Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa. Janet B. Montgomery McGovern
dared to rebel against the Japanese Government of the island. Of the manners and customs of the aborigines, however, the Japanese seemed wholly ignorant. Nor were the missionaries from Formosa much better informed, as far as the aborigines were concerned. Their mission work, they said, was confined to the Chinese population of the island, with now and then tactful attempts at the conversion of the Japanese. But as for the aboriginal tribes—yes, they believed there were such people in the mountains; one of their number, when going from one Chinese village to another in the interior of the island, had seen a queen or “heathen priestess” of the aborigines carried on the shoulders of her followers. More they did not know—yes, probably it was true that these savages cut off people’s heads whenever they had a chance. They were heathen—what could one expect? …
While failing to get much accurate information regarding the aborigines of Formosa, I managed, on the other hand, to get a good deal of misinformation. One book in particular, I remember, written obviously by one who had never been there, gave the impression that the whole island was inhabited by savages, with a “small sprinkling at the ports of Japanese, Chinese, English, and Filipinos.”
The most trustworthy information concerning Formosa—as I later learned, after I myself had been to the island—was that obtained through the columns of the Japan Chronicle, an English newspaper published in Kobe. This information was in connection, particularly, with “reprisal-measures” of extraordinary severity taken by the Japanese Government of Formosa against certain of the aboriginal tribes, some members of which had risen in revolt against the Japanese gendarmerie (Aiyu-sen) placed in authority over them. This curiously cruel strain in the Japanese character was at that time difficult for me to believe[5] (I had not then been in Korea, or in any of the other Japanese dependencies). But what was said of the Formosan aborigines aroused my interest to such an extent that I was anxious to study them at first-hand.
Circumstances, however, prevented my going to Formosa for some time. A “foreigner”—American or European—anywhere in the Japanese Empire is always more or less under surveillance; in the colonies—Formosa and Korea—more rather than less. Any attempt to go to Formosa to carry out independent investigation of the aborigines would, I knew, have been politely thwarted by the Japanese authorities. A “personally conducted tour” could, finances permitting, have easily been arranged. I would have been most politely received by the Japanese officials of the island, and escorted by them to those places which they wished me to see, and introduced to those people whom they wished me to meet. Such had been the experience of several “foreigners” who had gone to visit the island and “study its people.” To live for any length of time in Formosa one must satisfy the Japanese authorities that definite business demands one’s presence there. At that time I had no “definite business which demanded my presence” in Formosa. Nor had a “bradyaga”[6] like myself the capital to start a business in tea or sugar, which would have given a credible excuse for living in the island. Besides, a woman tea-exporter!—the Japanese authorities would scarcely have been satisfied.
My desire to learn at first-hand something of the aborigines of Formosa remained, therefore, more or less an inchoate inclination on my part, and I turned my attention to other things. Then, curiously enough, as coincidences always seem curious when they affect ourselves, a few months later, when I was in Kyoto, studying Mahayana Buddhism,[7] came an offer from a Japanese official to go to Formosa as a teacher of English in the Japanese Government School in Taihoku, the capital of the island.[8]
I had taught English in Japan—both in Tokyo and Kagoshima[9]—and I knew that however Japanese people in different parts of the empire might vary in other respects, on one point, at least, they were singularly alike; that is, in their incapacity for the ready assimilation of a European tongue. This in rather curious contrast to their ability for imitation in other respects. No; teaching English to Japanese was no sinecure. But it opened for me the way to go to Formosa; it gave me an “excuse for being,” as far as existence on that island was concerned. Consequently I accepted the offer to teach in the school which had been built for the sons of Japanese officials in Formosa,[10] and in September 1916 I sailed from Kobe, Japan, for Keelung, the northernmost port of Formosa.
CHAPTER II
IMPRESSIONS AT FIRST-HAND
The Voyage from Kobe to Keelung—The History of Formosa as recounted by a Chinese-Formosan—A Visit to a Chinese-Formosan Home—The Scenery of Formosa—Experience with Japanese Officialdom in Formosa.
Formosa lies about a thousand miles south of Kobe—six hundred and sixty miles, it is estimated, south of Kagoshima, the southernmost point of Japan proper—and the voyage of four days down through the Tung Hai (Eastern China Sea) was a warm one, the latter part especially. Before Keelung was reached, the wraps that had been comfortable when leaving Japan were discarded in favour of the thinnest clothing that could be unpacked from bags or steamer-trunk. Two Scottish missionaries, returning to their work among the Chinese-Formosan in the southern part of the island, were the only other foreigners[11] (white people) on board. The other passengers—certainly of first and second class—were, with one exception, Japanese; chiefly Japanese officials, who, with their families, were going to take up their duties in the island colony of the empire; or to resume these duties after a summer vacation spent in Japan. The one exception was—as exceptions usually are—the most interesting person on board. This was a Chinese-Formosan; one who, in the days before the Japanese possession, had belonged to one of the “old” families of the island—as people all over the world are accustomed to reckon age in connection with “family” (au fond, how curiously alike are we all—Oriental and Occidental—in the little snobbishnesses that make up the sum of human pride—and human childishness).
GATEWAY OF THE OLD CHINESE WALL
Formerly surrounding the city of Taihoku, the capital of Formosa.
At any rate, in the days when “old” families in Formosa meant also wealthy families, this Chinese-Formosan, then young, had been sent to Hongkong, to be educated in an English college there. Consequently it was in excellent English that he told me something both of the early history of Formosa, as this had been recorded in old Chinese manuscripts, and also something of the traditions of the Chinese peasantry regarding the origin of the island. This—the origin—was connected, as are almost all things else in China, in the minds of the people, with the dragon. It seems that, according to popular legend—which the early Chinese geographers repeated in all seriousness—the particular dragon which was responsible for the origin of Formosa was one of more than usual ferocity. The home of this prince among dragons was Woo-hoo-mun (Five Tiger Gate), which lies at the entrance of Foochow, a town on the South China coast. One day his dragonship, being in a frolicsome mood, went for a day’s sport in the depths of the ocean. In his play he brought up from the ocean-bed sufficient earth to mould into a semblance of himself; Keelung being the head; the long, narrow peninsula, ending in Cape Garanbi, the southernmost point of the island, being the tail; the great mountain-range running from north to south—of which Mt. Sylvia and Mt. Morrison[12] are the two highest peaks—representing the bristling spines on the back of the dragon.
Thus according to tradition was created the island of Formosa, or Taiwan, which is in area about half the size of Scotland, but is in shape long and narrow, being about 265 miles long[13] and—at its widest point—about 80 miles wide. It is separated from China by the Formosa Channel, sometimes called Fokien Strait, which is at the widest about 245 miles, but at the narrowest only 62 miles; the dragon seeming to prefer to build this memorial of himself almost within sight of his permanent abiding-place. Indeed the Chinese-Formosan fishermen declare that on a clear day the coast-line of China may be discerned from the west coast of Formosa. But this I, myself, have never seen—the curve of the earth, alone, would, I think, prevent its being actually seen—and I am inclined to think that the fishermen mistake the outline of the Pescadores, small islands lying between China and Formosa, but nearer the