title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: The Orioles planned to retire Ripken's #8 in a ceremony before the final home game of the 2001 season, in late September. Ripken's final game was originally set to be played at Yankee Stadium; however, the September 11, 2001, attacks led to the postponement of a week's worth of games. The games missed were added onto the end of the season's schedule. Because all the games the Orioles missed were at home, this changed the location of Ripken's final game to Oriole Park, much to the delight of Orioles fans. On October 6, Ripken ended his career in the on-deck circle in the bottom of the ninth inning. Longtime teammate Brady Anderson, also playing in his last game for the Orioles, swung and missed on a fastball high and tight on a 3–2 count to end the game. After the game, Ripken gave a speech thanking the fans for their support over 20 seasons. Ripken was healthier in his final season than he had been over his last two, as he appeared in 128 games. He batted a career-low .239 with 14 home runs and 68 RBIs.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Throughout his career, Ripken has contributed his time and money to numerous charitable organizations. Following the signing of his new contract in 1984, Ripken announced he would distribute 1984 Orioles tickets to underprivileged children in Harford County, donate to the Harford Center, and donate to the Baltimore School for the Performing Arts. In 1988, he and wife Kelly founded the Cal Ripken Jr., Lifelong Learning Center, which is dedicated to teaching adults to read. In 1992, MLB recognized him with the Roberto Clemente Award. In 1997, Ripken received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council members and Baltimore Orioles co-owners Peter Angelos and Tom Clancy.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken has made donations to many various charitable causes, including donations supporting research on Lou Gehrig's disease. After he broke Gehrig's record, the Orioles, along with private donors, created the Cal Ripken/Lou Gehrig Fund for Neuromuscular Research at Johns Hopkins University. Along with his brother Billy, he formed the Cal Ripken Sr., Foundation in 2001 to give underprivileged children the opportunity to attend baseball camps around the country and learn the game. The Foundation is a branch of Ripken Baseball. In addition to controlling these camps and Ripken's minor league teams, Ripken Baseball operates for-profit camps and designs ballfields for youth, college, and professional teams. He gives speeches about his time in baseball and some of the lessons he has learned. Between 2001 and 2004, inclusive, Ripken served as commissioner of the White House Tee Ball Initiative of President George W. Bush, in which capacity he worked to promote the value of teamwork amongst players and volunteership amongst the public and helped to teach tee ball fundamentals to teams of children at the White House.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: In 2007, Ripken, along with Andre Agassi, Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, Warrick Dunn, Mia Hamm, Jeff Gordon, Tony Hawk, Andrea Jaeger, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Mario Lemieux, and Alonzo Mourning founded Athletes for Hope, a charitable organization, which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires millions of non-athletes to volunteer and support the community. Ripken also announced a partnership with Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities, with the donation of US$1 million in cash and equipment from the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: On August 13, 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that Ripken had been named Special Sports Envoy for the US State Department and that he would be going to China in October: "... we're just delighted that somebody of Cal Ripken's stature is going to be someone who will go out and represent America so well and represent what we consider to be American values, but universal values; that hard work and diligence and the willingness to really put it all on the line every day is something that kids need to learn", said Rice. "A Shortstop in China" premiered on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network on May 8, 2009, chronicling Ripken's trip to China to share the game of baseball with youth and coaches while nurturing American-Chinese diplomacy. The documentary included footage from the 11 clinics Cal and former Oriole B. J. Surhoff held from Beijing to Guangzhou. The documentary also showed Ripken accepting his appointment from Rice and featured a variety of interviews, from Ripken's wife Kelly to former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Karen Hughes.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: On May 31, 2008, Ripken received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the University of Delaware and served as the university's commencement speaker. On May 19, 2013, Ripken received an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree from the University of Maryland while serving as the university's general commencement speaker.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: In an interview with Ray Robinson, Ripken said, "My personal philosophy is to get a feeling of fulfillment through my work. I have a desire to create something. I guess that's why I've long been fascinated by two books, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" [both by Ayn Rand]. The leading figure in 'The Fountainhead,' an architect named Howard Roark, is someone I've thought about a good deal."


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: At , , Ripken was a departure from the prototypical shortstop of the time—small, fleet-of-foot players who played a defensively difficult position but often did not post the home run and batting average totals that an outfielder might. Power hitting shortstops such as Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra and Miguel Tejada are often seen by fans to be part of Ripken's legacy.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Nonetheless, Ripken demonstrated the ability to play excellent defense at shortstop, and as a result remained a fixture there for well over a decade, leading the league in assists several times, winning the Gold Glove twice, and, in 1990, setting the MLB record for best fielding percentage in a season at his position. Though not a flashy fielder, Ripken displayed excellent fundamentals, and studied batters and even his own pitching staff so he could position himself to compensate for his lack of physical speed. Ripken's legacy as a fielder is reflected by his place near the top of almost every defensive statistical category—he holds at least one all-time record (for either season, career, or most seasons leading the league) in assists, putouts, fielding percentage, double plays, and fewest errors. Ripken's career range factor was 4.73 (and as high as 5.50 for a single season), a mark few shortstops have reached.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken's power, which led to records such as most home runs by a shortstop and 13th place in career doubles, had consequences. His propensity to drive the ball often led to his grounders getting to fielders quickly for tailor-made double-play balls. In 1999, Ripken passed Hank Aaron as the player who had grounded into the most double plays in his career (a record that was again broken by Albert Pujols in 2017). Ripken is third on the fielding side for double plays by a shortstop (1565, behind Omar Vizquel's 1734 and Ozzie Smith's 1590).


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken was also notable for never settling on a signature batting stance during his long career. Sometimes referred to as "the man of 1,000 stances", Ripken would change his stance in response to a slump, or if his current choice "didn't feel good." When asked about his propensity for experimentation during an interview, Ripken responded that a batting stance "was only a starting point".


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: A poll of fans by "MLB.com" ranked Ripken's 2,131st straight game the "Most Memorable Moment" in MLB history, leading such moments as Gehrig's farewell speech in 1939 and Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in 1947. The write-up in the 1996 "Sporting News Baseball Guide", which was written shortly after Ripken set the record, called the streak "what almost everyone considered the high point of the major league season." In 2005, the Orioles honored Ripken on the 10th anniversary of his 2,131st consecutive game. After the top of the fifth inning, the numbers 2130 on the warehouse behind the stadium changed to 2131, just as they did on September 6, 1995.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Billy and Cal Ripken are one of only four two-brother combinations in major league history to play second base/shortstop on the same club. The others are Garvin and Granny Hamner for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1945; the twins Eddie and Johnny O'Brien with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the mid-1950s, and Frank and Milt Bolling for the Detroit Tigers in 1958.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: On January 9, 2007, Ripken was elected to the Hall of Fame, appearing on 537 out of 545 of the ballots cast (98.53%), eight votes short of a unanimous selection. His percentage is the sixth-highest in history, behind Mariano Rivera (100%), Derek Jeter (99.75%), Ken Griffey Jr. (99.32%), Tom Seaver (98.84%), and Nolan Ryan (98.79%). Tony Gwynn, who was appearing on his first ballot as well, was chosen alongside Ripken. Both Hall of Fame-Elects were formally inducted on July 29, 2007. The induction ceremony was attended by a record 75,000 people including special guests of Ripken: John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Steve Geppi, and Ron Shapiro (Ripken's agent during his career).


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken has received several tributes outside of baseball. On September 23, 2001, the NASCAR Winston Cup series and MBNA renamed the fall race at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware, naming the race the MBNA Cal Ripken Jr. 400. The race paid tribute to the legacy of Ripken, who was in attendance greeting the competing drivers as they crossed the stage during driver introductions. Driver Bobby Labonte had a special paint scheme on his #18 Interstate Batteries car featuring Baltimore Orioles colors along with Ripken's retirement seal. The race was won by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was then driving the #8 car. The race was also the first race held after the September 11, 2001, attacks as the race scheduled for Loudon a week earlier had been postponed in the wake of the attacks. On March 30, 2008, I-395's eastern branch in Baltimore, from I-95 to Conway Street, was named "Cal Ripken Way".


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Because of Ripken's success during his career, he became a prominent advertising figure, appearing in advertisements for brands such as Nike, Chevrolet, True Value Hardware, Wheaties, PowerAde, and other companies, some of which were small, Maryland businesses. These advertisements would often stress Ripken's "dependability, durability, and wholesomeness", linking that to their product. Ripken became an emblem to Americans through his hard work, loyalty to the Orioles, and his charity off the field.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken was humble about his success, once saying, Author Glen Macnow responded to Ripken's comments by writing, "Anyone who has seen Cal Ripken Jr. play knows differently."


