In Search of a Forgotten Mother --A Journey Through the Land of the Siraya

8 August, Tuesday, weather fine.

Leaving the freeway at the Yungkang interchange, we follow Provincial Highway 20 towards the hills in the direction of Tsailiao. In this area of transition between the mountains and the plains, the roads are lined on both sides by dense, lush tropical and subtropical woodland. The sight of the sturdy longan and mango trees invites one to merrily put one's foot down and speed along the road, flashing through one typical Taiwanese village after another.

If a moment's carelessness had not allowed us to be led astray by the road's poor signposting, no doubt we would not have so quickly had the opportunity to converse with the locals! Although we flag down the old man on his bicycle almost by force, he still warmheartedly explains the way in Taiwanese dialect. Looking at his dark skin, his large round eyes set deep in their sockets, and his long, thin, bony hands, we suddenly realize that without knowing it we have already arrived in the ancient homeland of the Siraya.

Wan Cheng-hsiung playing the saw fiddle. To preserve Siraya culture, the Wan family of Chiutsengling have set Christmas carols to the tunes of ritual songs.

Phallus worshippers?

During his explanation before we set out, our party's leader Liu Huan-yue, chairman of the Taiwan Folk Cultural Society, had solemnly taken four or five stones out of canvas bags. The round stones were carved with female genitalia, while the long ones were shaped like phalluses. They were excavated in the 1970s from fields at Niushihshui near Tsailiao Village, Tsuochen Rural Township, by Chen Chun-mu, who was one of the first people outside academia to engage in Pingpu research. At the time when the stones were discovered, people inferred that the Pingpu tribes may have venerated sexual organs, but because no such artifacts were found later at other locations, this idea is still in doubt.

In the past the Siraya, one of the nine Pingpu tribes, were the undisputed masters of southern Taiwan. They comprised the four large communities of Hsinkang, Hsiaolung, Matou and Tamuchiang, and two subtribes, the Makato and the Taivoran. According to the "Register of Households in Taiwanese Tribal Settlements" drawn up by the Dutch East India Company, in 1655 there were some 15,000 Siraya, accounting for a full one-third of the total Pingpu population.

However, from the 17th century onwards, wave after wave of immigrants flooded onto this peaceful, happy land through the harbor at Tainan, encroaching on the Sirayas' living space. Those Siraya who did not retreat further and further south or into the mountains accepted the rule of the incoming political authority and were subsequently assimilated.

Careering furiously along in Liu Huan-yue's 3.2-liter jeep, we set out to retrace the path of the Sirayas' migration and cultivation, and seek out the shrines around which their political and religious life once centered. Our planned final destination for today is Tsuchu Temple in Neimen Rural Township, Kaohsiung County.

Amid the dust which billows up behind us, for no particular reason we sense an incongruity of time and space: when a tribe of 1000 people was on the move, did the yellow dust also rise up around them in the same way?

Not far from the junction of Provincial Highway 20 and County Road 178, we arrive at the Taizu Laojun Temple at Hsitsaikou.

With its ferroconcrete walls faced with yellow tiles and its aluminium-framed screen doors, if it hadn't been for the glittering incense-burner outside the doors perhaps we would have mistaken it for an ordinary house. The marble altar is shared by the Taoist spirits Tiangonglu and Fude Zhengsheng, and by the Siraya guardian spirits Taizu and Laojun, who are represented by sacred urns (fat-bellied, small-mouthed pots). On the offering table is a pair of wooden divining blocks and a vessel of Taizu Laojun spirit water. Evidently the Siraya spirits and Han deities are in "cohabitation."

Someone asks: "Isn't the ancestral spirit the Siraya worship called 'Alizu'? Why are the ones here called 'Taizu Laojun'? It sounds like the Taoist 'Li Laojun' [Laozi]."

In fact, "Alizu" is simply a generic name. Different tribal groups have different terms of address for their Alizu, and the legends which generally surround them have also developed differently and uniquely in different localities. An old man told us that before Laojun and Taizu became spirits, their relationship was that of father-in-law and daughter-in-law. The father-in-law passed away, and not long afterwards the daughter-in-law died of a broken heart. The villagers thought that the two had been having an incestuous relationship and so buried them both in the same coffin. But later natural disasters made everyone realize that they had mistakenly sullied their reputation.

