that they prefer to take more amicable measures.

"I don't think we'll take any further step until the Cabinet's Aboriginal council comes to a final decision on their [Truku tribe] application," he said.

Opinion of the Sedeq tribe had originally come to a consensus to form a preparatory committee to push for the official recognition of their tribes.

They also plan to launch a signature drive and file their application by the end of June.

However, Watan Diro admitted that he has not yet gotten things off the ground.

If the Aboriginal council eventually upholds Truku's request, he said, they might do something about it.

"Although I'd be happy for them if they eventually get their wish, I'd feel lacerated because we're after all brothers and sisters," he said.

While wife is Atayal, Watan Diro said that his wife and parents-in-law are all in favor of distinguishing Sedeq from Atayal.

"Sedeq in our language means my people and all other indigenous people. Although Sedeq and Atayal share similar customs and vocabulary in certain areas, we're in fact two very different tribes," he said.

Taking more objective stance, Yu Guang-hong (余光弘), a research fellow at the Academia Sinica's Institute of Ethnology, said that the key to establishing an ethnic group's identity is ethnic consciousness and politics.

"These two elements sometimes are more important than academic and historic evidence," Yu said. "It's like identical twins."

However, it would be too much if they deny they have the same parents, Yu added.

"It's like Taiwan and China. I mean, to declare independence is one thing, but to deny that they have the same ancestors is going way too far," he said.

This is part two of a two-part series. Part one was published yesterday.