Chen chihfan, Assistant Professor, Institute of Taiwan Literature, National Tsing Hua University

“The History of Mother / The Mother of History” starts by tracing the author’s recollection of his mother and the history of the Puyuma people and ends with the idea that aboriginal history will be the mother of Taiwanese history. The text resonates with the author’s great respect and admiration for his mother, and observes societal changes that have taken place over time.. It also critiques contemporary issues such as ethnicity and identity from a Puyuma perspective.

 
The essay is composed of six sections, the first of which is “Like Living Outside History.” This section shows the author’s mother ignoring the bustling and quickly changing world, as if she were outside of history. In fact, the calm and serenity we see in the mother is precisely the attitude that we see in old people in tribal histories – the mother describes her own life as one of memories, but it is also the author’s basis for reconstructing Puyuma history. The second section, “A Promise and No Regrets,” portrays his mother’s unwavering faith. Even after the decline of the Catholic Church, she still holds fast to the promise she made to her granduncle because “you can’t take a promise back.” The third section, “The Secret of Historical Transmission,” describes his mother taking part in a woman’s weeding team and learning a wealth of traditions from the mouths of elders and thus becoming a typical Puyuma woman. The fourth section, “Outsider,” focuses on how tribal traditions have disintegrated since the 1950s – the tribal language she uses to communicate slowly disappears and the Japanese she learned during the colonial era is restricted: thus, a whole generation of old people are forced to close themselves up in the past.

They are trapped in a hopeless situation, like outsiders in their own society. The fifth section is called “Who Owns the Land?” and is a reflection, described from his mother’s simple and sensible perspective, on the distribution of power and privilege among ethnic groups in Taiwanese society. The text looks at how Han people use a variety of arguments about which ethnic groups came first to Taiwan in order to settle territorial disputes. In the eyes of aborigines – the island’s first inhabitants – this is pointless and absurd. As to who owns the land, his mother gives a simple answer which becomes an important basis for Sun Ta-chuan’s renewed reflection on the place of Taiwan’s indigenous people in history. In the last section, “Mother of History,” the author concludes with the hope that, like aborigines, Han people will have the courage to forget and so to build a history that leaves hatred behind while encouraging interaction and dialogue between ethnic groups.

 
In tracing the story of his mother’s life, Sun Ta-chuan has tirelessly tracked the tribal life of Puyuma women. These personal memories of tribal life, in response to existing historical accounts, also highlight the author’s concerns about the history of Taiwanese aborigines. These concerns deepen the meaning of the term “aborigine” –the aborigine, the earliest inhabitant, is the starting point of every story, the mother of Taiwanese history.

 
“The History of Mother / The Mother of History” originally appeared in the Capital Morning Post in May 1989. It was later collected in First Drop in a While.

Chen chihfan, Assistant Professor, Institute of Taiwan Literature, National Tsing Hua University

 
Sun Ta-chuan (b. 1953), a member of the Puyuma ethnic group, was born in Pinaski Village, in Taitung County’s Peinan Township. His tribal name Paelabang danapan; Sun Ta-chuan is his Chinese name. A graduate of the Department of Chinese at National Taiwan University, Sun has a master’s degree in Philosophy from Fu Jen Catholic University and a second master’s degree in Sinology from Leuven University in Belgium. He has acted as chief architect and editor of the Taiwan Indigenous Literature Video and Audio Archive, head of the Taiwan Department of Indigenous Development, director of the Department of Indigenous Languages and Communication at Dong Hwa University, chairman of the Formosa Indigenous Dance Foundation of Culture and Arts, and head of the Executive Yuan’s Council of Indigenous Peoples. Sun is currently vice president of the Control Yuan, associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature at National Chengchi University, and president of the Taiwan Aboriginal Writers Association.

 
As a Puyuma author and scholar, Sun is dedicated to Taiwanese indigenous peoples’ affairs and the revival of their history and culture. For many years, he has been studying aboriginal languages and culture, while also promoting the production, publication, and translation of aboriginal literature. In 1993, he set up the Taiwan Indigenous Literature Video and Audio Archive and started publishing the bimonthly Mountain-Sea Culture, a major platform for the voices and creative production of indigenous authors.

 
Sun’s works include First Drop in a While (1991), Mountain-Sea World: A Depiction of the Spirit World of Indigenous Taiwanese (2000), Living in the Cracks: Taiwanese Aboriginal Languages, Culture, and Politics (2000), Grand-uncle (2003) Baliwakes, Notes of Tribal Music Across Time: Lu Senbao, the Soul of Puyuma Music (2007), and Notes of Talu'an (2010). He was also chief editor for a series of ten Chinese–English parallel texts, The Myths and Legends of Indigenous People in Taiwan (2006), seven installments of Collected Taiwanese Indigenous Literature in Chinese (2003)—comprising fiction, essays, poetry, and criticism—and a ten-volume Japanese translation of Collected Taiwanese Indigenous Literature, a collaboration with Japanese scholars Sakujiro Shimomura and Shigeru Tsuchida (2006).

 
In these ways Sun “uses a pen to sing a song.” They are full of the author’s deep concern and sympathy for indigenous peoples. Although Sun Ta-chuan’s phrase “people of dusk” reminds us of the current plight of indigenous peoples in Taiwan, he still reminds us that after dusk a new dawn follows and hopes that he and his community will be able to find a new foothold and make a fresh start.