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken married the former Kelly Geer at Towson United Methodist Church on Friday, November 13, 1987. They have a daughter, Rachel, and a son, Ryan. On April 28, 2016, Ripken and his wife Kelly finalized their divorce after a one-year separation. In 2018, Ripken married Laura S. Kiessling, née Kaufman, at that time an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge. She took his last name.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: His son Ryan is also a baseball player, and was drafted by the Orioles in the 20th round of Major League Baseball's 2012 amateur draft. He chose to attend college instead, beginning his first year at the University of South Carolina in 2012. He transferred to Indian River Community College and was drafted in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball's 2014 amateur draft by the Washington Nationals. After being released by the Nationals in March 2017, he signed with the Orioles and was assigned to the Aberdeen Ironbirds, which were owned by his father, and played at a stadium that carries the family name. Ryan advanced to the Delmarva Shorebirds in 2018 and the Frederick Keys in 2019.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken's mother, Violet Ripken, was kidnapped at gunpoint and safely returned on July 24, 2012. She was gone for 12 hours before her disappearance was reported to authorities. On October 15, 2013, she was approached by a man with a handgun in a parking lot at the NBRS Bank in Aberdeen, Maryland. The man demanded her car, but he fled after she activated a key alarm. She was unharmed. A spokesman for the Aberdeen Police said the two incidents appeared unrelated.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken has written nearly thirty books. After the 1996 season, he released an autobiography titled "The Only Way I Know", co-written with Mike Bryan, which was a "New York Times" Best Seller. Following his retirement, he wrote several more, including "Play Baseball the Ripken Way: The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Fundamentals", also written by his brother Billy and co-authored by Larry Burke, in 2005. He released the book "Parenting Young Athletes the Ripken Way", co-written with Rick Wolff, in 2006 after seeing too many young athletes who he felt were being pressured unnecessarily by their parents. He said, "I was thinking, 'This just creates too much pressure on kids.' They need to find an environment in which they can explore their game ... without all these kinds of pressures being brought to bear. Once I started thinking about it, I saw we had more than enough to fill a book." Then in 2007, he released three books, starting with "Coaching Youth Baseball the Ripken Way", also written by his brother Billy and co-authored by Scott Lowe, which highlights 50 practice drills, topics include coaching responsibly, goal setting for youth, and effective practice planning. Later, in April of that year, he released two more books: "Get in the Game: 8 Elements of Perseverance That Make the Difference", co-written with Donald T. Phillips, described as a motivational guide to success; and "The Longest Season", co-written with Ron Mazellan, a children's book about the Orioles' 1988 season. In 2011, he released "Hothead", a children's fiction book co-written with Kevin Cowherd which was also a "New York Times" bestseller. In addition, he has been writing a weekly youth sports advice newspaper column in the "Baltimore Sun" since 2005.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: In addition to his writing, Ripken has been the subject of several books. In 1995, Harvey Rosenfeld released a biography on him entitled "Iron Man: The Cal Ripken Jr., Story". Later, in 2007, Jeff Seidel released a biography on him entitled, "Iron Man: Cal Ripken Jr., a Tribute". A children's biography of Ripken, "Cal Ripken Jr., Quiet Hero" was published in 1993 by Lois Nicholson. In addition, Ripken has been the subject of scholarly publications analyzing the impact of his career.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken owns several minor league baseball teams. In 2002, he purchased the Utica Blue Sox of the New York–Penn League and moved them to his hometown of Aberdeen, renaming them the Aberdeen IronBirds. The team is the Short-season Single-A affiliate team in the Orioles' system and plays at Ripken Stadium. On June 28, 2005, he announced that he was purchasing the Augusta GreenJackets of the South Atlantic League, a Single-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. At the end of the 2008 season, Ripken purchased the Vero Beach Devil Rays of the Single-A advanced Florida State League and moved them to Port Charlotte, Florida, where they were renamed the Charlotte Stone Crabs.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: On January 10, 2007, Ripken expressed interest in purchasing the Baltimore Orioles if current owner Peter Angelos were to sell the team. He had yet to be approached as of 2013 about the potential purchase of the team. Though he had not purchased them, Ripken was quoted in a July 17, 2010, Associated Press article as saying he would consider rejoining the Orioles part-time as an advisor and full-time after his son graduated from high school in 2012.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: In October 2007, Ripken began working as a studio analyst for TBS Sports during the 2007 Major League Baseball playoffs. He continued to serve in the role .


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: Ripken was on the board of directors of ZeniMax Media until 2021. On February 28, 2008, Ripken announced his venture into the massively multiplayer online sports game market with "Cal Ripken's Real Baseball".


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: In 2015, Ripken sold the Charlotte Stone Crabs to Caribbean Baseball Initiative headed by Lou Schwechheimer.


title: Cal Ripken Jr.

text: The Ripken Experience is a group of sports complexes. The first opened in Aberdeen, Maryland. A second location with nine baseball fields is located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Opened in 2006, it cost $26 million with $7 million more spent since then. A third location was set to open in summer 2016 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Return to the Blue Lagoon is a 1991 American South Seas romantic adventure film directed and produced by William A. Graham and starring Milla Jovovich and Brian Krause. The film is a sequel to "The Blue Lagoon" (1980). The screenplay by Leslie Stevens was based on the 1923 novel "The Garden of God" by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. The original music score was written, composed, and performed by Basil Poledouris. The film's closing theme song, "A World of Our Own", is performed by Surface featuring Bernard Jackson. The music was written by Barry Mann, and the lyrics were written by Cynthia Weil.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: The film tells the story of two young children marooned on a tropical island paradise in the South Pacific. Their life together is blissful, but not without physical and emotional changes, as they grow to maturity and fall in love. The film was not financially successful, grossing just $2.8 million on a $11 million budget. Like its predecessor, it was panned by critics. It has an approval rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Set in the South Pacific Ocean in the year 1897, beginning right where the original film left off, a larger ship finds a little dinghy with three passengers. They quickly find out that the two adults are dead, but the infant snuggled between them lives – a little two-year-old boy who they assume is named "Richard" since that's the only name he knows. They take the baby aboard and he is given over to the care of the young widow who already has a young daughter named Lilli. Mrs. Sarah Hargrave, the widow, and the two young children are cast off from the ship they are travelling on because the ship's crew are infected with cholera. After days afloat, Kearney, a sailor who has been sent with them, tries to kill the boy because of his excessive crying. Sarah angrily beats Kearney to death with a harpoon and dumps his body overboard.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: The trio arrive at a beautiful tropical island in the South Pacific. Sarah tries to raise them to be civilized, as the orphaned boy Richard was born and raised by young lovers on this same island. They grow up and Sarah educates them from the Bible, as well as from her own knowledge, including the facts of life. She cautiously demands the children never to go to the forbidden side of the island.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Eight years later, when Richard and Lilli are 10 and 8 years old, Sarah dies from pneumonia, leaving them to fend for themselves. She is buried on a scenic promontory overlooking the tidal reef area. Together, the kids survive on their resourcefulness and the bounty of their remote paradise.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Six years later, both Richard and Lilli grow into strong and beautiful teenagers. They live in a house on the beach and spend their days together fishing, swimming, and exploring the island. Both their bodies mature and develop and they are physically attracted to each other. Richard lets Lilli win the child's game Easter egg hunt and dives to find Lilli an adult's pearl as her reward. His penchant for racing a lagoon shark sparks a domestic quarrel; Lilli thinks he is foolhardy, but the liveliness makes Richard feel virile.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Lilli awakens in the morning with her first menstrual period, just as Sarah described the threshold of womanhood. Richard awakens in the morning with an erection and suffers a nasty mood swing, which he cannot explain. They then get into an argument regarding privacy and their late mother's rules.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: One night, Richard goes off to the forbidden side of the island, and discovers that a group of natives from another island use the shrine of an impressive, Kon-Tiki-like idol to sacrifice conquered enemies every full moon. Richard camouflages himself with mud and hides in the muck; meanwhile, Lilli worries about his disappearance. Richard escapes unscathed, though he is seen by a lone native.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Ultimately, after making up for their fight, Richard and Lilli discover natural love and passion, which deepens their emotional bond. They fall in love and exchange formal wedding vows and rings in the middle of the jungle. They consummate their new-found feelings for each other for the next months.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Soon after, a ship arrives at the island, carrying unruly sailors, a proud captain, and his beautiful but spoiled daughter, Sylvia Hilliard. The party is welcomed by the young couple, and they ask to be taken back to civilization, after many years in isolation. Sylvia tries to steal Richard from Lilli and seduce him, but as tempted as he is by her strange ways, he realizes that Lilli is his heart and soul, upsetting Sylvia. Richard angrily leaves Sylvia behind in the middle of the fish pond, in plain view of the landing party.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Meanwhile, Quinlan, a sailor, ogles Lilli in her bath and drags her back to the house. He tries to rape her and steal her pearl before Richard comes to her rescue. Quinlan opens fire on Richard, who flees. Richard lures Quinlan to his death in the jaws of the shark in the tidal reef area.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: Upon returning, he apologizes to Lilli for hurting her, and she reveals that she is pregnant. She tells him that if he wants to leave, then she will not stop him, but that she wants to raise their child away from civilization and away from guns. They decide to stay and raise their child on the island, as they feel their blissful life would not compare to civilization. The ship departs and the two young lovers stay on the island and have their baby, a girl.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: The film was a box-office bomb; on a budget of $11,000,000, it made less than $3,000,000 in the United States.


