The Saisiyat are one of Taiwan’s 12 tribes of Aboriginal peoples, comprising some 5,000 members who live in the mountains east of Hsinchu. This past weekend they put on three days of singing, dancing, drinking and ghostly seances.
According to Saisiyat lore, back in the olden days there was a tribe of small, black, people living next to them. They had a reputation as being very lecherous and the Saisiyat grew increasingly impatient with them trying to conquer their women. Once when the entire neighboring tribe was crossing a river, the Saisiyats seized the opportunity and destroyed the bridge, and all but two of the small, black, people were killed. Feeling terrible about what they had done, the Sansiyats promised the two survivors that they would perform a ceremony of remembrance and expiation. The ceremony has been going for 400 years by now, every second year (and every ten years the festivities are particularly rowdy).
This weekend the ceremony was held by a little lake up in the high mountains east of Hsinchu. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, most of the festivities had already concluded. We mainly saw a lot of people who looked distinctly worse for wear. We have to make up for it in two years’ time when they’ll have another go at apologizing.
Still, we enjoyed ourselves in the high mountains. We found another aboriginal tribe on another mountain top, and a very good hostel where we are planning to stay some day. We also bought persimons. (This was my first day out, I drank soup from a thermos that Diane had pre-prepared).