BBC
14 July 2010
By Cindy Sui BBC News, Saisiyat tribal area
Taipei secondary school student Lai Wei-li swayed awkwardly while trying to make music with a Saisiyat tribal instrument of dangling bamboo tubes strapped to her back.
Group dancing with the musical instruments on their backs The group plays Saisiyat tribal instruments strapped to their backs
“It’s really cool and interesting. It’s harder than it looks. I have to control my footsteps, sway my body back and forth, and co-ordinate with others,” said Lai, while playing the “tapangsan”.
Half Han-Chinese and half indigenous, it is not often that Lai gets to experience indigenous culture.
She can’t speak the language of her tribe – the Paiwan. Her mother never learned it, and her maternal grandparents who can, live in a rural area and she only sees them twice a year.
This is the state of indigenous languages in Taiwan.
The island is considered by many anthropologists to be the source of Austronesian languages; all but one of the four primary branches are found here.
It is believed that Austronesians migrated from mainland Asia and Taiwan to South East Asia, the Pacific islands, East Timor and Madagascar thousands of years ago.
But of the world’s estimated 300 million Austronesians – including New Zealand’s Maoris and Hawaii’s Polynesians – few can speak their language, and many languages now face extinction. more …
