Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa. Janet B. Montgomery McGovern
a variety of Taiyal dialect a little different from that of which I knew a few words, he evidently understood the situation. Indeed, under the circumstances, words were scarcely necessary for such understanding. The man’s grin of comprehension pleased me. It was so human—so Aryanly human—that it was refreshing after the mask-like stolidity of both Chinese and Japanese to which for some time I had been accustomed; for these two peoples, however differing in other respects, are on this point at one. They equally regard it as a mark of the lowest breeding to allow any expression of emotion—of genuine feeling, of whatever kind—to be reflected in their features. Even the coolies, imitating their masters, have, as far as possible, adopted the code of the latter on this point. All wear a mask that is seldom, or never, dropped. The seban, however, are not trained in Confucian ethics; hence the play of joy and sorrow, of amusement and of other emotions, on their more mobile features.
The expression of that particular seban, at the moment, was one of mixed amusement and sympathy. I am afraid that he rather enjoyed the plight of the cowering Chinaman. For generations the Chinese-Formosans and the aborigines of the island have been hereditary foes. However, I made him understand that my guide—or the one who was supposed to act in that capacity—was not to be molested. The seban nodded in comprehension. Then by signs he made me understand that he would—if I so chose—carry me in safety to his side of the water, which he had seen I was trying to reach. My clothing was drenched, I was chilled to the bone, my fingers I found too numb to move. I realized that my hold on the boulder could not last much longer. The Chinese I knew could not be depended upon in the proximity of the seban. Indeed, the poor wretch (the Chinese) I feared could scarcely manage to get himself out of the water, so completely had he been unnerved by the unexpected appearance of the seban—one belonging, it seemed, to a sub-tribe which he had especial reason to fear. For me it was a choice between trusting myself unaided to the torrent—and, in my benumbed condition, I knew I should soon be swept off my feet—and accepting the offer of the friendly seban. Naturally I chose the latter alternative.
When I signalled the seban my acceptance of his offer, he again grinned, took his knife from his loin-cloth and, holding it out of reach of the water, stepped into the stream, which swirled about his loins. I was glad enough to slip from my precarious hold on the boulder to the shoulders of the seban, who, true to his word—as in my dealings with the aborigines I found them always to be with those who have not betrayed them—carried me safely to the shore. Then still holding me on his shoulders, for I was too benumbed with cold and fatigue to walk, he strode on to a fire a little distance away, around which a number of his people were gathered. I learned later that these were members of a village community higher up in the mountains, whose bamboo huts had been destroyed by recent torrential rains. The homeless people were camping temporarily near the foot of a great tree, in the branches of which the spirits of their ancestors were supposed to dwell; also the spirits of the Great White Fathers of Long Ago—obviously the seventeenth-century Dutch—to whom the priestesses of the demolished village had been offering constant prayers. My appearance among them was hailed as an answer to their prayers, which accounted for the fact, as I also later learned, that when I was carried into camp—a very benumbed and bedraggled goddess—both men and women fell on their faces, and some of the children fled shrieking in terror.
I have since wondered whether perhaps these two chance occurrences—one a storm at sea, the other a torrential rainfall in the mountains, which by accident brought me among two divisions of the aborigines, one those of the east coast, the other those of the northern mountains, in the fashion that I have described—had not something to do with the very friendly relations which existed between these “Naturvölker” and me. Certainly the rôle of the sea-born (or river-born) goddess was not one that I was anxious to play, or that I had in mind, on either occasion. But a few chance words of some of the people—after I had learned a little of their language—led me to believe that the fact that I had “come to them out of the water” contributed to the esteem in which I was held; made certain in their minds the conviction that I was the spirit of one of the beloved white rulers of old, returned from the elements. (Why a spirit should choose this particularly uncomfortable method of approach—or of return—was not quite clear.) That I had come among a matripotestal people probably accounted for the fact that none of the aborigines seemed to think it strange that the spirit of one of the Great White Fathers should choose to reappear in the body of a woman. That such a spirit had returned seemed to be the general supposition among the northern tribes. Among those of the south there were some who held, apparently, that a Goddess of the Sea (or “from out of the sea”) had come to them—one to whom semi-annual offerings were customarily made.
When I realized the reason for the regard in which I was held by these people a sense of the ludicrous overcame me. School-day struggles with Virgil—buried in some region of the subconscious—were recalled; these even more strongly when one day I overheard a discussion among some of the tribespeople regarding my walk. I neither hobbled as did the Chinese-Formosan women, nor did I walk with the toed-in, short steps of the Japanese women (a few of the coast aborigines had seen Japanese women).
“Feet strangely covered, stone-defying. With no burden on her back, freely, with long steps, she walks, as must the females of the gods from whom we spring.”
“Et vera incessu patuit dea,” etc. Curiously similar the idea, though the words in which this time it was voiced were those of this strange Malay dialect. … The childhood of the world! Still in odd comers it exists, and can, with seeking, be found.
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