title: Return to the Blue Lagoon

text: The film exceeded the original for how negatively it was reviewed. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rare approval rating of 0% based on 31 reviews, and an average rating of 2.7/10. The site's consensus reads: "Despite its lush tropical scenery and attractive leads, "Return to the Blue Lagoon" is as ridiculous as its predecessor, and lacks the prurience and unintentional laughs that might make it a guilty pleasure." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B" on scale of A+ to F.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Taiwanese indigenous peoples (formerly Taiwanese aborigines), also known as Formosan people, Austronesian Taiwanese, Yuanzhumin or Gaoshan people, are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, with the nationally recognized subgroups numbering about 569,000 or 2.38% of the island's population. This total is increased to more than 800,000 if the indigenous peoples of the plains in Taiwan are included, pending future official recognition. When including those of mixed ancestry, such a number is possibly more than a million. Academic research suggests that their ancestors have been living on Taiwan for approximately 6,500 years. A wide body of evidence suggests Taiwan's indigenous peoples maintained regular trade networks with regional cultures before the Han Chinese colonists began settling on the island from the 17th century.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Taiwanese indigenous peoples are Austronesians, with linguistic and cultural ties to other Austronesian peoples in the region. Taiwan is also the origin and linguistic homeland of the oceanic Austronesian expansion whose descendant groups today include the majority of the ethnic groups throughout many parts of East and Southeast Asia as well as Oceania such as Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, Philippines, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The Chams and Utsul of contemporary central and southern Vietnam and Hainan respectively are also a part of the Austronesian family.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: For centuries, Taiwan's indigenous inhabitants experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing newcomers. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift and cultural assimilation, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, inter-marriage and other intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese indigenous peoples (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages), at least ten are now extinct, five are moribund and several are to some degree endangered. These languages are of unique historical significance since most historical linguists consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian language family.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Due to discrimination or repression throughout the centuries, the indigenous peoples of Taiwan have statistically experienced economic and social inequality, including a high unemployment rate and substandard education. Some indigenous groups today continue to be unrecognized by the government. Since the early 1980s, many indigenous groups have been actively seeking a higher degree of political self-determination and economic development. The revival of ethnic pride is expressed in many ways by the indigenous peoples, including the incorporation of elements of their culture into cultural commodities such as cultural tourism, pop music and sports. Taiwan's Austronesian speakers were formerly distributed over much of the Taiwan archipelago, including the Central Mountain Range villages along the alluvial plains, as well as Orchid Island, Green Island, and Liuqiu Island.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The bulk of contemporary Taiwanese indigenous peoples currently reside both in their traditional mountain villages as well as Taiwan's urban areas. Ever since the end of the White Terror, efforts have been under way in indigenous communities to revive traditional cultural practices and preserve their traditional languages on the now Han Chinese majority island and for the latter to better understand more about them. The Austronesian Cultural Festival in Taitung City is one means by which community members promote indigenous culture. In addition, several indigenous communities have become extensively involved in the tourism and ecotourism industries with the goal of achieving increased economic self-reliance and maintaining cultural integration.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: For most of their recorded history, Taiwanese aborigines have been defined by the agents of different Confucian, Christian and Nationalist "civilizing" projects, with a variety of aims. Each "civilizing" project defined the aborigines based on the "civilizer's" cultural understandings of difference and similarity, behavior, location, appearance and prior contact with other groups of people. Taxonomies imposed by colonizing forces divided the aborigines into named subgroups, referred to as "tribes". These divisions did not always correspond to distinctions drawn by the aborigines themselves. However, the categories have become so firmly established in government and popular discourse over time that they have become de facto distinctions, serving to shape in part today's political discourse within the Republic of China (ROC), and affecting Taiwan's policies regarding indigenous peoples.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Han sailor Chen Di, in his "Record of the Eastern Seas" (1603), identifies the indigenous people of Taiwan as simply "Eastern Savages" (), while the Dutch referred to Taiwan's original inhabitants as "Indians" or "blacks", based on their prior colonial experience in what is currently Indonesia.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Beginning nearly a century later, as the rule of the Qing Empire expanded over wider groups of people, writers and gazetteers recast their descriptions away from reflecting degree of acculturation, and toward a system that defined the aborigines relative to their submission or hostility to Qing rule. Qing used the term "raw/wild/uncivilized" () to define those people who had not submitted to Qing rule, and "cooked/tamed/civilized" () for those who had pledged their allegiance through their payment of a head tax. According to the standards of the Qianlong Emperor and successive regimes, the epithet "cooked" was synonymous with having assimilated to Han cultural norms, and living as a subject of the Empire, but it retained a pejorative designation to signify the perceived cultural lacking of the non-Han people. This designation reflected the prevailing idea that anyone could be civilized/tamed by adopting Confucian social norms.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: As the Qing consolidated their power over the plains and struggled to enter the mountains in the late 19th century, the terms "Pingpu" () and "Gaoshan" () were used interchangeably with the epithets "civilized" and "uncivilized". During Japanese rule (1895–1945), anthropologists from Japan maintained the binary classification. In 1900 they incorporated it into their own colonial project by employing the term for the "civilized tribes", and creating a category of "recognized tribes" for the aborigines who had formerly been called "uncivilized". The Musha Incident of 1930 led to many changes in aboriginal policy, and the Japanese government began referring to them as . The latter group included the Atayal, Bunun, Tsou, Saisiat, Paiwan, Puyuma, and Amis peoples. The Tao (Yami) and Rukai were added later, for a total of nine recognized peoples. During the early period of Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) rule the terms "Shandi Tongbao" () "mountain compatriots" and "Pingdi Tongbao" () "plains compatriots" were invented, to remove the presumed taint of Japanese influence and reflect the place of Taiwan's indigenous people in the Chinese Nationalist state. The KMT later adopted the use of all the earlier Japanese groupings except "Peipo".


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Despite recent changes in the field of anthropology and a shift in government objectives, the "Pingpu" and "Gaoshan" labels in use today maintain the form given by the Qing to reflect aborigines' acculturation to Han culture. The current recognized aborigines are all regarded as "Gaoshan", though the divisions are not and have never been based strictly on geographical location. The Amis, Saisiat, Tao and Kavalan are all traditionally Eastern Plains cultures. The distinction between "Pingpu" and "Gaoshan" people continues to affect Taiwan's policies regarding indigenous peoples, and their ability to participate effectively in government.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Although the ROC's Government Information Office officially lists 16 major groupings as "tribes," the consensus among scholars maintains that these 16 groupings do not reflect any social entities, political collectives, or self-identified alliances dating from pre-modern Taiwan. The earliest detailed records, dating from the Dutch arrival in 1624, describe the aborigines as living in independent villages of varying size. Between these villages there was frequent trade, intermarriage, warfare and alliances against common enemies. Using contemporary ethnographic and linguistic criteria, these villages have been classed by anthropologists into more than 20 broad (and widely debated) ethnic groupings, which were never united under a common polity, kingdom or "tribe".


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Since 2005, some local governments, including Tainan City in 2005, Fuli, Hualien in 2013, and Pingtung County in 2016, have begun to recognize Taiwanese Plain Indigenous peoples. The numbers of people who have successfully registered, including Kaohsiung City Government that has opened to register but not yet recognized, as of 2017 are:


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Government of the Republic of China officially recognizes distinct people groups among the indigenous community based upon the qualifications drawn up by the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP). To gain this recognition, communities must gather a number of signatures and a body of supporting evidence with which to successfully petition the CIP. Formal recognition confers certain legal benefits and rights upon a group, as well as providing them with the satisfaction of recovering their separate identity as an ethnic group. As of June 2014, 16 people groups have been recognized.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Council of Indigenous Peoples consider several limited factors in a successful formal petition. The determining factors include collecting member genealogies, group histories and evidence of a continued linguistic and cultural identity. The lack of documentation and the extinction of many indigenous languages as the result of colonial cultural and language policies have made the prospect of official recognition of many ethnicities a remote possibility. Current trends in ethno-tourism have led many former Plains Aborigines to continue to seek cultural revival.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Among the Plains groups that have petitioned for official status, only the Kavalan and Sakizaya have been officially recognized. The remaining twelve recognized groups are traditionally regarded as mountain aboriginals.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Other indigenous groups or subgroups that have pressed for recovery of legal aboriginal status include Chimo (who have not formally petitioned the government, see ), Kakabu, Makatao, Pazeh, Siraya, and Taivoan. The act of petitioning for recognized status, however, does not always reflect any consensus view among scholars that the relevant group should in fact be categorized as a separate ethnic group. The Siraya will become the 17th ethnic group to be recognized once their status, already recognized by the courts in May 2018, is officially announced by the central government.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: There is discussion among both scholars and political groups regarding the best or most appropriate name to use for many of the people groups and their languages, as well as the proper romanization of that name. Commonly cited examples of this ambiguity include (Seediq/Sediq/Truku/Taroko) and (Tao/Yami).