Taizu and Laojun should normally be worshipped on a low pedestal on the ground, but in an era when the lottery game dajiale is rampant, they have been chosen as youyinggong (a Han Chinese name for lonely and wandering spirits which respond to prayers), and invited up onto the altar. Punters offer cigarettes and use a tray of sand to pick lucky numbers. How many realize that this youyinggong which local people say has such extraordinary powers is in fact a "barbarian Buddha"!

The visitors' flashguns flash continuously at a sheet of paper on the wall. Driven by curiosity, we too go across to look. On it is written:

"Dear Believers: (1) When praying to Taizu and Laojun, a sincere heart is all you need; please dedicate your incense to Tiangonglu and Fude Zheng-shen. (2) Please present cigarettes, wine and areca nuts to Taizu and Laojun; please burn your gold spirit money for Fude Zhengshen to keep your whole family safe. Taizu Management Committee.

Fortunately this temple management committee has taken the trouble to stick up for Taizu by telling everyone the correct way to venerate her. But doesn't this highlight even more the weak position of Taizu and Laojun in the face of Han cultural beliefs?

Chen Chun-mu, who is known as the "fossil granddad," lives in nearby Pingyang Village, in the mountains further up County Road 178. He appears very pleased at our visit and on the one hand invites everyone to eat newly-ripened longans, and on the other brings out his collection of newspaper cuttings. The camp participants' questions come out one after another.

"When did you start researching the Pingpu? When you were a child were you in the same class with Pingpu children? Did you see them worshipping bottles? Can you tell us any stories? . . ."

"Ever since I was little I heard the old folk say there were Pingpu 'barbarians,' and I went to school with them. They were great singers, but they weren't very good at maths. . . . Nowadays they don't even know they're Pingpu." He brings out a faded and yellowed black-and-white photograph. "For instance, this one with her hair up is an aborigine woman. She died a few years ago. Her son has moved to Yungkang now. He doesn't know anything . . . . Our old folk also said that under the Japanese, they stood Alizu down on the ground to worship, and they changed the water on the 1st and 15th of each lunar month, and on Alizu's birthday they'd send three groups of people to fetch seawater."

But Uncle Chun-mu doesn't have the old lady's son's new address--another Siraya has vanished into Han Chinese society.

（top） In Chipeishua, apart from the commonly owned "Great Shrine," there are also five smaller private shrines. Pictured here is the Central Shrine in the center of the village.

The village-head-cum-caterer

9 August, Wednesday, weather clear.

We set out from Neimen bright and early along Provincial Highway 3. At Hsuehtzuli we turn up a side road and arrive at the home of Chi Cheng-yi, head of Sanping Village in Neimen Rural Township.

Chi is a surname unique to the Pingpu, so the focus of our questions is: "When did you discover you were a Pingpu?" But the village head, whom we have woken from his bed, seems less than thrilled. He says: "I've been no different from the Hans ever since I was a child, it was only later that those scholars said any different." There is no trace of enthusiasm in his brief answer, and we are left wondering what his feelings were when he found out.

It is only when giving out his name card that the village head's spirits seem to rise. On the card it says he is also a contract caterer. Pingpu or not, business is business.

Leaving Neimen we continue towards the famous Moon World of Tsaoshan, where one sees nothing but a great swathe of bare grey sandstone cliffs, which seem all the stranger when compared with the lush vegetation on the other side of the mountain. We can imagine that when the Siraya, who lived by slash-and-burn farming and nomadic hunting, came here and saw this place, they left without a moment's hesitation.

Then on the way to look for the Pinlangchiao shrine at Tsaoshan, we discover two graves lying quietly among shoulder-high mangcao grass. However you look at them, there is nothing special about these gravestones of a husband and wife surnamed Lin. But the name of the stones' donor, "Your filial daughter Wu-erh" (the Chinese characters read "black ears") does attract our attention.

At this moment Liu Huan-yue steps in to explain: "'Wu-erh' means 'beautiful.' It's a very common name among Siraya girls, so we can immediately guess that this is a Pingpu grave."

The Pingpu were once a matrilineal society, but because in the Ming and Qing dynasties many Han Chinese bachelors crossed the sea to Taiwan and married Pingpu girls, they brought the patrilineal social system with them.

However, although the Pingpu nowadays take their fathers' surnames in the same way as the Hans, there are still some families who retain the customs of matrilineal society in the inheritance of family property. Mai Chen-liang and his wife Ms. Mu, whom we meet at Tishuitsai, are a very clear example.

