Tue, Oct 16, 2007 page2

• FEATURE: Sijhou Community Aborigines may be forced to leave home

  NOTICE The Taipei County Government plans to move the reluctant community by the end of the year so it can turn part of the site in Sindian into a riverside park

  • By Loa Iok-sin / STAFF REPORTER
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  Aborigines living in the Sijhou Community (溪洲部落), Taipei County, celebrated possibly their last Harvest Festival this year, as they may soon be forced to leave the place they have called home for the last 30 years or so.

  The community, located on the left bank of the Sindian River (新店溪), is just across the river from busy downtown streets of Sindian City (新店) and less than 1km away from the popular tourist destination of Bitan (碧潭).

  All the residents of the community are Aborigines of the Amis tribe who migrated from Hualien and Taitung, said Kaing Lipay, deputy executive director of the Sijhou Community Self-Help Association.

  

  Children learn a traditional Amis dance on Saturday during the Sijhou Community's harvest festival celebrations in Sindian, Taipei County.

  PHOTO: LOA IOK-SIN, TAIPEI TIMES

  Facing nationalization of their traditional domains after World War II, many Aborigines left their home villages to work in cities.

  Many Amis people came to Taipei and worked as construction workers and moved around depending on the location of construction sites, Kaing said.

  "That was a big problem especially for the kids, because they needed to continuously transfer between different schools," Kaing said.

  The constant moving resulted in high dropout rates and troubled interpersonal relations for the children, Kaing said.

  "A group of people first discovered a piece of abandoned land by the river some 30 years ago. They built a small house, and planted vegetables and caught fish for food," Kaing said, talking about the origins of the community.

  "They told their friends and colleagues about it, so gradually it developed into the Sijhou Community we see today," he said.

  The community now houses 45 households with nearly 200 people.

  Besides being a home away from home for the residents, the community also served as a place to pass on the Amis culture in a city where their culture is far from mainstream.

  "Although there are Aboriginal language classes at schools, the language taught here is Atayal," said Osay Saoma, executive director of the self-help association.

  In the community, everyone over 40 years old speaks Amis for daily communication. Although children are less fluent in spoken Amis, they all can understand it, Osay said.

  To enhance the children's ability to speak their mother tongue, "we hire teachers to teach three Amis classes per week at the community house," Osay said.

  "In addition, we celebrate the Harvest Festival every year to pass on our culture," Osay said.

  Last Saturday was the community's festival day.

  But because of a lack of time and resources, residents of Sijhou cannot hold the celebration for four to five days like in Hualien or Taitung. Nevertheless, all the rituals required of a formal harvest festival were present.

  Young men were sent out early in the morning to announce the news, dances and music followed their return.

  Women presented offerings -- homemade millet wine and farm produce -- to ancestral spirits. Community chief performed a ritual to give blessings, and everyone was treated to a glass of millet wine and invited to the dance afterwards.

  "Tomorrow, we'll have the peklan -- a sort of post-festival banquet," Osay said.

  All the people -- children and adults alike -- dressed in traditional outfits and participated in the dances.

  However, this may be the last Harvest Festival for them, as the Taipei County Government plans to evict residents by the end of the year, build an embankment along the river and turn part of the community site into a riverside park.

  "We'll move [residents in Sijhou Community] to an apartment complex constructed especially for Aborigines," Yang Cheng-ping (楊正斌), a county Indigenous Peoples Bureau official told the Taipei Times by telephone.

  "The area [where the community is located] is a flood area where no building is allowed," a county Water Resources Bureau official surnamed Tsai explained.

  "Living there is not only dangerous for them, but may also block the flow of water," Tsai said.

  Sijhou Community residents are opposed to the plan for various reasons.

  "We want a home, not a settlement," Osay said.

  "The county government said that we can rent the apartments at discounted rents for two years -- but what about after that?" Kaing said.

  Osay said that elder care may be a problem if they move to the apartments.

  "We've been taking care of our elders well through community efforts without using any social resources. But we will need help once we move [into the apartments]," Osay said.

  A booklet distributed by the county government states that elders who have disabilities or live alone will receive free care at certified nursing homes.

  "Why waste the resources when we can do it ourselves?" Osay said, adding that elders may not be able to communicate with caretakers or social workers who don't speak Amis.

  As for flooding, Kaing believed it wouldn't be an issue.

  "After the embankment is completed, the community will be behind the walls," Kaing said. "Besides, although we've been flooded once this year, the last time flooding occurred was 10 years ago."

  "We contributed to the prosperity of the city, but now it's mistreating us," Kaing said.
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