THE VILLAGE

The move of the village, Dekal, from its historic site of Dundunan/Maidatar to Peinan probably took place between 1870 and 1880. A serious epidemic, probably smallpox, drove the inhabitants up into the mountains. When they returned, the village lost its closed structure and was rebuilt in Peinan in three areas: Tu?utu?ur, Pu?upu?up and Tatimul. The Paiwan accused the Japanese of bringing smallpox with them during the military expedition of 1874. Taylor (1885-6: 125) writes: ‘Among the Paiwans skin diseases are rare, and, until smallpox was lately introduced, for which they blame the Japanese, there were no special or deadly illnesses known . . . The Paiwans have suffered severely from smallpox, which at one time broke out regularly once a year, and the people tried to save themselves by flying to the mountains.’ When they returned from the mountains, the Puyuma regrouped in the three areas of present-day Peinan, thus effacing the dual structure of the village, but the community remained closed to outside influence. Between 1925 and 1934 the Japanese administration decided to transfer all the aboriginal villages so as to weaken local populations, and they drew up the same structure in a chequerboard pattern. In 1929 the Puyuma of Peinan were moved to Sakupen, i.e. Nanwang for the Taiwanese administration. The perpendicular streets enclose plots of 1,000 m2 for one household, but today there are no more plots this size with only one house on them; nearly all the plots were split between brothers and sisters during successive divisions (see Maps 2.2 and 2.3). The Puyuma say today that the emperor of Japan allocated this land to them to thank them for their collaboration. It is true that the Puyuma provided no resistance to the occupying forces, and even gave valuable help in eliminating certain pockets of resistance. At the beginning of the century, chief Ta?ata, a woman of the Raera household, helped the Japanese to fight Bunun resistance in Basikaw.1 But the Puyuma, according to their own accounts, only took part in the expedition as interpreters, and

not soldiers. About fifty Puyuma probably helped crush Pingpu rebels in the villages of Wushe2 in 1930, in Nantun district near Taichung. Finally, the highly reputed chief of the Raera, Kulalaw (see Figure 1.2), allowed the Japanese to levy taxes in his name. Cohabitation with the Chinese was far from idyllic in the new tripartite structure of Peinan. The Japanese administration also, as a gesture of thanks, gratified the Puyuma’s wish, and built a new village forbidden to outsiders.