In Han Chinese society, we are used to asking married women where their maternal home is. But here our question falls flat. Ms. Mu's deepset eyes flash with amusement as she tells us: "I've lived here all my life; everything in this house is mine."

（bottom） Inside the Central Shrine. The two pig's skulls tied up with bamboo strips against the wall are called "general's pillars.".

Uncle Banana language

In the afternoon we have arranged to visit Wan Chen-hsiung at Chiutsengling in Hsinhua Township. When we stop off on the way at Lingkan in Hsinhua Township, for the first time we hear "Uncle Banana" language. But we don't hear it from Uncle Banana, we hear it from Uncle Tiao.

When we hear Uncle Tiao, who is in his seventies. say he can still speak the Pingpu language, we are both surprised and overjoyed. Academia has categorized the Pingpu tongues as dead languages, and even though during the Dutch occupation period missionaries used the romanized "Hsinkang script" to record the Siraya language, and although the words to ritual songs recorded in Chinese characters, still survive among shamanesses (mediums who transmit the instructions of Alizu), there is almost nobody today who can interpret their meaning, let alone converse in the language.

Confronted with an array of tape recorders, Uncle Tiao appears somewhat ill at ease, and his wife, who is busily going in and out of the house, takes the wind out of his sails even further by saying: "He hasn't spoken it for so long, he can't do it, don't bother!"

"We didn't call it Pingpu language, we called it Uncle Banana language, I'll talk about the blouse you're wearing. . . . Ah,"--he suddenly comes out with a sentence--blouse is natseia; trousers are called loki, leiyi means shoes. . . . Liangchileiji means please sit there, boiled water is lunginluizui."

That evening we learn from Wan Cheng-hsiung that Uncle Banana language was not the Pingpu tongue, but probably a kind of secret language current among the Pingpu people of the Neishan area under the Japanese occupation, in which Taiwanese dialect words were split into two or spoken backwards. But nobody can explain the reason why Banana language came into being. Perhaps it arose out of workmen's jargon, or perhaps it was invented to enable people to give vent to their dissatisfaction with the highly repressive colonial rule without getting into trouble.

Source: Li Jen-kui, Types and Interrelationships of Taiwan's Pingpu Peoples.

Changing ritual songs into carols

Chiutsengling is a Presbyterian parish, and with encouragement from the church Wan Cheng-hsiung and his family are proud to be Siraya.

"My daughter and I both found out we were Pingpu at about the same time. These last few years people have been taking an interest in the Pingpu, so we read a few articles and records and then we were sure. Actually when I was little I had heard the old people say we were Pingpu, but at that time I had no idea what the word meant."

We were interested to know whether having identified with the Siraya had made any difference to their lives. Mr. Wan said that it had. Of their own accord, he and his daughter went to Toushe in Tanei Rural Township, where Siraya rituals have been best preserved, to learn about them at first hand. At the same time, because they are both musically gifted, they visited old people who still remember the ritual songs, and recorded the tunes (the words have already been lost). They added words to the tunes to make Christmas carols, to sow seeds of hope among the younger generation.

10 August, Thursday, weather cloudy then sunny (Ghost Festival).

These past few days we haven't run across any Alizu's birthday celebrations, so we haven't seen any rites. But because of the influence of Han culture, on the day of the Ghost Festival we are lucky enough to attend a ceremony venerating Alizu, and are able to get an idea of the relationship between the shrine and believers.

Early in the morning at around 7:30 we arrive at the Kao family home in Changliaopu in Neimen Rural Township. There we meet Mr. Kao, who is just about to set off to worship Alizu. Mr. Kao's son and daughter-in-law are just loading sacrificial gifts such as rice cakes, oily rice, meats, steamed bread, tea leaves, dried longans, areca nuts, cigarettes and rice wine into a plastic basket on the back seat of a motorcycle.

These stones shaped like male and female genitalia were once seen as evidence that the Pingpu tribes venerated sexual organs, but this is now in doubt.

Buy a field, get a guardian spirit free

The little path to the shrine also serves as a chicken run, so we stride forward through the guano, and before long we see the shrine. It is shaped like an earth god temple and surrounded by long grass. It is evidently a long time since anyone has come here.

