ABSTRACT
In a categorization that pre-echoes Levi-Strauss, the Qing authorities described the indigenous populations in Taiwan as either raw or cooked. There are few formal sources on the Bunun before the last hundred or so years, and, competing theories remain as to when the ancestors of today’s indigenous peoples settled on Taiwan. This chapter examines historical, anthropological, and sociological accounts of Bunun society for the light they shed on the larger social settings and value systems within which Bunun music has been created, sustained, and developed. Japanese occupation ushered in a slew of social changes and an age in which systematic study of Taiwan’s indigenous culture began. If these slices of social reality emphasize ordinary Bunun men’s military service and work-life experiences outside Buklavu post-1945, there was a continuing emphasis among researchers on the documentation of former ways of life, albeit for the reason that indigenous populations were perceived as under threat of absorption into a Han Chinese way of life.
