Sediq
The Sediq , also Seediq or Seejiq ( Chinese 賽德克 族 , Pinyin Sàidékè zú ) are an indigenous people of Taiwan , whose settlement area is mainly in the districts of Nantou and Hualien . The Sediq are made up of three groups that use different languages: Sediq Tgdaya, Sediq Toda, and Sejiq Truku. They were officially recognized as a separate ethnic group by the Taiwan government in 2008 , after having previously been classified as part of the Atayal people . According to official statistics, the number of Sediq was roughly between 8,000 and 10,000 people.
Culture
Tattoos
In the Sediq tradition, facial tattoos played an important role in expressing the strength of one's character. The men were only allowed to tattoo themselves after they had succeeded in headhunting enemies. Women had to master weaving before they were allowed to tattoo. Tattooing of the face was an important hallmark of adult tribe members. For the men it meant that they could protect their own territory and their food. For the women, it showed that they had the skills of weaving and housekeeping. Without such tattoos one could not exist in Sediq society.
Craft
The Sediq have two types of domestic production, braiding and weaving. Although there is a clear semantic difference, the Sediq language uses the same word for this: tminun .
The products of braiding are usually containers for everyday life, for example boxes for women (in the Sediq language: bruru ), mesh bags for men, baskets for laundry, fishing nets, fish baskets ( kobu ) and round baskets ( btuku ). The materials for the braiding come mostly from the Taiwanese vine Berchemia formosana , bamboo bark and linen yarn. The products of work are mainly woven fabrics. The materials are usually the fibers of the ramie . After the time-consuming and complicated production of yarn, colorful fabrics can be used to make clothes, accessories and bedspreads. Yarn used to be green, red, yellow, black and white, with red being the most popular.
nutrition
In the earlier days, when the Sediq lived only from agriculture and hunting, sweet potatoes , taro , millet and millet ( baso ) were the main food. At that time, dry rice was not a staple food.
Traditionally, the Sediq ate with their hands, most commonly using the index and middle fingers. The originally used cooking utensils (e.g. ladles) were made of wood. This changed during the Japanese colonial era , when the Sediq began using metal utensils and cutlery.
In addition to cooked food, they also included pickled vegetables and meat in their diet. Usually the Sediq cooked their food. There was, however, a custom among men that they ate the liver of freshly hunted animals raw while hunting. The captured animals were then boiled or roasted over a fire.
religion
The Seediq believed that their people had a special relationship with the god Utux Tmninun. This one also had a soul, but it was immortal. They believed that after death they could return to Utux Tmninun, that is, the men who had tattoos on their faces after the headhunt and who had blood stains on their palms after a successful hunt. Women also had the opportunity to return to their god if they had tattoos and blood stains on the palms of their hands after diligently doing weaving. Such traces of blood, it was believed, would never fade, they would reappear when the soul of a Sediq wanted to cross the bridge of life to the afterlife. Then the guard of the bridge asked to see traces of blood, without which a crossing of the bridge of life was not permitted. So if you weren't diligent in life you couldn't go back to Utux Tmninun. This belief, of course, had an impact on the lifestyle of every Sediq from childhood to death.
The cult of headhunting
Headhunting was a sacred practice for the Sediq. It was only carried out on three occasions: for the festival of sowing, for the festival of harvest and in exceptional situations such as drought, plague or disputes within a village. Headhunting was undertaken to solve certain problems, but only after other possible solutions had been exhausted and yielded no results. This meant that headhunting was never the only and first choice. At first other rituals were resorted to, and when they did not help, permission was sought from the spirits of deceased ancestors to go headhunting. Before the headhunt there was a ceremony where the hunters had to determine their target. The people selected as targets were usually healthy, strong, and intelligent.
People from their own people, but not from their own village, were also possible targets. After the headhunt, the hunters brought the heads back to their village and held a ritual. The hunters had to prepare tasty dishes for the spirits of the victims. After this ritual, the spirits of the victims also became part of the spirits of their own people or their own ancestors. All these spirits took care of the protection of their own people. After the first day of this ritual, the hunters had to greet the victim and talk to him every day, thus asking for a better future.
history
Today it is assumed that the Sediq split off from the Atayal a few hundred years ago and that the Truku split from the Sediq in the following years .
The Wushe incident
After the Japanese colonial rulers opened up the Taiwanese Central Mountains, the native tribes living in the mountains came increasingly into conflict with the modernization efforts of the Japanese. In 1930 there was an armed uprising by part of the Sediq against foreign rule, which became known as the Wushe incident after its location . After the initial successes of the Sediq under their leader Mona Rudao , the uprising was suppressed with great severity by the Japanese army, with more than half of the insurgents and their relatives being killed. The conflict between the Sediq and the Japanese became known in the media inside and outside Taiwan through the television series Dana Sakura (2003) and the film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale .
The uprising began on the morning of October 27, 1930 in Wushe, Ren'ai Township, Nantou County and shook even the Governor General of Taiwan . Until then, the Sediq were considered to be a colonial role model, because they were “re-educated” early on and their territories opened up. It was therefore all the more surprising when over 300 warriors of the Sediq rose up against the arbitrariness of the Japanese colonial power or their local representatives after much prior planning. The vast majority of Japanese gathered for a ceremony on the local school's sports field where they were attacked and killed by the Sediq. Japanese were also attacked in the commissariats and other administrative outposts. A total of 134 Japanese were killed, including many women and children. The Sediq must have been aware that this would trigger the harshest punitive measures by the Japanese army. The Sediq families demolished their homes and the warrior wives committed suicide. The warriors also killed themselves after running out of ammunition and running out of food. Their leader Mona Rudao shot himself in the jungle, then his warriors killed each other.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sediq recognized as 14th tribe , Taipei Times, April 24, 2008
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 認識 本 族. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 認識 本 族. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 認識 本 族. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 台灣 黃鱔 藤 Berchemia formosana - Plants of TAIWAN 台灣 植物 資訊 整合 查詢 系統. In: tai2.ntu.edu.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 文化 特質. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 文化 特質. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 文化 特質. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 文化 特質. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 賽德克 族 _ 認識 本 族. In: www.tacp.gov.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ 【賽德克 展】 血 祭祖 靈 的 獵 首 行動. In: ntmedu.blogspot.tw. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ Description of the Wushe incident on the website of the Taipei City Native American Affairs Bureau (Chinese)
- ↑ 原 民 會 主題 網管 理 員: 歷史 事件. In: www.knowlegde.ipc.gov.taipei. August 10, 2009, accessed November 13, 2016 .
