To us, it may just be an ordinary piece of material, but to minority people, cloth is important in identifying clans and plays a significant role in expressing individual characteristics. National costumes, like languages, are culturally oriented. Minority peoples weave their history into their fabrics, reflecting their national features and imparting their cultural views. If minority people lose these symbols, they will no longer know who they are or what their cultures stand for.

"Yuma, if the color of the thread is like this fabric, then it will be very pretty." Amuy Taru picked up a rectangular piece of Atayal fabric belonging to her sister and, murmuring to herself, conscientiously and laboriously examined the fabric in detail. Almost blind and hard of hearing, she was imparting the traditional tribal craft of five-post weaving to her grandniece, the granddaughter of her younger sister, Yuma Taru.

There are currently nine major aboriginal peoples in Taiwan: the Atayal, Saisiyat, Bunun, Tsou, Paiwan, Rukai, Puyuma, Ami and Yami.

Yuma's mission

An illness a few years ago left the nearly ninety-year-old Amuy Taru confused about time and her memory. What she can still remember clearly are her stay at the ancestral residence near Tapa Peak (a major part of Hsuehpa National Park, in north-central Taiwan) and her weaving skill.

Watching Yuma and her sister carefully winding the thread around the five short wooden posts, Amuy chanted an ancient melody:

Today we are all here.
Yuma, you are learning to weave today.
Do you understand what I am saying?
It's not likely that you can understand my past.
Why do I miss the past so?
I miss the scenes of the past, when I was weaving...

Amuy's lyrics tell us about her happy weaving days when she was young, and also about the sadness in her heart. To older aboriginal women, "tradition" has become a glorious memory from their youth, just like the dusty loom. But to young Atayal like Yuma, weaving has never been part of their lives and their traditional culture is fading away right in front of their own eyes. Sorrow can no longer describe their feelings. This is why Yuma is starting to learn to weave, doing her best to reverse the trend which is threatening traditional cultures.

"The worldview of Atayal people is reflected not only in the patterns of their fabrics, but also in the process of weaving the fabrics and tailoring the costumes." Like searching for the missing pieces of a puzzle, Yuma has explored and learned the whole process step by step, from planting the ramie and spinning the thread to using the Atayal loom. She carefully studied old photos and museum collections, and then, according to what she learned, she tried to draw up the patterns of original costumes. Next, she visited tribal elders one by one to inquire about the procedure of making and wearing the costumes. Every step was complicated, time-consuming and repetitive, but this process was necessary in order to accurately reproduce traditional designs.

It is well known that Atayal weaving is one of the most outstanding of all Atayal handicrafts, and it has had an important role in the handicrafts of all aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. Strong color contrast, simple designs, and abundant choices of patterns are the characteristics of Atayal costumes. Furthermore, the costumes also perform other hidden but important tasks such as recording history, retelling myths, standardizing behavior and identifying social status.

For example, the diamond shapes on Atayal costumes represent the eyes and spirits of their ancestors. Some weavers even weave names, objectives, and myths on the clothes. Yuma said that according to their customs all Atayals needed to carefully follow the instructions given by their ancestors, so they frequently recorded those instructions on fabric with the intention of reinforcing the rules. At a time when there was no written language, fabric played an important role.

A lifetime of weaving

As a modern young Atayal woman, Yuma missed the era when it was necessary for a girl to perfect her skills in the craft of weaving before qualifying for a facial tattoo and marriage. In that past time, when a baby girl was born, her umbilical cord was placed in her mother's workbasket in the hope that she would become an excellent weaver.

Excellent weavers not only needed to be masterful in basic weaving skills such as proportional thread making, symmetric pattern designing, and variable coloring, but most importantly they needed to show their personal ingenuity within traditional limitations. No matter what, all Atayal girls had to be skillful in weaving before marriage and personally make their own wedding dress. Whether or not a girl was respected by her fellow tribesmen depended on her craftsmanship.

In traditional Atayal society, planting ramie and weaving cloth were important industries, thus a woman's skill in weaving was as important as a man's skill in hunting. Therefore, an Atayal girl would work hard to gain a better social status independent of men. Such cultural features and social values were derived from the need for production, and they also indirectly cultivated the independent personalities of Atayal women.