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Nine people groups were originally recognized before 1945 by the Japanese government. The Thao, Kavalan and Truku were recognized by Taiwan's government in 2001, 2002 and 2004 respectively. The Sakizaya were recognized as a 13th on 17 January 2007, and on 23 April 2008 the Sediq were recognized as Taiwan's 14th official ethnic group. Previously the Sakizaya had been listed as Amis and the Sediq as Atayal. Hla'alua and Kanakanavu were recognized as the 15th and 16th ethnic group on 26 June 2014. A full list of the recognized ethnic groups of Taiwan, as well as some of the more commonly cited unrecognized peoples, is as follows:


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The People's Republic of China (PRC) government claims Taiwan as part of its territory and officially refers to all indigenous Taiwanese as "Gāoshān" (高山, lit. "high mountain") and recognize them as one of the 56 ethnicities officially. According to the 2000 Census, 4,461 people were identified as "Gāoshān" living in mainland China. Some surveys indicate that of the 4,461 "Gāoshān" recorded in the 2000 PRC Census, it is estimated that there are 1,500 Amis, 1,300 Bunun, 510 Paiwan, and the remainder belonging to other peoples. They are descendants of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan who migrated to mainland China before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In Zhengzhou, Henan, there exists a "Taiwan Village" (台湾村) whose inhabitants' ancestors migrated from Taiwan during the Kangxi era of the Qing dynasty. In 2005, 2,674 people of the village identified themselves as Gaoshan.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Archeological, linguistic and anecdotal evidence suggests that Taiwan's indigenous peoples have undergone a series of cultural shifts to meet the pressures of contact with other societies and new technologies. Beginning in the early 17th century, indigenous Taiwanese faced broad cultural change as the island became incorporated into the wider global economy by a succession of competing colonial regimes from Europe and Asia. In some cases groups of indigenes resisted colonial influence, but other groups and individuals readily aligned with the colonial powers. This alignment could be leveraged to achieve personal or collective economic gain, collective power over neighboring villages or freedom from unfavorable societal customs and taboos involving marriage, age-grade and child birth.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Particularly among the Plains Aborigines, as the degree of the "civilizing projects" increased during each successive regime, the aborigines found themselves in greater contact with outside cultures. The process of acculturation and assimilation sometimes followed gradually in the wake of broad social currents, particularly the removal of ethnic markers (such as bound feet, dietary customs and clothing), which had formerly distinguished ethnic groups on Taiwan. The removal or replacement of these brought about an incremental transformation from "Fan" (番, barbarian) to the dominant Confucian "Han" culture. During the Japanese and KMT periods centralized modernist government policies, rooted in ideas of Social Darwinism and culturalism, directed education, genealogical customs and other traditions toward ethnic assimilation.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Within the Taiwanese Han Hoklo community itself, differences in culture indicate the degree to which mixture with aboriginals took place, with most pure Hoklo Han in Northern Taiwan having almost no Aboriginal admixture, which is limited to Hoklo Han in Southern Taiwan. Plains aboriginals who were mixed and assimilated into the Hoklo Han population at different stages were differentiated by the historian Melissa J. Brown between "short-route" and "long-route". The ethnic identity of assimilated Plains Aboriginals in the immediate vicinity of Tainan was still known since a pure Hoklo Taiwanese girl was warned by her mother to stay away from them. The insulting name "fan" was used against Plains Aborigines by the Taiwanese, and the Hoklo Taiwanese speech was forced upon Aborigines like the Pazeh. Hoklo Taiwanese has replaced Pazeh and driven it to near extinction. Aboriginal status has been requested by Plains Aboriginals.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Many of these forms of assimilation are still at work today. For example, when a central authority nationalizes one language, that attaches economic and social advantages to the prestige language. As generations pass, use of the indigenous language often fades or disappears, and linguistic and cultural identity recede as well. However, some groups are seeking to revive their indigenous identities. One important political aspect of this pursuit is petitioning the government for official recognition as a separate and distinct ethnic group.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The complexity and scope of aboriginal assimilation and acculturation on Taiwan has led to three general narratives of Taiwanese ethnic change. The oldest holds that Han migration from Fujian and Guangdong in the 17th century pushed the Plains Aborigines into the mountains, where they became the Highland peoples of today. A more recent view asserts that through widespread intermarriage between Han and aborigines between the 17th and 19th centuries, the aborigines were completely Sinicized. Finally, modern ethnographical and anthropological studies have shown a pattern of cultural shift mutually experienced by both Han and Plains Aborigines, resulting in a hybrid culture. Today people who comprise Taiwan's ethnic Han demonstrate major cultural differences from Han elsewhere.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Within the Taiwanese Han Hoklo community itself, differences in culture indicate the degree to which mixture with indigenes took place, with most Hoklo Han in Northern Taiwan having almost no Aboriginal admixture, which is limited to Hoklo Han in Southern Taiwan. Indigenous peoples of the plains who were mixed and assimilated into the Hoklo Han population at different stages were differentiated by the historian Melissa J. Brown between "short-route" and "long-route". Assimilation of Han Taiwanese to indigenous cultural traditions and rituals have also taken place.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Several factors encouraged the assimilation of the Plains Aborigines. Taking a Han name was a necessary step in instilling Confucian values in the aborigines. Confucian values were necessary to be recognized as a full person and to operate within the Confucian Qing state. A surname in Han society was viewed as the most prominent legitimizing marker of a patrilineal ancestral link to the Yellow Emperor (Huang Di) and the Five Emperors of Han mythology. Possession of a Han surname, then, could confer a broad range of significant economic and social benefits upon aborigines, despite a prior non-Han identity or mixed parentage. In some cases, members of Plains Aborigines adopted the Han surname Pan (潘) as a modification of their designated status as Fan (番: "barbarian"). One family of Pazeh became members of the local gentry. complete with a lineage to Fujian province. In other cases, families of Plains Aborigines adopted common Han surnames, but traced their earliest ancestor to their locality in Taiwan.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In many cases, large groups of immigrant Han would unite under a common surname to form a brotherhood. Brotherhoods were used as a form of defense, as each sworn brother was bound by an oath of blood to assist a brother in need. The brotherhood groups would link their names to a family tree, in essence manufacturing a genealogy based on names rather than blood, and taking the place of the kinship organizations commonly found in China. The practice was so widespread that today's family books are largely unreliable. Many Plains Aborigines joined the brotherhoods to gain protection of the collective as a type of insurance policy against regional strife, and through these groups they took on a Han identity with a Han lineage.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The degree to which any one of these forces held sway over others is unclear. Preference for one explanation over another is sometimes predicated upon a given political viewpoint. The cumulative effect of these dynamics is that by the beginning of the 20th century the Plains Aborigines were almost completely acculturated into the larger ethnic Han group, and had experienced nearly total language shift from their respective Formosan languages to Chinese. In addition, legal barriers to the use of traditional surnames persisted until the 1990s, and cultural barriers remain. Aborigines were not permitted to use their traditional names on official identification cards until 1995 when a ban on using aboriginal names dating from 1946 was finally lifted. One obstacle is that household registration forms allow a maximum of 15 characters for personal names. However, indigenous names are still phonetically translated into Chinese characters, and many names require more than the allotted space. In April 2022, the Constitutional Court ruled that Article 4, Paragraph 2 of the Status Act for Indigenous Peoples was unconstitutional. The paragraph, which reads "Children of intermarriages between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Peoples taking the surname of the indigenous father or mother, or using a traditional Indigenous Peoples name, shall acquire Indigenous Peoples status," was ruled unconstitutional after a non-indigenous father had taken his daughter to a household registration office to register her Truku descent. Though the applicant was of Truku descent through her mother, her application used her father's Chinese surname and was denied. The Constitutional Court ruled that the law, as written, was a violation of gender equality guaranteed by Article 7 of the Constitution, since children in Taiwan usually take their father's surname, which in practice, meant that indigenous status could be acquired via paternal descent, but not maternal descent.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Indigenous Taiwanese are Austronesian peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Oceania. Chipped-pebble tools dating from perhaps as early as 15,000 years ago suggest that the initial human inhabitants of Taiwan were Paleolithic cultures of the Pleistocene era. These people survived by eating marine life. Archeological evidence points to an abrupt change to the Neolithic era around 6,000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture, domestic animals, polished stone adzes and pottery. The stone adzes were mass-produced on Penghu and nearby islands, from the volcanic rock found there. This suggests heavy sea traffic took place between these islands and Taiwan at this time.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: From around 5000 to 1500 BC, Taiwanese aborigines started a seaborne migration to the island of Luzon in the Philippines, intermingling with the older Negrito populations of the islands. This was the beginning of the Austronesian expansion. They spread throughout the rest of the Philippines and eventually migrated further to the other islands of Southeast Asia, Micronesia, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar. Taiwan is the homeland of the Austronesian languages.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: There is evidence that indigenous Taiwanese continued trading with the Philippines in the Sa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere. Eastern Taiwan was the source of jade for the "lingling-o" jade industry in the Philippines and the Sa Huỳnh culture of Vietnam. This trading network began between the animist communities of Taiwan and the Philippines which later became the Maritime Jade Road, one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks of a single geological material in the prehistoric world. It was in existence for 3,000 years from 2000 BCE to 1000 CE.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Recorded history of the indigenous peoples in Taiwan began around the 17th century, and has often been dominated by the views and policies of foreign powers and non-aborigines. Beginning with the arrival of Dutch merchants in 1624, the traditional lands of the aborigines have been successively colonized by Dutch, Spanish, Ming, Qing dynasty, Japanese, and Republic of China rulers. Each of these successive "civilizing" cultural centers participated in violent conflict and peaceful economic interaction with both the Plains and Mountain indigenous groups. To varying degrees, they influenced or transformed the culture and language of the indigenous peoples.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Four centuries of non-indigenous rule can be viewed through several changing periods of governing power and shifting official policy toward aborigines. From the 17th century until the early 20th, the impact of the foreign settlers—the Dutch, Spanish, and Han—was more extensive on the Plains peoples. They were far more geographically accessible than the Mountain peoples, and thus had more dealings with the foreign powers. The reactions of indigenous people to imperial power show not only acceptance, but also incorporation or resistance through their cultural practices By the beginning of the 20th century, the Plains peoples had largely been assimilated into contemporary Taiwanese culture as a result of European and Han colonial rule. Until the latter half of the Japanese colonial era the Mountain peoples were not entirely governed by any non-indigenous polity. However, the mid-1930s marked a shift in the intercultural dynamic, as the Japanese began to play a far more dominant role in the culture of the Highland groups. This increased degree of control over the Mountain peoples continued during Kuomintang rule. Within these two broad eras, there were many differences in the individual and regional impact of the colonizers and their "civilizing projects". At times the foreign powers were accepted readily, as some communities adopted foreign clothing styles and cultural practices , and engaged in cooperative trade in goods such as camphor, deer hides, sugar, tea, and rice. At numerous other times changes from the outside world were forcibly imposed.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Much of the historical information regarding Taiwan's indigenous population was collected by these regimes in the form of administrative reports and gazettes as part of greater "civilizing" projects. The collection of information aided in the consolidation of administrative control.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The plains aborigines mainly lived in stationary village sites surrounded by defensive walls of bamboo. The village sites in southern Taiwan were more populated than other locations. Some villages supported a population of more than 1,500 people, surrounded by smaller satellite villages. Siraya villages were constructed of dwellings made of thatch and bamboo, raised from the ground on stilts, with each household having a barn for livestock. A watchtower was located in the village to look out for headhunting parties from the Highland peoples. The concept of property was often communal, with a series of conceptualized concentric rings around each village. The innermost ring was used for gardens and orchards that followed a fallowing cycle around the ring. The second ring was used to cultivate plants and natural fibers for the exclusive use of the community. The third ring was for exclusive hunting and deer fields for community use. The Plains Aborigines hunted herds of spotted Formosan sika deer, Formosan sambar deer and Reeves's muntjac as well as conducting light millet farming. Sugar and rice were grown as well, but mostly for use in preparing wine.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Many of the Plains Aborigines were matrilineal/matrifocal societies. A man married into a woman's family after a courtship period during which the woman was free to reject as many men as she wished. In the age-grade communities, couples entered into marriage in their mid-30s when a man would no longer be required to perform military service or hunt heads on the battle-field. In the matriarchal system of the Siraya, it was also necessary for couples to abstain from marriage until their mid-30s, when the bride's father would be in his declining years and would not pose a challenge to the new male member of the household. It was not until the arrival of the Dutch Reformed Church in the 17th century that the marriage and child-birth taboos were abolished. There is some indication that many of the younger members of Sirayan society embraced the Dutch marriage customs as a means to circumvent the age-grade system in a push for greater village power. Almost all indigenous peoples in Taiwan have traditionally had a custom of sexual division of labor. Women did the sewing, cooking and farming, while the men hunted and prepared for military activity and securing enemy heads in headhunting raids, which was a common practice in early Taiwan. Women were also often found in the office of priestesses or mediums to the gods.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: For centuries, Taiwan's aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift and cultural assimilation, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages), at least ten are extinct, five are moribund and several are to some degree endangered. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian language family.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: During the European period (1623–1662) soldiers and traders representing the Dutch East India Company maintained a colony in southwestern Taiwan (1624–1662) near present-day Tainan. This established an Asian base for triangular trade between the company, the Qing dynasty and Japan, with the hope of interrupting Portuguese and Spanish trading alliances with China. The Spanish also established a small colony in northern Taiwan (1626–1642) in present-day Keelung. However, Spanish influence wavered almost from the beginning, so that by the late 1630s they had already withdrawn most of their troops. After they were driven out of Taiwan by a combined Dutch and aboriginal force in 1642, the Spanish "had little effect on Taiwan's history". Dutch influence was far more significant: expanding to the southwest and north of the island, they set up a tax system and established schools and churches in many villages.