When Mr. Kao has told Alizu what he has come for, he picks up an areca nut, and after biting it open takes a mouthful of rice wine and sprays it into the air. This he repeats three times, then prays for a while. Then he puts two cigarettes in his mouth, lights them and places them in front of Alizu (the significance is similar to lighting incense).

Next he lights a stick of incense and places it in a small hollow at the base of the wall by the door, although there is clearly nothing there. "That`s the Buddha of the wall-base, a wandering spirit who goes with Alizu, so we pay our respects to her too."

Interestingly, Mr. Kao says he is not a plains aborigine. "So why do you venerate Alizu?" asks one of the visitors. "Because the person I bought this plot of land from used to, so I do too." Alizu goes with the land, not the people, so when you purchase a piece of land you have to look after its attendant deity. "How do you know the right way to worship?" "I just do the same as they did." The difference is that it used to be necessary to change the water for Alizu on the 1st and 15th of every lunar month, whereas now that has been simplified to twice a year--on the spirit's birthday, and at Ghost Festival.

The shrines we have seen up to this point were either in very out-of-the-way locations, or shared a site with Han Chinese deities. So where to find Alizu's final stronghold?

11 August, Friday, weather clear.

We arrive at Tungho Village (formerly called Chipeishua) feeling optimistic, because the locals still retain in full the tradition of night worship rituals and "howling at the sea." Perhaps in this place we will find a sense of the Sirayas' identification with their own people.

The very first person we meet, however, old Mr. Tuan, puts an end to that notion.

Already in his nineties and hard of hearing, Mr. Tuan laboriously and stentoriously explains: "Our ancestors came from the mainland. There was a storm on the way but they were protected by Taizu and Laojun and delivered safely ashore at Chiali in Tainan County." But his features clearly show Siraya characteristics. Does he really not know, or is he deliberately covering up his connection with the Pingpu?

Old Siraya tribe members Mai Chen-liang and his wife.

The shamaness's counterstrategy

Perhaps a shamaness would know more about the history of her people. Li Jen-chi has taken part in Makato night worship ceremonies, and has had more contact with the outside world than most. At the mention of the word "Pingpu" she waves her hand and says, "Aborigines are aborigines, whatever other people think." In the past the old people wanted them to be Hans, and now outsiders want them to acknowledge themselves as Pingpu aborigines. Which identity is actually their own?

At the age of 18 she was designated by Alimu, through the shamaness of the day, as the shamaness's successor. That was over sixty years ago. Her strategy in the face of such conflicting pressures is to put all the traditions her elders taught her into practice in her own life. Li Jen-chi takes the leading part in the rites for Alimu's birthday, while on other days she "takes away fright" for people.

She mumbles incantations and sprays out a mouthful of rice wine, then scoops a cup of rice from the shallow dish beside "Anzu Alimu" (as Alimu is called in Chipeishua). She wraps the cup in a child's T-shirt and taps the rim with a sprig of the sacred plant Eupatorium fortunei, while singing a Pingpu folk song. Then she unwraps the rice, blows another mouthful of rice wine over the T-shirt, and finally interprets the patterns in the grains of rice for the person who has come to consult her. "Your daughter can't sleep because a goblin is disturbing her. I'll deal with him and it will be all right." She takes a bowl of water from the jar, and uses the sprig of Eupatorium fortunei to sprinkle the water around as she walks singing to the door. Then she repeats the same action as she walks back to the altar. With that the ritual is complete. The relieved parent pushes a red envelope of money into her hands, to which she responds with a smile, saying: "This gift to me will bring riches for you!"

Normally such a ritual would not be performed during Ghost Month (the seventh lunar month), out of consideration for the "good brothers" ("homeless" spirits) who are only allowed out into the world for this one month every year. But Li Jen-chi consulted Alimu and obtained a special dispensation. she has never doubted Alimu's power.

12 August, Saturday, weather cloudy with scattered showers.

Wanchin Village in Wanluan Rural Township, Pingtung County, is a very special place. It is the location of Taiwan's oldest Catholic church, and historical conflicts which forced residents to marry mainly within the village have also made it the place where the largest numbers of descendants of the Makato people--a subtribe of the Siraya--can be found.

As well as providing a place to venerate Alizu, the shrine in Toushe has also "taken in" sacred urns from neighboring tribal settlements.