"During the process of exploring traditional Atayal costumes, I came to understand how the Atayals made use of natural and human resources to produce the clothes needed. I saw how the tribe's cultural evolution molded the patterns, and then I discovered the development of unique aesthetic standards, symbols and patterns." Yuma discovered that traditional costumes were once widely used to reinforce many areas of the ancient belief system, such as daily customs, taboos and symbols.

The Atayal people have been using their social system of dividing labor for a long time--the men hunt and the women weave. Gradually, many fabric-related taboos developed. For example, men should not weave or even touch the looms; when men were out hunting, no one should touch the ramie or weave; during the sowing ceremony, no tribesman should touch the ramie or hold needles, or else the millet would be destroyed by insects.

Among other minority races, various ceremonies--such as those at birth, adulthood, marriage, and funerals--are also costume-related. The costumes thus reveal the differences in the traditional ceremonies among the tribes and races. With the costumes acting as reminders, tribesmen would restrict their personal behavior to a certain extent. The Yami costumes, which have features completely different from the other alpine aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, are good examples.

Costumes and customs

Mrs. Isami Sumida from Japan has been researching Yami costumes in depth for many years. While she was circulating among the tribes and personally collecting and analyzing traditional costumes from various tribes, she discovered that the costumes had a close relationship with the customs of the tribes.

"When the Yami people hold 'dressing ceremonies' [in which their one-year-old babies are dressed formally for the first time in their lives], boys wear necklaces of blue glass beads, whereas girls wear red beads. At age five or six, boys start to wear T-shaped loincloths and girls square vests. Boys and girls are dressed like this because their parents hope that they will live long and be successful in their lives." Sumida said that in ancient Yami society, clothes and accessories played an important part in exorcism ceremonies and rites held during the annual flying fish season. And there were weaving taboos to be observed.

Yami people believed that girls should not weave too many T-shaped loincloths or square vests during the time after they attained adulthood and before they got married; otherwise it would be difficult for them to bear children later in their lives. They even believed that too much weaving could cause death. Sumida is of the opinion that such a belief was formed because the Yami people had to wear their looms on their waists when they were weaving (the looms used by the Yamis were called "waist looms"). In order to protect girls from hurting themselves by working too long, the taboo thus gradually developed. In fact, Yami women would only begin to weave in large quantities after they had given birth or when they were older.

Taboos or standards like this were also fairly common in other aboriginal societies in Taiwan in the early years. For example, in the Paiwan and Rukai tribes only the nobles were allowed to wear resplendent clothes with special designs; Tsou men could wear buck-teeth arm rings during festivals only if they had succeeded in hunting down boars; for the Ami and Puyuma peoples, certain costumes and accessories could only be worn by certain people because they were a clear indication of age and status.

These identifying systems, which used to be prevalent among the minority people, gradually disintegrated after the Chinese began to immigrate to Taiwan over three hundred years ago. Today, aborigines on the island only wear their traditional clothes and accessories on festivals or special ceremonies. The complicated weaving techniques and restrictions placed on the wearing of different costumes no longer exist. No wonder Chen Ching-lin, an expert on the costumes and accessories of minority groups in southwest China, compared the remaining aboriginal costume cultures in Taiwan as "leftovers," since their essence has long since vanished.

Miao costumes

Since the early nineties, Chen has made field trips to Miao villages in southwestern China to record the characteristics of different Miao costumes and the methods of making them. During his research, he found that the traditional costumes worn by the Miaos not only reflect their relationship with the environment they live in, but also manifest the uniqueness of each clan.

Let's take a look at the names of the different Miao clans. Some of their names are transliterated from the Miao language, while others reflect the characteristics of the environments the people live in. But most of the names are derived from the features of the clothes or accessories the people wear.

For instance, the different clans who live in the town of Xijiang in Leishan County, Guizhou Province, have different names. One clan is called the Big Horn Miao due to the silver horns they wear; another is called the Long Skirt Miao because of the long skirts they wear. Such a way of naming different clans makes it easy for people to recognize the differences between each clan.

The Miaos, with the Long Skirt Miao being the most populous branch, are mostly concentrated in three counties--Taijiang, Kaili, and Leishan--in southeastern Guizhou Province. Among the more than one hundred kinds of Miao costumes, the most vivid, unique and colorful designs are found on the costumes worn by Miao women in Xijiang.

