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My wife is a Taiwanese Aboriginal from the Bunun Tribe 布農族 and I have been photographing Taiwanese Aboriginal festivals for many years, mostly in Namasia District (那瑪夏區) in Kaohsiung. This project is mostly portrait style photographs that I have taken over the years.

 

This photograph of a beautiful Bunun Woman was taken at the ‘Ear Festival’ (布農打耳祭)  in 2006 and has been one of my best-selling photographs. Notably, it was used on The China Post’s travel banner for several years and as the cover of two Bradt catalogs.

 

During my time in Taiwan I have noticed a marked improvement of acceptance of Aboriginals and ethnic pride from Aboriginals themselves.

 

Hunting is still very much a part of the Aboriginals life as can be seen by their traditional clothing.

My wife’s mother is from the Tsou tribe in Alishan. The picture above is my wife’s cousin and was taken on one of our annual Chinese New Year trips to Alishan.

This is another popular Aboriginal photo that has been published in several magazines. This was a performance by a group of dancers from Lijia, Chiayi for the opening of Tainan Zahamu Aboriginal Park (札哈木原住民公園) in 2003. It was shot with the Nikon D100 which didn’t render skin tones very well.

This photograph was taken at the last festival before the deadly 2009 Typhoon Morakot and just after San Ming County (三民鄉) was renamed as Namasia (那瑪夏or Namaxia, Namasiya?), and the three townships were renamed from Ming Tzu (民族), Ming Chuan (民權) and Ming Shen (民生) to Nangisalu (南沙魯), Maya (瑪雅) and Takanua (達卡努瓦), respectively. This man is from Nangisalu, the worst hit of the three villages.

The Namasia region was originally occupied by the Tsou Tribe. After a plague wiped out large numbers of the tribe, the neighboring Bunun moved in and they have coexisted for over a hundred years.

Most indigenous areas of Taiwan have only one ethnicity but Namasia has at least five ethnic groups living together: Bunun, Tsou, Paiwan, Atayal and Hakka. While the government officially calls the Kanakanavu (卡那卡那富 or Southern Tsou as opposed to Northern Tsou of Alishan) and Hla’alua (沙阿魯阿 also Southern Tsou) of Namasia the ‘Tsou Tribe’ they hope to one day be recognized by their own divisions.

This is the Hla’ alua Chief at a festival in Namasia. This photo was used on the cover of Steven Crook’s Bradt Taiwan Guide Book. The chief passed away not long after the guide became available. Sadly, I didn’t have a chance to personally show him a copy. I suspect he never saw it.

This man was a Bunun living in Taipei. He came down to the Malatangia Festival (sometimes: manah tainga) with a Taipei group of Bunun. He has a nice face, I think.

Waiting for the festival to begin. Salua Tsou from Maya.

One of my personal favorites. Taken in 2004 with my D100. I printed this poster size for a photography exhibition and it printed quite well. It is now hanging in my wife’s Aboriginal Pub, Hudlavoos.

In a very lucky break, I happened upon this rehearsal for a festival en route to Wutai which enabled me to get some nice Aboriginal people shots to fill out an assignment for Topics magazine.

 

Tsou seems to be the most commonly accepted English spelling for 鄒族, but Zhou and Chou are still commonly used.

Photographed at Xiaolin Plains Aboriginal Night Ceremony. For more information about Plains Aborigines, see my article on Liuchongsi Pingpu Night Sacrifice here.

Namasia also has a large Paiwan population, mostly settling in the area through marriage.

This woman was sitting with her friend cross stitching in Wutai (霧台) Village. They were wearing traditional floral wreaths because they had just come from church.

Adorned with embroidery, shells, bones, trinkets and glass beads, the traditional Rukai costume,  is one of the most elaborate and beautiful of all Taiwan’s Aboriginal tribal clothing.

I went to a friend’s wedding in Chingye, Pingtung and was pleasantly surprised to find all Aboriginal attendees wearing their traditional Rukai or Paiwan clothing, even the kids.

This Rukai elder had a great face and expression.

This image of a Pingpu Plains Aboriginal woman from Xiaolin was taken before Typhoon Morakot caused a catastrophic landslide to bury the entire village of some 300 houses. Only two houses on the outskirts of town were spared. For more information on this tragic event and efforts to preserve their culture see the article ‘Xiaolin Plains Aboriginal Night Ceremony‘ that I published for culture.tw.

My lovely wife posing for a portrait on our land in Takanua, Namasia. She is wearing a Bunun costume she bought when she was still in school, almost thirty years ago. She has made a few sets of clothing for herself since (including a set for me, my mother and vests for all of my relatives for our wedding), but this is my favorite. Although the tassels are made of drinking straws and cheap plastic beads, it was quite expensive. My wife and her twin sister saved up the money for the attire and it is still a source of pride for her.