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: When the Dutch arrived in 1624 at Tayouan (Anping) Harbor, Siraya-speaking representatives from nearby Saccam village soon appeared at the Dutch stockade to barter and trade; an overture which was readily welcomed by the Dutch. The Sirayan villages were, however, divided into warring factions: the village of Sinckan (Sinshih) was at war with Mattau (Madou) and its ally Baccluan, while the village of Soulang maintained uneasy neutrality. In 1629 a Dutch expeditionary force searching for Han pirates was massacred by warriors from Mattau, and the victory inspired other villages to rebel. In 1635, with reinforcements having arrived from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia), the Dutch subjugated and burned Mattau. Since Mattau was the most powerful village in the area, the victory brought a spate of peace offerings from other nearby villages, many of which were outside the Siraya area. This was the beginning of Dutch consolidation over large parts of Taiwan, which brought an end to centuries of inter-village warfare. The new period of peace allowed the Dutch to construct schools and churches aimed to acculturate and convert the indigenous population. Dutch schools taught a romanized script (Sinckan writing), which transcribed the Siraya language. This script maintained occasional use through the 18th century. Today only fragments survive, in documents and stone stele markers. The schools also served to maintain alliances and open aboriginal areas for Dutch enterprise and commerce.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Dutch soon found trade in deerskins and venison in the East Asian market to be a lucrative endeavor and recruited Plains Aborigines to procure the hides. The deer trade attracted the first Han traders to aboriginal villages, but as early as 1642 the demand for deer greatly diminished the deer stocks. This drop significantly reduced the prosperity of aboriginal peoples, forcing many aborigines to take up farming to counter the economic impact of losing their most vital food source.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: As the Dutch began subjugating indigenous villages in the south and west of Taiwan, increasing numbers of Han immigrants looked to exploit areas that were fertile and rich in game. The Dutch initially encouraged this, since the Han were skilled in agriculture and large-scale hunting. Several Han took up residence in Siraya villages. The Dutch used Han agents to collect taxes, hunting license fees and other income. This set up a society in which "many of the colonists were Han Chinese but the military and the administrative structures were Dutch". Despite this, local alliances transcended ethnicity during the Dutch period. For example, the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion in 1652, a Han farmers' uprising, was defeated by an alliance of 120 Dutch musketeers with the aid of Han loyalists and 600 aboriginal warriors.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Multiple Aboriginal villages in frontier areas rebelled against the Dutch in the 1650s due to oppression such as when the Dutch ordered indigenous women for sex, deer pelts, and rice be given to them from aborigines in the Taipei Basin in Wu-lao-wan village which sparked a rebellion in December 1652 at the same time as the Chinese rebellion. Two Dutch translators were beheaded by the Wu-lao-wan aborigines and in a subsequent fight, 30 indigenes and another two Dutch people died. After an embargo of salt and iron on Wu-lao-wan, the indigenous people were forced to sue for peace in February 1653.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: However, the Taiwanese Aboriginal peoples who were previously allied with the Dutch against the Chinese during the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion in 1652 turned against the Dutch during the later Siege of Fort Zeelandia and defected to Koxinga's Chinese forces. The Aboriginals (Formosans) of Sincan defected to Koxinga after he offered them amnesty; the Sincan Aboriginals then proceeded to work for the Chinese and behead Dutch people in executions while the frontier aboriginals in the mountains and plains also surrendered and defected to the Chinese on 17 May 1661, celebrating their freedom from compulsory education under the Dutch rule by hunting down Dutch people and beheading them and trashing their Christian school textbooks. Koxinga formulated a plan to give oxen and farming tools and teach farming techniques to the indigenous people, giving them Ming gowns and caps, eating with their chiefs and gifting tobacco to Aboriginals who were gathered in crowds to meet and welcome him as he visited their villages after he defeated the Dutch.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Dutch period ended in 1662 when Ming loyalist forces of Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) drove out the Dutch and established the short-lived Zheng family kingdom on Taiwan. The Zhengs brought 70,000 soldiers to Taiwan and immediately began clearing large tracts of land to support its forces. Despite the preoccupation with fighting the Qing, the Zheng family was concerned with indigenous welfare on Taiwan. The Zhengs built alliances, collected taxes and erected aboriginal schools, where Taiwan's indigenes were first introduced to the Confucian Classics and Chinese writing. However, the impact of the Dutch was deeply ingrained in indigenous society. In the 19th and 20th centuries, European explorers wrote of being welcomed as kin by the aborigines who thought they were the Dutch, who had promised to return.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: After the Qing dynasty government defeated the Ming loyalist forces maintained by the Zheng family in 1683, Taiwan became increasingly integrated into the Qing dynasty. Qing forces ruled areas of Taiwan's highly populated western plain for over two centuries, until 1895. This era was characterized by a marked increase in the number of Han Chinese on Taiwan, continued social unrest, the piecemeal transfer (by various means) of large amounts of land from the aborigines to the Han, and the nearly complete acculturation of the Western Plains Aborigines to Chinese Han customs.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: During the Qing dynasty's two-century rule over Taiwan, the population of Han on the island increased dramatically. However, it is not clear to what extent this was due to an influx of Han settlers, who were predominantly displaced young men from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian province, or from a variety of other factors, including: frequent intermarriage between Han and aborigines, the replacement of aboriginal marriage and abortion taboos, and the widespread adoption of the Han agricultural lifestyle due to the depletion of traditional game stocks, which may have led to increased birth rates and population growth. Moreover, the acculturation of aborigines in increased numbers may have intensified the perception of a swell in the number of Han.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Qing government officially sanctioned controlled Han settlement, but sought to manage tensions between the various regional and ethnic groups. Therefore, it often recognized the Plains peoples' claims to deer fields and traditional territory. The Qing authorities hoped to turn the Plains peoples into loyal subjects, and adopted the head and corvée taxes on the aborigines, which made the Plains Aborigines directly responsible for payment to the government yamen. The attention paid by the Qing authorities to aboriginal land rights was part of a larger administrative goal to maintain a level of peace on the turbulent Taiwan frontier, which was often marred by ethnic and regional conflict. The frequency of rebellions, riots, and civil strife in Qing dynasty Taiwan is often encapsulated in the saying "every three years an uprising; every five years a rebellion". Aboriginal participation in a number of major revolts during the Qing era, including the Taokas-led Ta-Chia-hsi revolt of 1731–1732, ensured the Plains peoples would remain an important factor in crafting Qing frontier policy until the end of Qing rule in 1895.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The struggle over land resources was one source of conflict. Large areas of the western plain were subject to large land rents called "Huan Da Zu" (番大租—literally, "Barbarian Big Rent"), a category which remained until the period of Japanese colonization. The large tracts of deer field, guaranteed by the Qing, were owned by the communities and their individual members. The communities would commonly offer Han farmers a permanent patent for use, while maintaining ownership (skeleton) of the subsoil (田骨), which was called "two lords to a field" (一田兩主). The Plains peoples were often cheated out of land or pressured to sell at unfavorable rates. Some disaffected subgroups moved to central or eastern Taiwan, but most remained in their ancestral locations and acculturated or assimilated into Han society.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: One popular narrative holds that all of the Gaoshan peoples were originally Plains peoples, which fled to the mountains under pressure from Han encroachment. This strong version of the "migration" theory has been largely discounted by contemporary research as the Gaoshan people demonstrate a physiology, material cultures and customs that have been adapted for life at higher elevations. Linguistic, archeological, and recorded anecdotal evidence also suggests there has been island-wide migration of indigenous peoples for over 3,000 years.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Small sub-groups of Plains Aborigines may have occasionally fled to the mountains, foothills or eastern plain to escape hostile groups of Han or other aborigines.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The "displacement scenario" is more likely rooted in the older customs of many Plains groups to withdraw into the foothills during headhunting season or when threatened by a neighboring village, as observed by the Dutch during their punitive campaign of Mattou in 1636 when the bulk of the village retreated to Tevorangh.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The "displacement scenario" may also stem from the inland migrations of Plains Aborigine subgroups, who were displaced by either Han or other Plains Aborigines and chose to move to the Iilan plain in 1804, the Puli basin in 1823 and another Puli migration in 1875. Each migration consisted of a number of families and totaled hundreds of people, not entire communities. There are also recorded oral histories that recall some Plains Aborigines were sometimes captured and killed by Highlands peoples while relocating through the mountains. However, as explained in detail, documented evidence shows that the majority of Plains people remained on the plains, intermarried Hakka and Hoklo immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong, and adopted a Han identity.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Imperial Chinese and European societies had little contact with the Highland aborigines until expeditions to the region by European and American explorers and missionaries commenced in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The lack of data before this was primarily the result of a Qing quarantine on the region to the east of the "earth oxen" (土牛) border, which ran along the eastern edge of the western plain. Han contact with the mountain peoples was usually associated with the enterprise of gathering and extracting camphor from Camphor Laurel trees ("Cinnamomum camphora"), native to the island and in particular the mountainous areas. The production and shipment of camphor (used in herbal medicines and mothballs) was then a significant industry on the island, lasting up to and including the period of Japanese rule. These early encounters often involved headhunting parties from the Highland peoples, who sought out and raided unprotected Han forest workers. Together with traditional Han concepts of Taiwanese behavior, these raiding incidents helped to promote the Qing-era popular image of the "violent" aborigine.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Taiwanese Plains Aborigines were often employed and dispatched as interpreters to assist in the trade of goods between Han merchants and Highlands aborigines. The indigenous people traded cloth, pelts and meat for iron and matchlock rifles. Iron was a necessary material for the fabrication of hunting knives—long, curved sabers that were generally used as a forest tool. These blades became notorious among Han settlers, given their alternative use to decapitate Highland indigenous enemies in customary headhunting expeditions.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Every tribe except the Tao people of Orchid Island practiced headhunting, which was a symbol of bravery and valor. Men who did not take heads could not cross the rainbow bridge into the spirit world upon death as per the religion of Gaya. Each tribe has its own origin story for the tradition of headhunting but the theme is similar across tribes. After the great flood, headhunting originated due to boredom (South Tsou Sa'arua, Paiwan), to improve tribal singing (Ali Mountain Tsou), as a form of population control (Atayal, Taroko, Bunun), simply for amusement and fun (Rukai, Tsou, Puyuma) or particularly for the fun and excitement of killing intellectually disabled individuals (Amis). Once the victims had been decapitated and displayed the heads were boiled and left to dry, often hanging from trees or displayed on slate shelves referred to as "skull racks". A party returning with a head was cause for celebration, as it was believed to bring good luck and the spiritual power of the slaughtered individual was believed to transfer into the headhunter. If the head was that of a woman it was even better because it meant she could not bear children. The Bunun people would often take prisoners and inscribe prayers or messages to their dead on arrows, then shoot their prisoner with the hope their prayers would be carried to the dead. Taiwanese Hoklo Han settlers and Japanese were often the victims of headhunting raids as they were considered by the aborigines to be liars and enemies. A headhunting raid would often strike at workers in the fields, or set a dwelling alight and then decapitate the inhabitants as they fled the burning structure. It was also customary to later raise the victim's surviving children as full members of the community. Often the heads themselves were ceremonially 'invited' to join the community as members, where they were supposed to watch over the community and keep them safe. The indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan accepted the convention and practice of headhunting as one of the calculated risks of community life. The last groups to practice headhunting were the Paiwan, Bunun, and Atayal groups. Japanese rule ended the practice by 1930, (though Japanese were not subject to this regulation and continued to headhunt their enemies throughout World War II) but some elder Taiwanese could recall firsthand the practice as late as 2003.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: When the Treaty of Shimonoseki was finalized on 17 April 1895, Taiwan was ceded by the Qing Empire to Japan. Taiwan's incorporation into the Japanese political orbit brought Taiwanese aborigines into contact with a new colonial structure, determined to define and locate indigenous people within the framework of a new, multi-ethnic empire. The means of accomplishing this goal took three main forms: anthropological study of the natives of Taiwan, attempts to reshape the aborigines in the mold of the Japanese, and military suppression. The Aboriginals and Han joined together to violently revolt against Japanese rule in the 1907 Beipu Uprising and 1915 Tapani Incident.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Japan's sentiment regarding indigenous peoples was crafted around the memory of the Mudan Incident, when, in 1871, a group of 54 shipwrecked Ryūkyūan sailors was massacred by a Paiwan group from the village of Mudan in southern Taiwan. The resulting Japanese policy, published twenty years before the onset of their rule on Taiwan, cast Taiwanese aborigines as "vicious, violent and cruel" and concluded "this is a pitfall of the world; we must get rid of them all". Japanese campaigns to gain aboriginal submission were often brutal, as evidenced in the desire of Japan's first Governor General, Kabayama Sukenori, to "...conquer the barbarians" . The Seediq Aboriginals fought against the Japanese in multiple battles such as the Xincheng incident (新城事件), Truku battle (太魯閣之役) (Taroko), 1902 Renzhiguan incident (人止關事件), and the 1903 Zimeiyuan incident 姊妹原事件. In the Musha Incident of 1930, for example, a Seediq group was decimated by artillery and supplanted by the Taroko (Truku), which had sustained periods of bombardment from naval ships and airplanes dropping mustard gas. A quarantine was placed around the mountain areas enforced by armed guard stations and electrified fences until the most remote high mountain villages could be relocated closer to administrative control.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: A divide and rule policy was formulated with Japan trying to play Aboriginals and Han against each other to their own benefit when Japan alternated between fighting the two with Japan first fighting Han and then fighting Aboriginals. Nationalist Japanese claim Aboriginals were treated well by Kabayama. "unenlightened and stubbornly stupid" were the words used to describe Aboriginals by Kabayama Sukenori. A hardline anti Aboriginal position aimed at the destruction of their civilization was implemented by Fukuzawa Yukichi. The most tenacioius opposition was mounted by the Bunan and Atayal against the Japanese during the brutal mountain war in 1913–14 under Sakuma. Aboriginals continued to fight against the Japanese after 1915. Aboriginals were subjected to military takeover and assimilation. In order to exploit camphor resources, the Japanese fought against the Bngciq Atayal in 1906 and expelled them. The war is called "Camphor War" (樟腦戰爭).