"The Xijiang-style costumes are characterized by their great variety of embroidery designs and rich combinations of colors." In Chen's opinion, there is no other style among the Miao people that can surpass the Xijiang style, which is marked by its elaborate patterns and bright, harmonious color arrangement.

He also discovered the brilliant use of contrastive colors on Xijiang embroideries. "Weavers in Xijiang like to combine cool and warm colors in their embroideries. Such color combinations require careful planning, otherwise they may easily become unbearably vulgar or disordered."

The application of colors on costumes is an important means for ethnic groups to express their feelings and emotions. The use of colors is closely linked with a clan's values and culture. According to Chen, in addition to being active in business, the Xijiang Miaos interact closely with each other and lead a colorful, vigorous life. All these factors contribute to the enriching cultural development.

Miao values and diversity

The active competitiveness among Miao women indirectly promotes the development of the Miao embroideries. Chen said that because Miao women have to earn their own social status and because Miao people believe that a girl who can weave and embroider special patterns must be hardworking and extraordinarily intelligent, such girls are highly praised and commended by their tribesmen and are also the ones whom young men most hope to wed.

Japanese professor Itsuko Ito, who specializes in Miao costumes in northwestern Guizhou Province, said that the rich, distinctive, well-preserved art of embroidery in this area, where different Chinese nationalities such as the Miaos, Dongs and Hans live, even pushed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to designate the Miao nationality as a World Heritage culture and recognize the regions where the Miaos live as eco-museums.

Why do the Miao people dress this way? Is it because they want to look beautiful? Or is it caused by other factors such as social psychology, religious beliefs, or traditional customs? These questions motivated Chiang Pi-chen, who has done field research in the southeast region of Guizhou Province for more than ten years, to study Miao costumes.

She believes that the Miao nationality is the most representative minority group with the richest culture in the world. Their delicate and culturally meaningful costumes can be taken as a crown jewel in the history of human costumes. "The Miao people have a strong sense of community, and they can tell whether a person belongs to their clan or where the person lives by looking at his or her costume." Based on her field experiences, Chiang believes that costumes are an important identity system for the Miao.

If two persons are dressed differently--including the styles of their costumes, the patterns on their clothes, their hairdos, hair decorations and the ways they wear their clothes--then they are not allowed to marry because they do not belong to the same clan. There is no exception, even if they live within a short distance of each other. Sometimes, people have to travel over mountains and valleys to another village to find their mates. In Taijiang County, for example, there are nine different clans, but intermarriage between them is prohibited.

Changing ways

Such an identity system no longer exists among the Ami people, the largest aboriginal group in Taiwan.

Because the Nanshih Ami, a branch of the Ami tribe, live on the east coast of Taiwan, they have had plenty of opportunities to interact with people from other cultures. This resulted in a rapid change in their costume style. On top of that, the gradual change in the traditional lifestyle of the Ami people also caused them to lose their traditional weaving skills. All this has led to alterations in the Ami costumes, which were once one of the most distinctive cultural assets of eastern Taiwan.

Cheng Hui-mei, who did research on the transformation of the traditional costumes of the Nanshih Ami, found that the change in the styles of the costumes came about as a result of the tribe's continual interaction with external cultures. The Ami people's neighboring tribes, the Atayal and Bunun, and the Dutch and Japanese as well as the Chinese have all played an important part in bringing about the change.

Let's take a look at the history of the traditional costumes of the Nanshih Ami people. The style of their costumes went through the greatest change around the time when the Japanese occupation ended and Taiwan was returned to China at the end of World War II. At that time, a large amount of modern goods and materials were imported from foreign countries. With such a great variety of materials to choose from, the Ami people had to improve and innovate the styles and designs of their traditional costumes in order to make a better living.

To find out what the traditional Ami costumes originally looked like, Cheng could only rely on a few old photographs and costumes and interviews with elderly tribespeople to analyze, prove and confirm what she had found.

Nowadays, the Ami people no longer wear their traditional costumes in their daily lives. Furthermore, the materials used to make these costumes are no longer the same. However, their traditional costumes still occupy an important space in their collective consciousness. Cheng said that the Ami people still wear their traditional costumes at sacrificial rites and other important ceremonies, such as the Harvest Festival. It helps create a sense of identity and establishes closer ties among them.

