FEATURE
and reinvigorate their culture. With ever-changing social and economic conditions in mind, festival organizers have also made many adjustments to welcome tourists while at the same time preserving key religious aspects of the festivities. t was young people who took center stage the last and most exciting night of Fata’an’s Fengnianji, which is known as Lovers’ Night. As we looked on, a ring of men, young and old, slowly rotated to a hypnotizing beat. At the emcee’s signal, women and teenage girls flocked to the circle in search of ideal matches. As the custom goes, a female expresses her interest in a particular male by gently tugging at his embroidered bag, or dofot (in the Amis language). If the young man is keen, he will place the bag around the woman’s neck. After a few minutes of flirtatious tension, the lights went out, and in the dim bustle of silhouettes one could see the glint of more than a few giddy smiles. By the time lights went back on, quite a few young couples had vanished from the field. Traditionally, the Amis’s elaborate courtship process was also initiated by the woman, and included an exchange of food and betel-nut kept in dofot, along with other symbolic gestures. Although Fata’an parents suggested that
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12 November • December 2010
this part of the festival is now just for fun, some of the young people we saw had a pretty serious look in their eye! Since the 1990s Taiwan’s Han Chinese majority, and governments at various levels, have been giving greater recognition to aboriginal cultures as a vibrant part of the island’s cultural heritage – at times as a way of proclaiming Taiwan’s cultural uniqueness to the outside world. These changing attitudes in part explain the
This is both a harvest festival and the Amis New Year’s celebration increasing appeal of Fengnianji to tourists, and the festival has been changing with the times. In Tafalong (Taibalang or Futian in Chinese; a short drive east of Fata’an), another Amis community with a large festival, a sudden and intrusive influx of tour buses raised hackles a few years back. But the community decided to adjust, and after moving the festival away from the local highway and discontinuing billboard advertisements, it has been able to strike a better balance between sharing its culture with outsiders and keeping the event first and foremost for the people of Tafalong.
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Not far south from Fata’an is the smaller community of Mafo (also called Mafu). While other nearby communities have grappled with their suddenly increased renown in recent years, the intimate, casual air surrounding Mafo’s festivities suggests that it has no such problem. During our visit community members came and went as they tended to work, family, and other responsibilities, and it seemed that at any one time there was never more than about fifty people gathered at the elementary school where they held their celebration. One man stirred a gigantic vat of pig stew while still wearing his Pizza Hut uniform. After paying our respects to the organizers, we were soon pulled into a small group of people dancing near some chatting elders. A nimble-footed woman sprinkled homemade millet wine at each of our feet before offering a glass. In such a small community as Mafo, it seems that Fengnianji has become a sort of all-purpose gathering, a time not only to rejoice but also to take care of tribal business, including elections of the chief. As we sat quietly observing the proceedings conducted in the Amis language, an enterprising elementaryschool-aged girl tried to sell me some betel-nuts from her dofot. “You’re
Photos / Jen-Guo Chen
Dancing in large concentric circles is a major part of the Amis's annual harvest festival celebrations