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Bunun Aboriginals under Chief Raho Ari (or Dahu Ali, 拉荷·阿雷, lāhè āléi) engaged in guerilla warfare against the Japanese for twenty years. Raho Ari's revolt was sparked when the Japanese implemented a gun control policy in 1914 against the Aboriginals in which their rifles were impounded in police stations when hunting expeditions were over. The Dafen incident w:zh:大分事件 began at Dafen when a police platoon was slaughtered by Raho Ari's clan in 1915. A settlement holding 266 people called Tamaho was created by Raho Ari and his followers near the source of the Laonong River and attracted more Bunun rebels to their cause. Raho Ari and his followers captured bullets and guns and slew Japanese in repeated hit and run raids against Japanese police stations by infiltrating over the Japanese "guardline" of electrified fences and police stations as they pleased.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The 1930 "New Flora and Silva, Volume 2" said of the mountain Aboriginals that the "majority of them live in a state of war against Japanese authority". The Bunun and Atayal were described as the "most ferocious" Aboriginals, and police stations were targeted by Aboriginals in intermittent assaults. By January 1915, all Aboriginals in northern Taiwan were forced to hand over their guns to the Japanese, however head hunting and assaults on police stations by Aboriginals still continued after that year. Between 1921 and 1929 Aboriginal raids died down, but a major revival and surge in Aboriginal armed resistance erupted from 1930 to 1933 for four years during which the Musha Incident occurred and Bunun carried out raids, after which armed conflict again died down. According to a 1933-year book, wounded people in the Japanese war against the Aboriginals numbered around 4,160, with 4,422 civilians dead and 2,660 military personnel killed. According to a 1935 report, 7,081 Japanese were killed in the armed struggle from 1896 to 1933 while the Japanese confiscated 29,772 Aboriginal guns by 1933.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Beginning in the first year of Japanese rule, the colonial government embarked on a mission to study the aborigines so they could be classified, located and "civilized". The Japanese "civilizing project", partially fueled by public demand in Japan to know more about the empire, would be used to benefit the Imperial government by consolidating administrative control over the entire island, opening up vast tracts of land for exploitation. To satisfy these needs, "the Japanese portrayed and catalogued Taiwan's indigenous peoples in a welter of statistical tables, magazine and newspaper articles, photograph albums for popular consumption". The Japanese-based much of their information and terminology on prior Qing era narratives concerning degrees of "civilization".