Vanishing beauty

Sun Ta-chuan, vice-chairperson of the Council of Aboriginal Affairs, comes from the aboriginal Bunun tribe. He is also greatly concerned about the future of traditional aboriginal costumes in Taiwan.

Sun observed that the impact of different cultures and inappropriate orders by earlier governments forced the aborigines in Taiwan to change their traditional life style. Although the emphasis on local culture in Taiwan for the last twenty years or so has made the aborigines understand the importance of finding their own roots and cultures, it is unlikely that the damage can be repaired in a short time.

"To the aborigines, costumes are an important symbol of identity and an essential way for them to express their individual characteristics. Like languages, the costumes play an active part in their lives and cultures. Once they lose these important symbols, they will no longer know who they are and what their own culture is." Sun recalled that when he was little, his mother used to weave and explain to him the designs and patterns on each piece of brocade: the first layer was woven by grandma, the second by herself, and the last layer by Sun's two older sisters. The patterns, colors, and designs of each layer were all different.

These may be just ordinary pieces of fabric, but aside from their practical function, they also record the history of a family, reflect the Bunun people's affection for their tribe, and preserve a man's childhood memories and past experiences. "They are the remaining beauty of Taiwan," said Sun, who strongly feels an unbreakable bond with his native culture.

As a government official, Sun embraces a different viewpoint on the preservation and reproduction of traditional aboriginal costumes. He believes that the totem and patterns on the traditional costumes and the unique features of each individual tribe are part of the aborigines' cultural assets. As such, they are intellectual property which should be protected by law, instead of being abused or commercialized. In fact, it was not until the constitution was altered a second time in 1991 that the rights of the aborigines were incorporated into it.

"The most valuable part of the preservation of the aboriginal culture is that it provides people the chance to learn to respect diversity, because diversity is the mother of creativity," said Sun. However, although people are more aware of the need to preserve aboriginal culture, there are still many obstacles to carrying this out.

In his research report, Ho Chao-hua points out that problems abound in the process of innovating and producing aboriginal costumes, including poor design ability, copying, unfamiliarity with modern production procedures, inability to adapt to the market, lack of capital and marketing ability, and the need for a target market. The most serious problem is the wide gap between the need to preserve the aboriginal culture and the need for aborigines to support their families.

The necessity of innovation

Ho Chao-hua observes that in the early aboriginal societies, the purpose of weaving was not only to produce beautiful clothes, but also to enrich one's life and to enable a culture to continue. Aboriginal girls learned how to weave from their mothers and grandmothers when they were young. By learning to weave and tailor, they inherited the knowledge and wisdom of their own cultures. The older generations also took the opportunities to teach their youngsters to think about these questions: "Who are we?" "Where do we come from?"

However, in today's society, aboriginal girls are often forced to leave their homes when the time comes for them to go to school, to work, or to get married. As a result, they are unable to continue the old tradition of weaving. A bigger problem for these aboriginal youths is that modern education does not teach them the values of their traditional cultures. After living for a while in the big cities, many of them go astray and begin to miss the traditional, simple way of life led by their ancestors and the time they could have spent on weaving and embroidering.

According to Ho, there are at present more than a hundred aboriginal workshops which specialize in woodcarving, pottery and weaving. She found that most of the artists who worked in these shops have only received training for a short period of time and that they learned the skills mainly because they wanted to make a living. Therefore, the spirit of the traditional aboriginal arts is lost in their works.

When there were no written languages, clothes and costumes were like silent languages which helped people pass down their culture and disseminate messages from ancient cultures. Even today, traditional aboriginal costumes still play an important part in teaching the aborigines about the wisdom of their ancestors and in allowing people to understand the ancient cultures of minority ethnic groups. But how do we restore traditional costumes to their former glory? How do we put down their roots in modern society? These are the challenges that face Yuma. Thus, she came up with the idea of setting up an Atayal weaving and dyeing village in the Taan River basin (located in west-central Taiwan).

Some of the colorful, decorative costumes worn by the aboriginal people in Taiwan still display their beauty in the remote mountainous areas on the island, whereas some have already become historical artifacts in museum collections. No matter what, they are all important parts of our cultural heritage. We hope that after the weaving and dyeing village is established, these beautiful costumes can reappear in the world and help us write a new chapter in the cultural history of mankind.