Donghe Village (東河) in Dongshan Township (東山), Tainan County, looks almost the same as any other rural village in Taiwan. Walk into one of its temples, however, and they may seem surprisingly empty.
Six village temples stand empty apart from ceramic jars and vases filled with water and branches. The water-filled vases indicate that this is a Siraya village.
Temples in a village of the Siraya Aboriginal tribe are not just places of worship, but also meeting places. The temples are known as kuwa in Siraya, or konkai (公界 or 公廨) in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese).
The Siraya are one of the pingpu (平埔), or “plains,” Aboriginal tribes that once inhabited large swathes of Taiwan’s coastal regions.
Over the past few centuries, the pingpu tribes gradually disappeared as they assimilated with the dominant Han culture and adopted the Hoklo language.
The Siraya in Tainan, as well as Siaolin Village (小林) in Kaohsiung County’s Jiasian Township (甲仙), are among the few communities that keep some Siraya traditions alive.
“We believe that we can communicate with the arit — ancestral spirits — through water, and that the forces of the arit are contained in water,” said Tuan Hung-kun (段洪坤), a researcher on Siraya culture and history and the convener of the Alliance of Siraya Communities.
“Some people say that we worship the jars, but that’s not correct. We only use the jars to hold water,” he said.
There are six konkai in Donghe: the Grand Konkai is dedicated to Anzu (案祖), the supreme spirit in Siraya culture, and two arit, while the other five konkai are spread out along the outer rim of the village, each dedicated to an arit that protects the village from evil spirits.
On the night of Oct. 21, villagers poured into the Grand Konkai to take part in the village’s biggest annual event, the Arit Ritual.
“The annual Arit Ritual is held to express our appreciation for the arit’s blessing for the year, and to ask the arit to bless us for the coming year,” Tuan said. “In the past, there were festivities all day and then religious activities after nightfall. Today only the religious part has been retained.”
Long before the ritual began at 11pm, villagers began arriving at the Grand Konkai to pray to the arit.
They brought offerings of pork, chicken, fish, small cakes made of rice called ban (粄), rice wine, betel nuts and the “five gifts” in red envelopes.
“The [five] gifts are iron from a plough, mung beans, rice grains, nails and coins. We put them in red envelopes and present them [to the arit] to ask for a good harvest, newborn children and prosperity in the coming year,” Lee Chu-lung (李朱龍), a village elder, told visitors outside the Grand Konkai.
“When you present sacrifices to the arit, the head of the chicken and the thicker part of a portion of pork must face the arit, but with the fish, it’s the tail that must face the arit,” Lee said.
No one knows why this is, he said, adding that it was a tradition handed down over thousands of years.
After arranging their offerings, villagers placed betel nuts on a small table in front of the arit jar, prayed, took a sip of rice wine and spit it over the jar.
Each villager then threw the two halves of a betel nut to the ground. If one half lands facing up and the other facing down, it means the spirit is happy; if not, the villagers may repeat the rite or consult the priest about why the spirit is not pleased.
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