The structural development of Paiwan tribe traditional social ranks
Abstract
The Paiwan tribe, a native people in Taiwan, has a perfect traditional social rank. They have maintained their primitive, original tribal ranks in every tribe in Ping-tung county since the Japanese era till now in Taiwan. Before the primitive tribes were forced to move into level ground¡Xnew villages arranged by government, they lived a self-contained and self-sufficient lifestyle, poor and in lack of sources. However, their self-confidence, force of condense in their tribes are very steadily. Under being kept sight of their tribal tendency by Japanese, the common people in tribes always obey and respect their chief¡Xtribal leader, without being affected by the governors. The Japanese government had to face the big secret worries about how to control the conditions, than tried to persuade them to work as an attendant to manage their people.
In 1945, the Chinese government ruled the Taiwan islands after World War II. Since the new ruler came from mainland China didn¡¦t have any awareness about the tribal culture in Paiwan primitive society, they regarded them as one kind of barbarian tribe came from China in ancient time. In order to control the conditions in a muddle within three months, they forced the native people in every tribal to accept the Chinese surname given by governor. Due to such kind of discriminative attitude against the tribal dignity, the native people were led to lose their traditional class consciousness and native identification to their original society until the declaration martial law ended in 1987.
From 1987 to 1996, the new movement of asking human rights ¡V democracy and freedom like a rising wind and scudding clouds in whole islands. Consequently, the Paiwan tribe was also getting awareness to rebuild their primitive culture, Paiwan tribe consciousness, which had lost for forty-two years. The process of searching movement seems like looking for their relatives who had parted for more than forty years. Though they had their same blood relationship, they had lost the same life experiences for such a long time. Therefore, they could only make up for a few part even they tried to do their best effort. Thus, I¡¦ll try to analysis the phases of structural movement of Paiwan tribe traditional social ranks and the affections under the national policy, social background during these years.
Chapter one includes the preface for introduction, the purposes of research, the study of bibliography, the ranges of the research, the methods and structures of the research to present the aspects of this paper. Chapter two discusses the original class forms, system of work, processes of the structural development of Paiwan tribe traditional social ranks to explain how the tribal chiefs manage their people, rule their tribal affairs in their territory before the external governor interrupted their principles of primitive society. Chapter three describes how the Taiwan external government new movement ¡§the policy of national assimilation¡¨ affected the tribal chiefs to control or manage their social orders and how the immigrants new idea ¡§communalism¡¨ works and what the government policy about managing the preservative land for tribal people is. Chapter four states what is the negative results of the traditional tribal ranks and ancestor sacrificial rites under the governor¡¦s plan control of their tribal resident movement and the external religions during the all-rounded communications between the tribal society and current society from 1950 to 1987¡Xthe phases of developing entire economics in Taiwan. Chapter five emphasizes on how the tribal people examined their own feelings and motives, thought deeply themselves critically from 1987 to 2005. Because of accepting the frame of democracy and being conscious of accumulation wealth help them to promote their cultural revives. Then every tribe and village founds one after another its relative groups, community culture associations, and shows their trials of class strength while holding their traditional wedding ceremony to strengthen their traditional awareness of class nature.
Above all, we found that Taiwan tribes still maintained their essence of culture without being stoke down by the attack of the current social concepts and polices of government in every stage. That is, the system of firstborn inheritor is the basis of the ranks structure in Paiwan tribes till now. The firstborn inheritor influence the development of all relatives, certainly the other younger brothers and sisters not only give their respect to the original family but also offer all necessary helps to honor their original family. The firstborn inheritor also has the duty to hold the life rite for the relatives and give them supports in any emergency situations. Now, the real leading role and the ownership in traditional Paiwan tribe ranks society has changed into the leadership in spirit.
Key words: Paiwan tribe, native people , tribal rank structure, cultural development , Tribal chief, common people.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0217106-162352 |
| Date | 17 February 2006 |
| Creators | Hawan, wan-jan |
| Contributors | none, none, none |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0217106-162352 |
| Rights | campus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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