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Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa. Janet B. Montgomery McGovern
This time of peace and prosperity for the aboriginal tribes—the memory of which has remained among them as that of a Golden Age—was brought to an abrupt end in 1661, through the invasion of Formosa by the Chinese pirate Koksinga, before referred to, and his followers, who seem to have poured in hordes into the island. The Dutch made a brave resistance; but, in all, they numbered only a little over two thousand, and were unable to hold their own against the vastly greater number of Chinese, who came over from the mainland in the train of Koksinga. The latter is said to have owned three hundred boats, in which he brought his followers from China.
In 1662 Governor Cogett, the Dutch commander, surrendered to Koksinga. Then the Dutch who remained alive, both those who had composed the garrison and also the settlers with their families—the latter said to have numbered about six hundred—left the island as speedily as was possible, most of them sailing for the near-by Dutch East Indies.
From that time until 1895—the close of the Sino-Japanese War—when Formosa passed into the hands of the Japanese, the Chinese were lords of the island. Of this period of Chinese dominance—over two hundred years—I learned little from the Chinese-Formosan on the boat. He passed on to the recounting of the sufferings of his own people—the Chinese on the island—under Japanese rule, and the injustice to which they had been subjected for twenty years. Of this he was still speaking when the little steamer, rounding the rocky islet, the last of the Lu-chu group, which lies—or rather, rears upward—as a sort of natural fortification in front of the chief harbour of the island, puffed noisily into Keelung bay. My Chinese friend, on bidding me good-bye, said he hoped that while I was in Formosa I would come to his home and meet his wives—one of whom, especially, was very intelligent and spoke a little English.
“Bradyaga”[23] though I am, and accustomed to meeting all sorts and conditions of—wives of men, I must, I think, for a moment have looked startled. It was the man’s English accent and his English point of view regarding many matters that made his casual reference to his plural household seem incongruous. He must have noticed this (indeed it was his remark that revealed my own naïveté to myself; I thought I had my features under better control), for he smiled and said: “I know in Europe and in America it is different; certain things are done sub rosa—and denied. It is a question which is better. But come to my home and see for yourself how our system works.”
Later I met the wives of my Chinese-Formosan friend. There were three of them—the intelligent one, the pretty one, and the eldest and most honoured one, who was the mother of the eldest son and heir. At least the last was called the “Great Wife” and the “Honourable One” by the others; but there was no trace of shame or of dishonour in the position of any of the women. All seemed very proud, very happy, and curiously affectionate toward each other and—greater test of a woman’s affection—even toward each others’ children. Nor do I think that they were “showing off” for my benefit; it was said by all who knew them that this was their habitual attitude. Other lands, other manners—and morals, perhaps.
As I went away from that interview with the several Mrs.——, I startled my ricksha-man—who thought I was giving him some incomprehensible order—by humming, to the tune of a chant I had learned from an aboriginal tribe in the mountains (for this was after I had been in Formosa for several months), some words written, I think, by Kipling:
“There are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right.”
Then I met a missionary acquaintance. So preoccupied was I with thoughts suggested by the visit I had just paid that I almost passed the missionary without speaking. Turning back, I apologized both for my seeming discourtesy in not speaking, and also for the barbaric chant, to the tune—if tune it could be called—of which I was humming Kipling’s words.
“A visit I have just made suggested the words, I suppose,” I explained, laughing, “or brought them up from some depth of the subconscious; I was rather fond of quoting them once.” Then I told the missionary of the visit from which I was returning.
“Disgusting heathen!” she exclaimed. “Besides, what have ‘different ways of constructing tribal lays’ to do with heathen immorality?” She frowned and looked puzzled. Then added more gently, as if explaining to a child: “ ‘Lays,’ you know, means poetry, and ‘constructing tribal lays’ just means writing poetry; nothing whatever to do with the heathen and their horrible ways.”
When we parted she adjured me to be more careful about wearing my sun-helmet, assuring me that it was necessary in that climate. “If one does not,” she explained, “something might happen to one—to one’s head, you know,” she added significantly, “and it would be a dreadful thing in a heathen country. …”
To go back for a moment to the day of my landing:
As my first glimpse of Formosa from a passing steamer, a few years before, had fascinated me, so did my first glimpse of the island after I had landed. Not the Formosa of Keelung quay with its hordes of starving, skin-and-bone dogs—several of them dragging about on three legs or with paralysed hindquarters—nosing for food among the refuse,[24] or its crowd of screaming, guttural-voiced ricksha-coolies and vegetable-and-fish pedlars; or the arrogant Japanese officials—all in military uniform, with swords strapped at their sides[25]—bullying the Chinese-Formosans. But the Formosa of the country through which I passed in going from Keelung to Taihoku; the Formosa of scenery surpassing that of Japan proper, both in natural beauty and in the picturesqueness of the tiny peasant-villages, each village protected from tornadoes by a clump of marvellously tall bamboos, whose feathery tops of delicate green seemed to cut into the deep blue of the tropical sky; each house protected from evil spirits by cryptic signs—said to be quotations from Confucius—written, or painted, in black on red paper,[26] and pasted above and at both sides of each doorway. Every village was further protected by a temple of brilliant and varied colouring, on the roof of which wonderfully moulded dragons writhed or reared. The inhabitants of these villages were, of course, Chinese-Formosans. Very picturesque were these too, in their bright blue smocks and black trousers; men and women dressed so much alike that at a little distance they were indistinguishable. Only on nearer view was it clear that those who wore tinsel ornaments in their hair and walked as if on stilts were women. When these hobbled still nearer the cause of their queer stilted walk was obvious. Their feet were “bound,” i.e. deformed and distorted, pathetically—and to Western eyes abhorrently—out of shape.
Up to this time I had always supposed that only among the “upper classes” in China were the feet of the women bound; those of the class who could afford to go always in ricksha or sedan-chair. But all the women of the Chinese-Formosans—except those of the despised Hakkas—bind their feet; rather, have them bound in infancy. A woman with unbound feet is regarded as a sort of pariah, and her chances of a “good marriage”—that goal of every Chinese woman—are almost nil.[27]
These peasant and coolie-women hobbled nearer to see the train as it stopped at the little stations between Keelung and Taihoku, especially when it was reported that there was a white woman aboard. Many of them could not walk without the aid of a stick or without resting one hand on the shoulder of a small boy, thus maintaining their balance. “Lily feet” were obviously a handicap in the carrying of such burdens as most of these women had on their backs. In some cases the bundles consisted of babies strapped Indian-papoose fashion to the shoulders of the mothers—a custom common to both Chinese and Japanese women; in other cases, of heavy bundles of food or of faggots. Unattractive as were the figures of the women—the entire leg being undeveloped, as the result of the cramping of the feet from infancy—their faces were generally attractive; sweet, with a wistful, rather pathetic expression. Only the lips and teeth of the older women were often hideously disfigured from the habit of beetle-nut chewing. The women out of doors who were not burden-bearing were kneeling at the side of the streams and canals, used for irrigating the rice-paddies, busily engaged in washing the family linen—very much in public—or pounding it between stones. As these washerwomen—and they seemed legion, for the Chinese devote as much time to the washing of their clothing as the Japanese do to that of their bodies—knelt, I saw the soles of their feet. In the case of some