July of 2024, at the 35th Golden Melody Awards (the most prestigious musical awards in Taiwan), Taiwanese indigenous artist Panai Kusui won the Best Taiwanese Album category with her work “Iā-pô.” Donning a scarf that said “No One Is A Bystander,” Panai said: “do not pretend that pop music is not related to politics…and please remember, the 35th Golden Melody also means the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre.”
As an “indigenous” singer winning the “Taiwanese (language)” album, and calling attention to China’s Tiananmen Massacre—-how do we understand Panai’s personal story, as well as the message she wants to tell the world?
Also in 2024, Panai and her partner Instanda Husungan Nabu ended their “sojourn” of 2,600 some days in Taipei’s 228 Memorial Park, and published the book Panai Comes Home. (Translator’s note: to protest the Tsai Administration’s reneging on promises of self-rule and land rights, Panai and Nabu staged a sit-in at 228 Memorial Park for 2,644 days, during which she was forcibly removed over ten times.)
Cover of the book《Panai Comes Home》. Image sourced from eslit.com.
The first chapter “Panai and Nabu” talks about how the two partners met, a story that is a reflection of indigenous people’s story living in a society dominated by descendants of Han Chinese migrants. Panai’s father is of the Pinuyumayan people and her mother is Ami. Panai was born in Tainan and did not return to her familial hometown in Taitung until she was six. Later, her father’s business failed, her mother was arrested for financial troubles, her older brother died in a car accident…Panai began her journey of being ostracized and lost every day. At the time, she still went by the Han name of Ko Mei-tai, and she was still trying to find who she is.
Until she met Nabu.
Panai Comes Home’s Chapter 2 recounts how the village of Laipunuk in southeastern Taiwan has been exploited again and again by outside powers. The Japanese colonial government only cared about exploiting forest resources and containing the “savages.” This led to a policy of forcibly relocating entire peoples from the mountains to the plains. By 1945, World War II had ended, and the Republic of China regime that took over “nationalized” the Japanese forest areas. The indigenous peoples ended up being trespassers on their own land, including the people of Laipunuk.
“Have you ever thought about giving up returning?” When asked that question, Nabu firmly answered “no.” In 1914, Japanese land and air forces invaded Laipunuk, and forced the people to leave. After 80 years, many of the original people still lived in sadness, thinking of returning one day. Nabu’s mother Langus said, “that was the path I walked to school, that was my place, my life—I can’t believe we could actually come back.”
In 2002, the people of Laipunuk organized the Bunun Cultural Foundation and Laipunuk Academy to apply for government support, and on December 10th, International Human Rights Day, returned to Laipunuk by helicopter. Langus was overwhelmed with emotion. The people of Laipunuk calls 2002 “Year One of Laipunuk.”
That makes 2024 “Laipunuk 22,” meaning they have returned to their ancestral home for 22 years. In their memory, returning there means traversing through treacherous mountains and rivers for more than a week. But it’s not enough to just be there. Someone had asked Nabu “why don’t you rebuild your mama’s house?” and he went to work: they put together their house with everyone in the village, stone by stone and log by log. But five years later, a strong typhoon nearly destroyed the home. They had to start from scratch. But more and more young people from the tribe came back up the mountain. Even though the elders are fading away, Nabu never gave up returning and rebuilding home.
Nabu said he hopes the Return to Laipunuk movement is a “bridge between modern and tradition” and a “traditional territory” in of itself. The idea of the indigenous traditional territory is for the indigenous peoples to live on the land of their ancestors, not to confine them to face their historic trauma alone.
The Return to Laipunuk movement became the link between his people’s contemporary lives and their pasts. For Panai, this movement was the net that cradled her and gave her direction.
As Panai and Nabu found themselves, but what about the state?
On August 1, 2016, then-president Tsai Ing-wen issued an official apology on behalf of the state to the indigenous peoples. The apology states:
“Throughout history, the people who came after took away everything from the people who were here, and made them became wanderers, the marginalized, the ostricized, on their own land. The success of one group is very much dependent on the suffering of another. If we claim to be a state build on justice and fairness, we must face this history and tell the truth. Most importantly, the government must genuinely reflect on this past.”
Panai and Nabu had accepted Tsai’s apology. But the Taiwanese society did not “accept” the history of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. In February of 2017, Taiwan’s Council of Indigenous People’s announced the “Regulations for Delimiting Indigenous and Tribal Land,” which excluded all privately owned property from the definition of traditional lands. This caused a great controversy within the indigenous community, including Panai and Nabu.
For the indigenous peoples, the traditional tribal lands are the vessel that carries cultural memory and meaning. For my own people the Paiwan, land comprises of hunting grounds, cultivated farmlands, foraging grounds, taboo areas, and the living areas for the different social classes. The relationship to the land signified the different roles in our society: the hunters have the knowledge of how to roam the forest, the farmer understands the season, the foragers hold the key to coexisting with nature; even weaving, dyeing, and building are part of the land. The taboo areas signify the accumulated wisdom of our people, the source of the spring of life. Without the land, there is no “nasi”—the Paiwan word meaning breath, or life.
Taiwan’s decades of urbanization and industrialization has shaken up traditional tribal life, even causing irreversible harm. How can indigenous peoples keep living without their lands?
The study of mapping traditional lands has evolved from a top down, technical study of creating maps to emphasizing the tribal people as the main subject and purpose. The idea of territories involve culture, history, economy and sovereignty, and speaks at the core of individual and collective power and rights, especially on how to use the land and its resources. But because indigenous peoples have always been a neglected and discriminated sector of Taiwanese society, demarcating traditional lands is a special opportunity for Taiwan to accept and engage with the history of the indigenous peoples’ plight.
But sadly, Taiwan did not take up this opportunity.
The last chapter of Panai Comes Home is titled “We Are Dead Serious.” In it, Panai and Nabu, along with their friend Mayaw Biho, turned their rage against the Traditional Lands regulations and their concern over the loss of tribal lands into action.
The biggest point of contention in the Traditional Lands regulation debate is over private property—opponents of indigenous traditional land rights argue that those rights cannot extend to property currently held by other private owners. Relevant discussions over conflicts of interest and compensation were especially heated. These debates illustrate the fundamental difference in values between modern property rights and traditional tribal notions of living with the land.
Indigenous peoples were even accused of “grabbing private lands,” which seems to prove the point that the mainstream Taiwanese, made up of foreign migrants and their descendants, chooses to ignore their historical responsibility. That’s why to some people, Panai, Nabu and Mayaw were just “causing trouble” for 2,600 some days.
But perhaps we can understand their action as a message to us: in a nation with such diversity and conflicting history as Taiwan, we should never forget the repression by the state, the history and the people of this land, and that no one is ever just a “bystander.”
In Paiwan, the word for story is “tjaucikel” meaning “that which had really happened.” I often reflect on this word. It is made up of “tja” (us) and “u” (myself), and “cekel” (return). Perhaps we can understand it to mean “looking back”—looking back at the values that our ancestral culture has uplifted, to tell our stories. Panai’s story is also the indigenous peoples’ story. Panai came home, but the indigenous peoples of Taiwan are still telling their stories, on the journey of looking back, and on the journey of coming home.
(Featured photo by tsvetomit_lazarov_isky on Pixabay)
- Book Review: Panai Comes Home - August 13, 2024