With more than 60 percent of its students being Siraya Aborigines, Donghe Elementary School in Tainan County’s Dongshan Township (東山) was officially renamed Kabasua Elementary School yesterday, after the Siraya name of the village where it’s located.
“The school had always carried the name ‘Kabasua’ since its founding in the Japanese colonial era,” Kabasua Elementary School Parents’ Association chairman Tuan Hung-kun (段洪坤) said after the renaming ceremony. “The school name was changed to ‘Donghe Elementary School’ in 1957 when the government changed the village’s name from Kabasua to Donghe [東河].”
Tuan, who is also head of the Tainan County Alliance of Siraya Communities, initiated the campaign to change the school’s name last year. He spent about a year going door to door in the village and collect signatures for a petition to change the school’s name.
“I’m glad that everyone has been very supportive of the plan, including county government officials,” he said.
School principal Liao Luo-fen (廖螺汾) said that she would make promotion and preservation of the Siraya culture a priority for the school.
Kabasua is the Siraya word for “silk cotton kapok,” a type of tree which was found in the village centuries ago.
Sirayas are Aborigines who lived mostly on the plains of southern Taiwan hundreds of years ago. During the past centuries, many adopted the Han Chinese culture, while others fled to eastern Taiwan.
Kabasua is one of the few villages that still maintains Siraya traditions.
After Tafalong Elementary School in Hualien County, Kabasua Elementary School is the second school to adopt an Aboriginal name and the first to adopt a Siraya name.
Following the renaming ceremony, Donghe village chief Wu Huo-sheng (吳火生) said the villagers would seek to officially change the village name back to Kabasua after the year-end special municipality elections.
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