Pan-demic

But the result is disappointment. Sitting in the shade of a tree in the square before the church, an 80-year-old gentleman surnamed Pan says in fluent Taiwanese dialect: "I'm Taiwanese. The Pingpu are these aborigines that live in the mountains!" As he speaks he points towards the Tawu Mountains beyond the church. Yet we know for a fact that the surname Pan was one that was given to the plains aborigines during the Qing dynasty, while the people living in the Tawu Mountains are from the Paiwan and Rukai tribes.

According to The Revised Annals of Taiwan Province, after the Han Chinese came to Taiwan they had the plains aborigines wear their hair in queues and take Chinese surnames, to show their assimilation. Although there were at least ten surnames designated for this purpose,"Pan" was used in the majority of cases, and became the dominant surname among plains aboriginal families. Locals bearing this surname are almost certainly of Pingpu descent. In Wanchin they are habitually referred to as having "the surname with the water radical." Family names such as Chi, Mu, Man, Hu and Che are also fairly unique to the Pingpu.

The Pingpus' acceptance of the surname Pan was due to Han influence. According to the book Yi Dupi Ji. "The Hans told them:' Pan is the best of surnames, because the character used to write it ( 潘) is the only one that combines the elements for water (), rice (米) and fields (田 )." But another version is that the character represents barbarians (番 ) alongside water. This perhaps is a more likely reason why the Han Chinese would have selected this surname for the aborigines, to distinguish them from themselves.

In the course of so many days here, we have discovered that such natural conditions as blood lines and physical type can no longer define ethnicity. The most important factor is the individual's own psychological identity.

We had hoped that in Wanchin Village we would find Pan Chien-ming, who used to live here. Having once publicly acknowledged he was a Makato, he was regarded with suspicion by the other villagers. Just what kind of psychological journey has he taken? To find out, we move on to where Pan Chien-ming is now living: Kenting.

The Alizu venerated in Mai Chen-liang's home.

Peeling off a layer of skin

13 August, Sunday, alternately sunny and rainy.

From the beginning of our visit, Pan Chien-ming speaks frankly. From suspecting he was a Makato, to realizing it was true, to accepting his identity, his process of transition was an extremely painful one. This reminds us of Liu Huan-yue's description: "From top to bottom, inside and outside, I have peeled off a layer of skin."

Since Pan was a boy, his father told him his ancestral home was in Yingyang County, Henan. He was sent to whichever school was most likely to help him move on to the next level. Although he had gone through a period of sowing his wild oats, he had ended up with a master's degree in theology from Fujen Catholic University. His family was from the "classiest" neighborhood of Wanchin, and he worked in the nicest part of Taipei. So in his heart he had a lingering feeling of contempt for his own roots.

But four years ago, he wrote a leaflet for Wanchin Catholic Church introducing its seven-month series of processions with its statue of the Madonna. Only then did he discover in some church documents that Wanchin was actually once a dwelling place of the Makato people. How could that be?

In the two years which followed, he began to read large quantities of related information, and also started to re-examine his own life experience. Occasionally, when he was chatting with other people and hanging about, someone might ask him about his origins. With an utterly nonchalant expression on his face, he would dodge the question. "Oh! I have mixed blood. I'm a Singaporean." Still, he would return home and stare at his own image in the mirror: deeply set eyes with three folds, a very distinct outline to his face. . . . People used to say that the Makato were red-headed. That's right--when I was seven, my hair was red, and then it later turned dark brown. Now that I'm 35, silver hairs are showing up. Could it be that I'm really not Han Chinese?

The crucial moment came when his grandmother passed away. Pan Chien-ming is the eldest grandson, but he was not apportioned a single inheritance. At that moment he was entirely certain that he was a member of the Makato tribe, because in a matrilineal society, inheritance is passed down through the females. Later on, he went to Laopi, the earliest settlement grounds of the Wanchin Village ancestors, in search of the Makato shrine. When he found it, it felt "like I was visiting my family!"

After he accepted that he was a Makato, Pan Chien-ming changed his views about the Pingpu customs he used to despise.

One example is the expression "holding hands," which is widespread among Han Chinese as a way of saying "getting married." Originally, it came from the Pingpu custom for pledging love between girls and boys. When Pingpu girls came of age, they would live on their own away from their parents' house. Unmarried youths would carry fresh flowers and serenade their love with music of the nose flute or mouth harp. If the feelings of love were mutual, the girl would invite the boy to come in and consummate their love as a betrothal. This was called "holding hands."

