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Paiwan's Piuma Meets Puyuma's Puyuma in Hunting Ceremony
Written by Zih Gao Photography by: Huang
Sin Yi / Zih Gao
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Puyuma in Taitung visited Piuma's 2006 Harvest Ceremony |
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Piuma people danced with Puyuma people. |
Gift presentation of traditional decorations
to great chieftain of Piuma, Jiang Mei Hua. |
Speech of great chieftain of Puyuma. |
Forewords:
The website
message board of Pinghe Village (Pinhe Village, Taiwu
Township, Pingtung County), also known as Piuma (Pinghe
Village in Paiwan language) used to see questions like this:
Isn't Piuma in Taitung?
Through the connection of Internet, "Puyuma" in Taitung
finds "Piuma" in Pingtung, which induces the exploration
hypothesis that the two villages are historically related.
Therefore, the 2006 Piuma Harvest Ceremony saw guests of
traditionally-clad Puyuma people in the occasion, and
courteously paid a visit to great chieftain Jiang Mei Hua.
These Puyuma guests said that they were here to verify the
possible historical connection that the two villages might
share. They surmised the possibility based on the similarity
of the two villages' names. No matter what the fact might
be, however, and the elders of Piuma thought that the
connection was not possible, Puyuma guests made a brave
decision. They invited Piuma villagers with enthusiasm to
participate the Hunting Ceremony of Puyuma, which would be
held at the last day of 2006. Therefore, Piuma Development
Association succeeded in funding the budget of travel, Piuma
was delighted at the invitation and went to the ceremony out
of courtesy with an amount of more than a bus's people.
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Listening to the speech of Puyuma great chieftain, Piuma
people were invited to sit in.
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Listening to the
speech of Puyuma great chieftain. The person on the right is
Director Lin Jhih Sing of National Museum of Prehistory, who
is also a Puyuma. |
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Puyuma great chieftain (second right)
accompanied city representative (first right) to the
hunters' camp after speech. |
When we arrived at Nangwang Township
(, which is called Puyuma by locals), Taitung City, the guide
led male and female visitors to different gathering places of
the ceremony. This made us experience that the Puyuma people
observe a strict separation of man and woman during the process
of the ceremony. Men were led to the hunter's camp at the
riverside of Beinan River. Backdropped with great mountains, the
great chieftain was briefing the process of the ceremony to all
the tribal men. The bare young people, who had received
three-day initiation training, were regardless of the coldness,
wore only skirts and served hunted games to all the elders.
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