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Japanese ethnographer Ino Kanori was charged with the task of surveying the entire population of Taiwanese aborigines, applying the first systematic study of aborigines on Taiwan. Ino's research is best known for his formalization of eight peoples of Taiwanese aborigines: Atayal, Bunun, Saisiat, Tsou, Paiwan, Puyuma, Ami and "Pepo" (Pingpu). This is the direct antecedent of the taxonomy used today to distinguish people groups that are officially recognized by the government.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Life under the Japanese changed rapidly as many of the traditional structures were replaced by a military power. Aborigines who wished to improve their status looked to education rather than headhunting as the new form of power. Those who learned to work with the Japanese and follow their customs would be better suited to lead villages. The Japanese encouraged aborigines to maintain traditional costumes and selected customs that were not considered detrimental to society, but invested much time and money in efforts to eliminate traditions deemed unsavory by Japanese culture, including tattooing. By the mid-1930s as Japan's empire was reaching its zenith, the colonial government began a political socialization program designed to enforce Japanese customs, rituals and a loyal Japanese identity upon the aborigines. By the end of World War II, aborigines whose fathers had been killed in pacification campaigns were volunteering to serve in Special Units and if need be die for the Emperor of Japan. The Japanese colonial experience left an indelible mark on many older aborigines who maintained an admiration for the Japanese long after their departure in 1945.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Japanese rule of Taiwan ended in 1945, following the armistice with the allies on September 2 and the subsequent appropriation of the island by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) on October 25. In 1949, on losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese Communist Party, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek led the Kuomintang in a retreat from Mainland China, withdrawing its government and 1.3 million refugees to Taiwan. The KMT installed an authoritarian form of government and shortly thereafter inaugurated a number of political socialization programs aimed at nationalizing Taiwanese people as citizens of a Chinese nation and eradicating Japanese influence. The KMT pursued highly centralized political and cultural policies rooted in the party's decades-long history of fighting warlordism in China and opposing competing concepts of a loose federation following the demise of the imperial Qing. The project was designed to create a strong national Chinese cultural identity (as defined by the state) at the expense of local cultures. Following the February 28 Incident in 1947, the Kuomintang placed Taiwan under martial law, which was to last for nearly four decades.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Taiwanese aborigines first encountered the Nationalist government in 1946, when the Japanese village schools were replaced by schools of the KMT. Documents from the Education Office show an emphasis on Chinese language, history and citizenship — with a curriculum steeped in pro-KMT ideology. Some elements of the curriculum, such as the Wu Feng Legend, are currently considered offensive to aborigines. Much of the burden of educating the aborigines was undertaken by unqualified teachers, who could, at best, speak Mandarin and teach basic ideology. In 1951 a major political socialization campaign was launched to change the lifestyle of many aborigines, to adopt Han customs. A 1953 government report on mountain areas stated that its aims were chiefly to promote Mandarin to strengthen a national outlook and create good customs. This was included in the Shandi Pingdi Hua (山地平地化) policy to "make the mountains like the plains". Critics of the KMT's program for a centralized national culture regard it as institutionalized ethnic discrimination, point to the loss of several indigenous languages and a perpetuation of shame for being an aborigine. Hsiau noted that Taiwan's first democratically elected President, Li Teng-Hui, said in a famous interview: "... In the period of Japanese colonialism a Taiwanese would be punished by being forced to kneel out in the sun for speaking Tai-yü." [a dialect of Min Nan, which is not a Formosan language<nowiki>]</nowiki>.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The pattern of intermarriage continued, as many KMT soldiers married aboriginal women who were from poorer areas and could be easily bought as wives. Modern studies show a high degree of genetic intermixing. Despite this, many contemporary Taiwanese are unwilling to entertain the idea of having an aboriginal heritage. In a 1994 study, it was found that 71% of the families surveyed would object to their daughter marrying an aboriginal man. For much of the KMT era the government definition of aboriginal identity had been 100% aboriginal parentage, leaving any intermarriage resulting in a non-aboriginal child. Later the policy was adjusted to the ethnic status of the father determining the status of the child.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang ended gradually through a transition to democracy, which was marked by the lifting of martial law in 1987. Soon after, the KMT transitioned to being merely one party within a democratic system, though maintaining a high degree of power in aboriginal districts through an established system of patronage networks. The KMT continued to hold the reins of power for another decade under President Lee Teng-hui. However, they did so as an elected government rather than a dictatorial power. The elected KMT government supported many of the bills that had been promoted by aboriginal groups. The tenth amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of China also stipulates that the government would protect and preserve aboriginal culture and languages and also encourage them to participate in politics.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: During the period of political liberalization, which preceded the end of martial law, academic interest in the Plains Aborigines surged as amateur and professional historians sought to rediscover Taiwan's past. The opposition "tang wai" activists seized upon the new image of the Plains Aborigines as a means to directly challenge the KMT's official narrative of Taiwan as a historical part of China, and the government's assertion that Taiwanese were "pure" Han Chinese. Many "tang wai" activists framed the Plains aboriginal experience in the existing anti-colonialism/victimization Taiwanese nationalist narrative, which positioned the Hoklo-speaking Taiwanese in the role of indigenous people and the victims of successive foreign rulers. By the late 1980s many Hoklo- and Hakka-speaking people began identifying themselves as Plains Aborigines, though any initial shift in ethnic consciousness from Hakka or Hoklo people was minor.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Despite the politicized dramatization of the Plains Aborigines, their "rediscovery" as a matter of public discourse has had a lasting effect on the increased socio-political reconceptualization of Taiwan—emerging from a Han Chinese-dominant perspective into a wider acceptance of Taiwan as a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In many districts Taiwanese aborigines tend to vote for the Kuomintang, to the point that the legislative seats allocated to the aborigines are popularly described as "iron votes" for the pan-blue coalition. This may seem surprising in light of the focus of the pan-green coalition on promoting aboriginal culture as part of the Taiwanese nationalist discourse against the KMT. However, this voting pattern can be explained on economic grounds, and as part of an inter-ethnic power struggle waged in the electorate. Some aborigines see the rhetoric of Taiwan nationalism as favoring the majority Hoklo speakers rather than themselves. Aboriginal areas also tend to be poor and their economic vitality tied to the entrenched patronage networks established by the Kuomintang over the course of its fifty-five year reign.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The democratic era has been a time of great change, both constructive and destructive, for the aborigines of Taiwan. Since the 1980s, increased political and public attention has been paid to the rights and social issues of the indigenous communities of Taiwan. Aborigines have realized gains in both the political and economic spheres. Though progress is ongoing, there remain a number of still unrealized goals within the framework of the ROC: "although certainly more 'equal' than they were 20, or even 10, years ago, the indigenous inhabitants in Taiwan still remain on the lowest rungs of the legal and socioeconomic ladders". On the other hand, bright spots are not hard to find. A resurgence in ethnic pride has accompanied the aboriginal cultural renaissance, which is exemplified by the increased popularity of aboriginal music and greater public interest in aboriginal culture.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The movement for indigenous cultural and political resurgence in Taiwan traces its roots to the ideals outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Although the Republic of China was a UN member and signatory to the original UN Charter, four decades of martial law controlled the discourse of culture and politics on Taiwan. The political liberalization Taiwan experienced leading up to the official end of martial law on 15 July 1987, opened a new public arena for dissenting voices and political movements against the centralized policy of the KMT.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In December 1984, the Taiwan Aboriginal People's Movement was launched when a group of aboriginal political activists, aided by the progressive Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), established the Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines (ATA, or "yuan chuan hui") to highlight the problems experienced by indigenous communities all over Taiwan, including: prostitution, economic disparity, land rights and official discrimination in the form of naming rights.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In 1988, amid the ATA's Return Our Land Movement, in which aborigines demanded the return of lands to the original inhabitants, the ATA sent its first representative to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Following the success in addressing the UN, the "Return Our Land" movement evolved into the Aboriginal Constitution Movement, in which the aboriginal representatives demanded appropriate wording in the ROC Constitution to ensure indigenous Taiwanese "dignity and justice" in the form of enhanced legal protection, government assistance to improve living standards in indigenous communities, and the right to identify themselves as ""yuan chu min"" (原住民), literally, ""the people who lived here first,"" but more commonly, ""aborigines"". The KMT government initially opposed the term, due to its implication that other people on Taiwan, including the KMT government, were newcomers and not entitled to the island. The KMT preferred "hsien chu min" (先住民, "First people"), or "tsao chu min" (早住民, "Early People") to evoke a sense of general historical immigration to Taiwan.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: To some degree the movement has been successful. Beginning in 1998, the official curriculum in Taiwan schools has been changed to contain more frequent and favorable mention of aborigines. In 1996 the Council of Indigenous Peoples was promoted to a ministry-level rank within the Executive Yuan. The central government has taken steps to allow romanized spellings of aboriginal names on official documents, offsetting the long-held policy of forcing a Han name on an aborigine. A relaxed policy on identification now allows a child to choose their official designation if they are born to mixed aboriginal/Han parents.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The present political leaders in the aboriginal community, led mostly by aboriginal elites born after 1949, have been effective in leveraging their ethnic identity and socio-linguistic acculturation into contemporary Taiwanese society against the political backdrop of a changing Taiwan. This has allowed indigenous people a means to push for greater political space, including the still unrealized prospect of Indigenous People's Autonomous Areas within Taiwan.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In February 2017, the Indigenous Ketagalan Boulevard Protest started in a bid for more official recognition of land as traditional territories.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The government of the People's Republic of China do not recognize the term or its variations, since it might suggest that Han people are not indigenous to Taiwan, or that Taiwan is not a core territory of China. Also, where the Republic of China (ROC) government in Taiwan, as of 2020, officially recognises 16 Taiwanese aboriginal tribes, the PRC classifies them all under a single ethnic group, the "Gāoshān" (, 'high mountain') minority, out of reluctance to recognize ethnic classifications derived from the work of Japanese anthropologists during the Japanese colonial era. (This is despite the fact that not all Taiwanese aborigines have traditional territories in the mountains; for example, the Tao People traditionally inhabit the island of Lanyu.) The regional governments of Hong Kong and Macau do not use this ethnic classification system, so figures by the PRC government exclude these two territories.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Aborigines were represented by eight members out of 225 seats in the Legislative Yuan. In 2008, the number of legislative seats was cut in half to 113, of which Taiwanese aborigines are represented by six members, three each for lowland and highland peoples. The tendency of Taiwanese aborigines to vote for members of the pan-blue coalition has been cited as having the potential to change the balance of the legislature. Citing these six seats in addition with five seats from smaller counties that also tend to vote pan-blue has been seen as giving the pan-blue coalition 11 seats before the first vote is counted.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The deep-rooted hostility between Aboriginals and (Taiwanese) Hoklo, and the Aboriginal communities' effective KMT networks, contribute to Aboriginal skepticism against the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Aboriginals tendency to vote for the KMT.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Aboriginals have criticized politicians for abusing the "indigenization" movement for political gains, such as aboriginal opposition to the DPP's "rectification" by recognizing the Taroko for political reasons, with the majority of mountain townships voting for Ma Ying-jeou. The Atayal and Seediq slammed the Truku for their name rectification.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In 2005 the Kuomintang displayed a massive photo of the anti-Japanese Aboriginal leader Mona Rudao at its headquarters in honor of the 60th anniversary of Taiwan's handover from Japan to the Republic of China.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Aboriginals protested against the 14th Dalai Lama during his visit to Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot and denounced it as politically motivated.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The derogatory term "fan" (Chinese: 番) was often used against the Plains Aborigines by the Taiwanese. The Hoklo Taiwanese term was forced upon Aborigines like the Pazeh. A racist, anti-Aboriginal slur was also used by Chiu Yi-ying, a DPP Taiwanese legislator. Chiu Yi-ying said the racist words were intended for Aboriginal KMT members. The Aborigines in the KMT slammed President Tsai over the criminal punishment of a hunter of Bunun Aboriginal background. In response to the "apology" ceremony held by Tsai, KMT Aboriginals refused to attend. Aboriginals demanded that recompense from Tsai to accompany the apology. Aboriginal protestors slammed Tsai for not implementing sovereignty for Aboriginals and not using actions to back up the apology. The Taipei Times ran an editorial in 2008 that rejected the idea of an apology to the Aborigines, and rejected the idea of comparing Australian Aborigines' centuries of 'genocidal' suffering at the hands of White Australians to the suffering of Aborigines in Taiwan.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: A study by Marie Lin in 2007 reported that the human leukocyte antigen typing study and mitochondrial DNA analysis demonstrated that 85% of the Taiwanese Han population had some degree of aboriginal origin . Other studies by Chen Shun-Shen state that 20% to 60%, and then more than 88% of Taiwanese Han have aboriginal blood. These studies were criticized by other researchers and refuted by subsequent genetic studies. However the idea that Taiwanese Han are a hybrid population genetically different from Chinese Han has been used as a basis for Taiwanese independence from China. This belief has been called the "myth of indigenous genes" by some researchers such as Shu-juo Chen and Hong-kuan Duan, who say that "genetic studies have never supported the idea that Taiwanese Han are genetically different with Chinese Han."


