Bunun Aborigines in Taitung’s Lidao Village (利稻) — which sits next to the Southern Cross-Island Highway — say they are fed up with “strange religious idols” being left on the roadside near their village, local residents and officials said.
The road, also known as Provincial Highway No. 20, runs along the length of the village’s northern border, and this section has recently been littered with numerous religious sculptures, notably between the 174km and the 162km distance markers.
The sculptures depict both wild beasts and anthropomorphic beings, and are apparently representations of figures related to Vajrayana Buddhism, placed as a gesture of respect to nature and a form of protest against overdevelopment, an unnamed source familiar with the Taiwanese Vajrayana Buddhist movement said.
Photo: Chen Hsien-yi, Taipei Times
However, for Bunun Aborigines living in Lidao, the figurines are profoundly disrespectful and offensive to their religious beliefs, community members said.
In Bunnun tradition, “statues are territory markers and their locations are carefully chosen places of honor,” Lidao resident Dahai said.
Lidao Village Warden Ku Ming-liang (古明良) said that the Bunun would never place an idol or figurine near a village or their hunting grounds, because doing so would offend their ancestral spirits.
The figurines are also traffic hazards that could startle drivers in low visibility, Ku said, adding that the mountain and forests of his people are “already well-guarded” by Bunun ancestral spirits, and outsiders should “show respect” to the religious beliefs of others.
The Directorate-General of Highways’ Guanshang Construction Section said that it was “mystified” that religious sculptures were being left in the area.
If highway laws and regulations are being violated, it would try to locate the people responsible and demand the figurines’ removal, it said.
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