Si Mateneng - Tao People - Taiwan

In recent years more and more researchers, such as anthropologists, archaeologists, botanists, botanists, biologists, and linguists maintain that Taiwan is the origin of the Austronesians.

The 2021 Taiwan CIP, Council of Indigenous People, published The Origins of Austronesians. This book includes many pieces of evidence which help us to know how such different fields came to the same answer. The easiest way to explain this is that such a small island had historical traces of more than 22 different tribes. However, only 16 have been officially certified.

Taiwan is still working towards the revitalization of some indigenous communities which haven’t been recognized, because indigenous cultures are so important and are just gaining attention from the United Nations. Indigenous cultures not only reveal the connections between humans and land but also show the diversity of the world.

Culture can affect people’s concepts. Levi-Strauss an anthropologist instructs that scientific explanation does not apply to everything. Nowadays, people can explain many things through science, but also through culture. In order to explain culture, we must descend into detail and live with its people to that point of view. Finally, who keeps indigenous cultures? Not the outsiders, but ourselves.

Thus, I started to look deep into my own culture – the culture of Tao. Since attending college, I have had opportunities to travel to the United States for cultural exchange. The same year, 2019, I won a scholarship to go to Vancouver, Canada to study diverse experiences from around the world. This made me realize as an indigenous person that Taiwan has an important position in the world, and that every one of its indigenous cultures, tradition, apparel, and ceremonies are unique, special and valuable.

Tao is the only Taiwanese Indigenous tribe that is not located on the main island of Taiwan. Instead, it is located on the southeastern coast of Taiwan. Furthermore, the island is hard to find on a world map, and sometimes doesn’t appear at all.

Tao is a maritime Indigenous nation. Therefore, in our traditional apparel, men wear long clothes and vests, because it is more convenient for fishing. Women, on the other hand have the big sun hats and short tops and long skirts for avoiding sunlight when they are farming. 

In the future, I hope to bring my culture to more people around the world and connect with the world also not to be forgotten by the international map of world.