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The idea that "We are all Aboriginal people" was initially welcomed by aboriginal leaders but has faced increasing opposition as it became viewed as a tool for Taiwanese independence. On 9 August 2005, a celebration for the constitutional reforms protecting aboriginal rights was held, during which Premier Frank Hsieh announced that he had an aboriginal great-grandmother and that "Now you shouldn’t say: 'you are Aboriginal, I am not.' Everyone is Aboriginal." Descendants of plains aborigines have opposed the usage of their ancestors in the call for Taiwanese independence. Genetic studies show genetic differences between Taiwanese Han and mountain aborigines. According to Chen and Duan, the genetic ancestry of individuals cannot be traced with certainty and attempts to construct identity through genetics are "theoretically meaningless."


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Plains "Pingpu" aborigines of Taiwan disagreed with Lin's studies, which follows the "blood line theory" of Taiwanese nationalism. Alak Akatuang, secretary of the Pingpu Indigenous Peoples Cultural Association, said that the pan-green camp used the indigenous peoples to create a national identity for Taiwan, but the idea that Taiwanese people are not overwhelmingly descended from Han settlers is false. According to Akatuang, Taiwan's independence should not be established on the idea of blood relations and these people who believe in the blood line theory "ignore scientific evidence because they want to believe they are different from China." This harmed the legitimacy of the Pingpu movement for recognition and reparations and was deeply insulting: "The Pingpu were the first of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples to face colonization. After the Han people came, they stole our land. They murdered our ancestors. Then after a few hundred years, they said we were the same people. Do you think a Pingpu person can accept this?"


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In the highest self reports, 5.3 percent of Taiwan's population claimed indigenous heritage. Estimates of genetic indigenous ancestry range from 13%, 26%, and as high as 85%. The latter number was published in a Chinese language editorial and not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, however these numbers have taken hold in popular Taiwanese imagination and are treated as facts in Taiwanese politics and identity. Many Taiwanese claim to be part aboriginal. Some Taiwanese graduate biology students expressed skepticism at the findings, noting the lack of peer-reviewed publications. Chen suggests that the estimates resulted from manipulation of sample sizes. The lack of methodological rigor suggests the numbers were meant for local consumption. In all scientific studies, genetic markers for aboriginal ancestry make up a minute portion of the genome. In 2021, Marie Lin, who was the source of the larger indigenous ancestry numbers, co-authored an article stating that East Asian ancestry may have mixed with indigenous peoples in their southward expansion 4,000 years ago, although this does not rule out more recent Taiwanese Han-indigenous admixtures. However there are "distinct patterns of genetic structure between the Taiwanese Han and indigenous populations."


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: During the Wushe Incident Seediq Tkdaya under Mona Rudao revolted against the Japanese while the Truku and Toda did not. The rivalry between the Seediq Tkdaya vs the Toda and Truku (Taroko) was aggravated by the Wushe Incident, since the Japanese had long played them off against each other and the Japanese used Toda and Truku (Taroko) collaborators to massacre the Tkdaya. Tkdaya land was given to the Truku (Taroko) and Toda by the Japanese after the incident. The Truku had resisted and fought the Japanese before in the 1914 Truku war 太魯閣戰爭 but had since been pacified and collaborated with the Japanese in the 1930 Wushe against the Tkdaya.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Many indigenous communities did not evenly share in the benefits of the economic boom Taiwan experienced during the last quarter of the 20th century. They often lacked satisfactory educational resources on their reservations, undermining their pursuit of marketable skills. The economic disparity between the village and urban schools resulted in imposing many social barriers on aborigines, which prevent many from moving beyond vocational training. Students transplanted into urban schools face adversity, including isolation, culture shock, and discrimination from their peers. The cultural impact of poverty and economic marginalization has led to an increase in alcoholism and prostitution among aborigines.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The economic boom resulted in drawing large numbers of aborigines out of their villages and into the unskilled or low-skilled sector of the urban workforce. Manufacturing and construction jobs were generally available for low wages. The aborigines quickly formed bonds with other communities as they all had similar political motives to protect their collective needs as part of the labor force. The aborigines became the most skilled iron-workers and construction teams on the island often selected to work on the most difficult projects. The result was a mass exodus of indigenous members from their traditional lands and the cultural alienation of young people in the villages, who could not learn their languages or customs while employed. Often, young aborigines in the cities fall into gangs aligned with the construction trade. Recent laws governing the employment of laborers from Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines have also led to an increased atmosphere of xenophobia among urban aborigines, and encouraged the formulation of a pan-indigenous consciousness in the pursuit of political representation and protection.