Plains Indigenous peoples

Beginning in the 17th century, plains indigenous peoples have been heavily influenced by external forces from Dutch, Spanish, and Han Chinese colonization of Taiwan.

It was not until the mid-1980s that Plains indigenous peoples started gaining interest from historians and anthropologists, leading to increased public attention to this group.

In 2016, the Tsai Ing-wen administration promised to grant official recognition to the Plains indigenous peoples,[2] and a draft bill is being reviewed by the Legislative Yuan as of June 2018.

[6] In Ino's eight-group classification, the Pepo, Puyuma, and Amis groups were known as "domesticated savages" (Japanese: 熟番, Hepburn: jukuban), primarily due to their abandonment of ancient customs.

The Sinkang manuscripts, which are bilingual land contracts written in Romanised letters, have become important historical documents for studying the Plains indigenous people.

[11] By the 18th century, the deerskin industry had diminished due to overhunting, and the inflow of Chinese immigrants began to take up much of the grazing land.

This was because Han officials feared a revolt against Chinese immigrants, and also because Plains indigenous peoples were tax-paying citizens and could be used as military sources.

However, Plains indigenous peoples were increasingly not able to compete economically and ethnically with the growing Chinese population that flooded into Taiwan.

After the Qing Empire had officially taken over Taiwan, the Plains indigenous peoples were rapidly sinicized as a result of advocacy for their "civilising".

Several theories have been proposed during the 2000s to suggest that a large majority of Hoklo and Hakka Taiwanese could have Plains indigenous lineage in their bloodline.

[18] It was already noted in the early 20th century that careful observation was required to detect their deeper eyes as compared to the Chinese; also, the women did not practice foot binding.

[19] Through the process of acculturation, much of the language, culture, and identity of Plains indigenous peoples have become nonexistent in modern Taiwanese society.

[18] For example, a descendant of Plains indigenous peoples in Hualien, Chieh Wan-lai, still insists on teaching the traditional language and culture of his ethnic group.

Huang Shujing, during Qing rule, categorised all Taiwanese indigenous peoples into thirteen groups, based on geographic location.

Ethnographer Ino Kanori was the first to create the modern ethnological classification of Plains indigenous peoples, consisting of the following groups: Makattao, Siraya, Loa, Poavasa, Arikun, Vupuran, Pazehhe, and Kuvarawan.

[27] Since then, other scholars such as Shigeru Tsuchida, Utsurikawa Nenozo, Mabuchi Toichi, and Ogawa Naoyoshi have presented various classification systems for Plains indigenous peoples.

The major disputes consist of: 1991 Before the arrival of immigrants, Plains indigenous peoples lived a lifestyle based on agriculture, fishing, and hunting.

Before the arrival of the Han Chinese, the Plains indigenous peoples only used simple agricultural tools, such as sticks and spades, to plant millet, taro, and yam.

[10] Plains indigenous peoples were based around a matriarchal society: women were often the head of the family and in charge of important household affairs.

Plains indigenous peoples held ritual ceremonies several times a year, to worship natural and ancestral spirits.

[8] Whenever a ceremony was held, the people would gather in the political centre of the tribe, called kunghsieh, and they would drink, sing, dance, and celebrate.

[35] Their ballads were mostly merry melodies until the mass invasion of the Han Chinese and their culture was on the verge of diminishing, and then they started to create elegies to express the sadness of a disadvantaged people.

Moreover, the Han Chinese were good at plundering lands from the indigenous people by purchase, alliance, marriage, forced occupation, or exchange of irrigation sources.

Since 1701, the fallow lands and hunting places of the Plains indigenous peoples gradually become the farmlands of the Han Chinese, which caused major changes in their economic life and social system.

This culture manifested itself most materially in the physical structure of Formosan villages, which were protected by plant defenses of bamboo or wooden walls.

[citation needed] Some of the unique surnames include 月, 邦, 宜, 機, 翼, 力, 卯, 茆, 同, 念, 東, 岩, 哀, 曷, 埕, 買, 猴, 標, 紅, 雙, 角, 楓, 詩, 樟, 墜, 雛, 乃, 味, 毒, 陣, 盂, 解, 棹, 永, 湖, 振, 偕, 嘪, 掌, 奚, 詠, 倚, 竭, 北, 六, 水, 麗, 崗, 崑, 桌, 牙, 陀, 秘, 烏, 新, 糠, 長, 萇, and 霜.

[22] As a result, a dedicated committee under the name "Pingpu Affairs Task Force" (平埔族群事務推動小組) has been created by the Executive Yuan to deal with Plains indigenous issues.

[37] Lin's research was based on the study of human tissue antigens (HLA) of Hoklo, Hakka, and Plains indigenous peoples.

Subsequent full genome studies using large sample sizes and comparing thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms have come to the conclusion that Taiwanese Han people are primarily of mainland Chinese descent and have only very limited genetic mixture with the indigenous population.