ABSTRACT
Every year at the height of summer, a week-long festival takes place in Amis villages across Taiwan. Held after the ripening of a biannual rice crop, it has increasingly become the symbol of Amis life. Families reunite, as younger members of the community working elsewhere return to their ancestral villages. There are mass displays of revelry, undertaken by hundreds of participants who sing, dance and feast, laden by up to two kilogrammes of psychedelic nylon tassels, intricately-embroidered skirts and leg-bindings. The festival has attracted the domestic tourist industry in Taiwan, and village revellers themselves tout it to the world outside as evidence of vibrant aboriginal culture.