Pan Chien-ming used to believe that Pingpu women might have many different men in the course of one life, "like animals, without any concept of purity." But now he puts a different gloss on things: "Doesn't the natural world use this method to increase the adaptability of gene pools and ensure the survival of species?"

At a Makato night worship ceremony at a recent arts festival in Kaohsiung, Pan Chien-ming stood up and announced that he himself was Makato. When he returned to Wanchin Village, he was cursed to his face by one of the villagers. "We are Han Chinese! How could you say that nonsense in the newspapers that the whole village is aborigine?" His mother also said to him, we are eager to break with our aboriginal identity: how could you be so foolish as to go and admit it? Pan Chien-ming said nothing in response. He fully understands everybody's sentiments, but he feels he is only doing what is right for him. But when he recently got a job researching the traces of the Pingpu on the Hengchun Peninsula, he moved his whole family to Kenting.

The Makato of the Hengchun Peninsula have chosen Crepis grandiflora as their sacred plant.

Who am I?

What Pan Chien-ming has encountered reminds me of a chat I had with a fellow participant on the trip. She said that when she was five and sweeping the family tomb, she saw the characters for Longxi written on the headstone, and so she came under the impression that her family traced their roots to Gansu. When she was a little older, she looked at the family tree and found it said the family came from Shandong. Thus began a quest for any possible leads to her family history. Now she is reading various historical records, because she strongly suspects she is a Pingpu of the Ketagalan tribe. Not understanding, I queried:"Is it so important to know your roots?" "If knowing who you are and where you come from isn't important, then what on earth is?" she asked in reply.

Perhaps when people are spending so much time trying to find blood lines to long-forgotten maternal ancestors, one cannot ignore the fact that the Pingpu have become sinicized. Let us give them some respect and space to make their own choices. After all, you or I might very well be one of them. . . .

[Picture Caption]

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Wan Cheng-hsiung playing the saw fiddle. To preserve Siraya culture, the Wan family of Chiutsengling have set Christmas carols to the tunes of ritual songs.

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(top) In Chipeishua, apart from the commonly owned "Great Shrine," there are also five smaller private shrines. Pictured here is the Central Shrine in the center of the village.

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(bottom) Inside the Central Shrine. The two pig's skulls tied up with bamboo strips against the wall are called "general's pillars."

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These stones shaped like male and female genitalia were once seen as evidence that the Pingpu tribes venerated sexual organs, but this is now in doubt.

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Old Siraya tribe members Mai Chen-liang and his wife.

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As well as providing a place to venerate Alizu, the shrine in Toushe has also "taken in" sacred urns from neighboring tribal settlements.

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The Alizu venerated in Mai Chen-liang's home.

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The Makato of the Hengchun Peninsula have chosen Crepis grandiflora as their sacred plant.

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Eupatorium fortunei is the sacred plant of the Siraya of Chipeishua.

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The Taizu temple management committee offers instructions on how to venerate Taizu.

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Alizu's embodiment, the sacred urn, can be made of any material, so long as it is round with a small mouth.

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Drinking water blessed by the shamaness will keep you out of harm's way.

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Mr. Kao of Changliaopu in Neimen Rural Township, pouring wine in preparation for worshipping Alizu.

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Shamaness Li Jen-chi of Chipeishua "takes away someone's fright."

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"Wu-er" (the name of the deceased's daughter, given on the tombstone) is a common Siraya girl's name. From this we can deduce that this is a Siraya grave.

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Look! The children of Wanchin Village laugh so cheerfully. Whether to be Han or Makato is a choice they will have to make themselves.

Eupatorium fortunei is the sacred plant of the Siraya of Chipeishua.

The Taizu temple management committee offers instructions on how to venerate Taizu.

Alizu's embodiment, the sacred urn, can be made of any material, so long as it is round with a small mouth.

Drinking water blessed by the shamaness will keep you out of harm's way.

Mr. Kao of Changliaopu in Neimen Rural Township, pouring wine in preparation for worshipping Alizu.

Shamaness Li Jen-chi of Chipeishua "takes away someone's fright.".

"Wu-er" （the name of the deceased's daughter, given on the tombstone） is a common Siraya girl's name. From this we can deduce that this is a Siraya grave.

Look! The children of Wanchin Village laugh so cheerfully. Whether to be Han or Makato is a choice they will have to make themselves.