Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa. Janet B. Montgomery McGovern
seriously. I did not wish the Director to know that I saw through his ruse—and that of certain other of the Japanese officials—a ruse directed towards keeping me from coming into personal contact with the aborigines of the island and with the more intelligent Chinese-Formosans, except when under the immediate surveillance of the Japanese.
The Director said that it would be “all right” if he accompanied me on my excursions into the mountains. Now the Director happened to be a married man; his wife happened to be a Japanese lady who “of course did not walk.” I tried to explain that if he really thought there was danger of a scandal, the companionship of a married man on these excursions, one whose wife was left at home, would not tend to lessen this danger.
“I am afraid I must continue to go my wicked way without the protection of your companionship,” I said; “and if ‘they’—whoever ‘they’ may be—annoy you with questions as to the object of my excursions into the mountains, or if they are inquisitive as to whether I go there for the purpose of a romance, legitimate or otherwise, tell them that I am one of those who like to ‘eat of all the fruit of the trees of the garden of the world——’ ”
“Huh?” roared the Director. Both hands were at his head now.
“Tell them ‘Yes’ to anything they ask about me,” I said, “if that will set their minds at rest and prevent their annoying you with impertinent questions, as you say they annoy you.”
“I’ll tell them you are immoral, that’s what I’ll tell them; if you don’t just go about where you can ride in rickshas, like other ladies,” wrathily exclaimed the Director, attempting to rise and make a dignified exit. Unfortunately, however, the Director happened to be fat, and happened not to be accustomed to sitting in a chair.[29] Also his sword had become entangled in the wicker-work arm of the chair, so that, when he rose, the chair rose with him. This slightly spoiled the effect of the dignified exit. It may have been due to the fact that it was necessary to extricate him from the chair, that, before leaving, he became sufficiently mollified to concede: “If you want exercise more than other ladies, you may play tennis-ball on the school-grounds.”
CHAPTER III
PERSONAL CONTACT WITH THE ABORIGINES
A New Year Visit to the East Coast Tribes—Received by the Taiyal as a Reincarnation of one of the seventeenth-century Dutch “Fathers.”
In spite of the objections of the Director, and the suspicions of the police and of the hydra-headed ‘they,’ I did not, while in Formosa, confine either my interests or my exercise to ricksha-riding[30] or to “tennis-ball.”
My chief interest lay with the mountain tribes—the aborigines; my chief exercise consisted in what my Japanese friends called “prowling” among these tribes. Sometimes accompanied by another English teacher and a servant, sometimes by my son or secretary, sometimes quite alone, I went up into the mountains; going as far as I could by “trolly” (or toro, as the Japanese call it[31])—a push-car, propelled by Chinese-Formosan coolies, on rails laid by the Japanese—rather, under their instructions—into the mountains, for the purpose of bringing camphor-wood and crude camphor down to the great camphor-refining factory in Taihoku. From the terminus of the toro line I “prowled.”
For permission to go into the mountains—and permission for almost every movement on the part of a “foreigner” is necessary in the Japanese Empire, in Formosa even more than in Japan proper—I am indebted to Mr. Hosui and to Mr. Marui, the two most courteous Japanese officials whom I met in Formosa. I wish here to express my gratitude to both.[32]
The tribe that I first studied, and of which I saw perhaps more than of any other during my residence in Formosa, was the great Taiyal tribe of the north—reputed to be the most bloodthirsty on the island, and whose territory now covers almost as much as that of all the other tribes together.[33] From Taiyal territory I sometimes “prowled” over into that of the Saisett and Bunun tribes. This was perhaps not strictly according to official permission; I was told that it was “too dangerous.” But the spice of danger—perhaps also the “forbidden-fruit” element—made these walks the more interesting; and I still have my head on my shoulders.
TWO MEN OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE BRIBED BY GIFTS OF HAT AND CIGARETTES TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN.
AUTHOR IN TORO (PUSH-CAR), GOING UP INTO TAIYAL TERRITORY.
The southern tribes I approached by water from the east coast; my first visit to them being during the first Christmas—rather, New Year[34]—vacation that I spent on the island. Of this visit I retain a somewhat vivid recollection, for two reasons. One because of the great cliffs of the east coast, a glimpse of which I caught in passing; the other because of the novel mode of debarkation, necessitated by stormy weather, at Pinan,[35] a port in Ami territory, just north of that occupied by the Paiwan and Piyuma tribes.
I embarked at Keelung, on one of the small coasting steamers, sailing around the east coast to Takao,[36] the southernmost port of the island. It was just south of Giran[37] that we passed the great cliffs, said to be the highest in the world. For about twenty-five miles these giant cliffs rise perpendicularly from the sea to a height of about 6,000 feet. This towering wall of granite—for such the rock seemed to be—is one of the most imposing sights that in my wanderings about the world I have seen.
The weather was grey and drizzling when we left Keelung, but it was just after we had left Karenko,[38] the first port south of the great cliffs—the second day out—that the storm broke. Those who have weathered a storm in a small boat know what this means. In all the guide-books, and other books dealing with Formosa, that I have seen, it is said that the sea-route, up and down the coast of the island, “can be safely followed only during six months of the year,” i.e. the spring and summer months. “Safely” is probably, like other words, a matter of individual definition. Personally I should be inclined to substitute the word “comfortably” for “safely,” judging from my own experience, both on this trip and on a subsequent one. That is, as far as the actual voyage is concerned, if one be content to remain on board the steamer from Keelung to Takao, where there is a good harbour. With the exception of one or two who disembarked at Karenko, the other passengers—all Japanese, naturally—seemed glad enough to do this. I, however, had not come on this trip for the sake of the sea-voyage, or with the object of reaching Takao—now a Japanese town, the southern terminus of the railway which starts from Keelung in the north—and which I could much more easily have reached by rail had I wished to visit it. Takao, like all the other large towns of the island, is on the western side of the great mountain range,[39] contains no aborigines, and, especially to one who has lived for some years in Japan, is of no especial interest.
The purpose of my trip was to study the aborigines of the east coast and those who lived in the narrow south-eastern peninsula of the island. It had not been possible for me to obtain police permission to cross—or to attempt to cross—the great mountain range; therefore I knew that my only hope of studying the eastern and south-eastern aboriginal tribes lay in landing at Pinan. The captain tried to dissuade me. He said that no man among his passengers would think of landing; much less should a woman attempt it. Would I not wait until another trip when the weather was calmer, or when I had a companion—one of my own race (on this occasion I happened to be quite alone and the only “foreigner” on board). He really did not like to take the responsibility. … But I assured him that he would be absolved of all responsibility “if anything happened” to me—a euphemism that he several times used, in his rather good, Scotch-accented English (he had been about the world among seafaring men). Also that my Government would not hold his Government responsible if “anything happened.” My blood would be on my own head.
The captain at last rather