Text: Rick Charette
Photos: Taipei Multiculture & Arts Group, Thurism Bureau
Lanyu Biweekly
The Yami, floating along through the mists of time on their little Polynesia-like island off the southeast coast of Taiwan, are Taiwan's "purest" tribe. The isolation of their deep-green rainforest-carpeted idyll, today called Lanyu or Orchid Island, has meant relatively little exposure to outside influences.
Important elements of their timeless culture have survived into this economically sophisticated third millennium. Their colorful Flying Fish and Boat Launching festivals are sights seen nowhere else on our planet.
Welcome Ashore
The Yami number about 3,600. Evidence shows they reached their home less than a thousand years ago. Their kinship system is basically patrilineal, though matrilineal kinship is important in marriage taboos and matters concerning revenge.
The bobbing, cooled chunk of ocean bottom-spewed lava that is the Yami homeland (bobbing when the Pacific is less than pacific, which is often) floats 62 kilometers off the mainland Taiwan city of Taitung. The propeller planes and ferries that bring folk in all launch from this city in the southern part of the east coast. When the Japanese took Taiwan in 1895-these uninvited guests long overstayed their grudging welcome, leaving only in 1945 at the point of the Allied gun-they quickly recognized Lanyu's isolation made it a living museum for anthropological study, and cut it off from all outside influence save that of scholars and administrators.
The island's name at that time was that coined by the Yami themselves, Botel Tobago. During the Cing Dynasty a commissioner had named it Hongtor, or Redhead island, after Redhead Mountain in the northwest corner, Lanyu's highest point at 522 meters, whose west face turned flaming red with each day's sunset. After the Nationalists took over Taiwan after WW II, they chose a better name for the 45.7-square-ilometer piece of real estate, Orchid Island. No, not too many of the once thriving butterfly orchids in question are left, save in the deep hills.
Origins
As with Taiwan's other indigenous peoples, ribbons of Malayo-Polynesian code run through the Yami DNA. Clear clues from their mythology, as well as from linguistic studies, point to the Philippines' Batanes islands as their jumping-off point before settling Botel Tobago; the Batanes cluster sits in the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and Luzon.
One tantalizing glimpse into Yami time is the presence of two characters in their ancient stories, Ibatan and Itabyaat, whose names closely resemble the names of the two main Batanes group is a small island called Yami, the name by which the tribe is officially known. The Yami themselves use the name "Dawu", which simply means "people". The Yami have been trying to reestablish the Batanes connection with their brethren in recent years-their dialects remain mutually intelligible-by seeking to re-launch the old -style friendly visits across waters.
Mother Nature's Supermarket
Though tourism has picked up in the last few decades, the isolation of Lanyu means opportunities from this sector are limited, and the traditional, simple methods of putting food in the stomach are still in large part followed. Men fish, women farm.
These practices are still carried out essentially on a subsistence level. From the fields come wet and dry taro, sweet potatoes, yams, and millet. With the inflow of Han Chinese since 1940s-civil servants, school staff, shopkeepers, and so on-has come paddy rice. Men play a role in animal husbandry, in the sense that they handle all building; however, the pigs and goats raised are rarely confined in the holding structures put up, freely roaming the roads on this largely auto-less outcrop.
The warm, deep, black, life-rich Japan Current, which flows northeasterly past the island, then to the coast of Japan, then into the north Pacific, acts as Mother Nature's home-delivery food service. Also known as the Kuroshio Current, the Yami's most important-and no coincidence favorite-staple food is fish, and particularly flying fish, of which more in a moment.
My Home, Sweet, and Cool, Home
Back to building basics. The unique traditional Yami home, still seen in quantity in two of the island's six small villages, is one of the most striking cultural expressions you'll see on a Lanyu exploration The low-roofed dwellings are semi-subter ranean, erected in manmade depressions deep enough that only the roofs show. This ingenious approach means the cruel typhoons that come blistering by May through September go swooshing right over. The walls of the depression are kept sturdy with neat stonewall linings.
The dwellings stay cool in summer and retain heat in winter. Beside the house a simple workhouse of smaller size is constructed; it has a plank floor and a belowground storage space underneath. On the other side of each dwelling is an elevated platform, which nicely catches any cooled air breezing by, capped with a sun-shield roof. These are always placed to give a grand view of the sea, and are a favorite place to sit about and chat, gnaw over the issues of the day and perhaps a chew of betel nut, or have a smoke and a drink.
How to Hunt Fish
The Yami believe that fire was long ago stolen from a strange goat-headed people living under the island. A young Yami accidentally found them after traversing a long tunnel. The people told him how to catch the flying fish, and which types to catch in which season, thus preserving stock. According to another and perhaps better known version of the flying-fish myth, it was a talking fish called Black fin that laid down the strict set of rituals and taboos still followed today.
The Yami craft used to ply the seas are ingenious and often richly colorful. Meticulously decorated, they come in large and small version. Families generally construct the 1-3 person variety, and lineage associations make the big craft, which seat about a dozen. Their making is not at all easy, requiring much time input, and each Yami male, without fail, craves the status and prestige that comes with the completion of his own craft.
The simple tools their forefathers used are still primarily relied on today, with 27 separate planks carved from wood hewn from living trees- a man lays claim to an appropriate tree long before construction is launched-fastened snugly together with pegs. No nails. The launching of a finished boat is enmeshed in solemn age-old ritual and much celebrating. Watch for the stylized depictions of the goat-headed people on the richly decorated craft.
Fish that fly, and Fry Well
Beyond new-boat launchings, the annual Flying Fish Festival is the other major Yami celebration, the pomp and ritual fascinating for the outsider lucky enough to be there. With the start of the main season each spring, the fish riding the Japan Current north in huge schools, the men don their traditional ritual dress of loincloth and their armor of rattan vest and silver conical helmet. A spear is also perhaps brandished. Beyond his canoe, the helmet is the Yami man's most cherished possession.
Covering the entire head, with slits left for the eyes, the helmets, made in days of yore with the silver from Spanish and Japanese coins beaten into strips-the Yami do not smelt metal-are only seen on the most special of days. The coins were acquired in the days of the sailing ship through trade with passing craft, salvaging of sunken craft, dealing with Batabes cousins, and sometimes through raids.
At the shore, masters of boats enter from the rear and walk to the front, where they beckon to the fish and yell, "Come! Come!" Magic blood from fresh sacrifices is smeared on round stones at water's edge. The symbolism in using stones is that like the Yami they seem to be permanent fixtures n Lanyu. Blood is then smeared on the boats, and when the boats go out more is poured into the sea. The sacrificed animals are cooked and a great feast ensues, boat-masters sure their ablutions will both ensure their crews' safety and a rich haul. The fishing is done at night, bright lights bringing the catch to the surface.
