This map is from the Scottish Geographical Magazine. Published by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and edited by James Geikie and W.A. Taylor. Volume XII, 1896.The geographic names are in Romanized Hoklo (Hokkien, Taiwanese, 福佬話, 河洛語, 台語). The Romanization was started by early Presbyterian missionaries who had successfully translated the Bible into readable Taiwanese. The Presbyterian church began in 1865 with the work of English missionaries in the south and Canadian missionaries in the north (i.e., Dr George Leslie Mackay in Danshui) in 1872.
You can click on the map to get an enlarged view. In the north, Tamsui (Danshui, 淡水), Ta-Tun Shan (大屯山), Bang-ka (Manka, 艋胛 - now Wanhua, 萬華), Twa-du-tia (DaDaoChen, 大稻埕 - the famed 大稻埕碼頭 is now outside Gate #5 of the Danshui River levee), Taibak (Taipei, 台北), Ke-Lang (Keelung, 雞籠, now 基隆), Sin Tek (Hsin-chu, 新竹), Gi-lan (Ilan, 宜蘭), and Saw-o (Suao, 蘇澳) are clearly marked.
Also, the Spanish influence in the early 1600s can still be seen today: 三貂角 ("Samtiau", eastern-most cape on the map) was derived from San Diego. In Taipei-Danshui area, the MRT-Danshui line has a 關渡 (GuanDu) station, 關渡 (some claimed it was 甘豆 GamDao in 台語, although the locals pronounce it GanDao, it seems to have been 江頭 for a while) probably originated from Casidor (i.e., the cape). And another station 唭哩岸 (Qilian) was probably named after a Spanish colony in the Philipines, Bahia-Irigan (meaning the Bahia "bay" in Tagalog - which is similar to 平埔Pin-Pu's "kil-lrigan", also the "bay").
The etymology of Hoklo-Taiwanese can now be traced to the Fujian (Min, 閩) language, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, locally developed terms (and a slightly different accent between northern and southern Taiwanese), and aboriginal languages. English is of course a newcomer, relatively speaking. At least 10,000 is still 一萬; it has already become 十千 in Singapore.
Ah, it really looks like a piece of sweet potato then and now, so big that took me several days to walk cross over from East to West on feet.
回覆刪除Traditionally in Formosa, the sweet potato is not for serving at Thanksgiving dinner table; instead, they are cooked and used for feeding pigs.
We call it “BUTA-IMO” in Japanese; any readers out there still remember it?
豚芋?
回覆刪除I remember baked sweet potatoes only as a snack food, peddled by cart-pushing vendors in the winter time. And the leaves together with other kitchen refuses were fed to the pigs. That was in the more difficult times of the 1950s. 蕃薯稀飯 is now a high-end menu item in Taipei.
You walked - from Hualien to Taichung perhaps? That's a whole 190 kilo. Now people travel between the two via Taipei, back to the old days again. The 中橫公路 seems beyond repair.
回覆刪除Is Samtiau derived from San Diego, or did they look for a Spanish name to match an already named Aboriginal village? In many cases, the Spanish and Dutch set up shop in long-established Aboriginal villages. Besides Tayouan, I've never heard of one being started from scratch. They moved in and adopted the Aboriginal names, see Mattau, which is Madou or 麻豆 or Takao (or Kaohsiung today). See Tamsuy - Tamsui - Danshui.
回覆刪除Taiwan's cities, towns and highways, like those of the US, are set up on an ancient grid. They predate the Chinese (Taiwanese), or Dutch and Spanish who played such an important role in bringing them to Taiwan. Perhaps too much credit is given to the Japanese in Taiwan for building the infrastructure, especially when it comes to transportation.
Interesting points regarding the significance of the Aboriginal contribution.
回覆刪除In term of Sam-tiau, two local sources - neither mentions any Aboriginal villages:
1. "1626年，來自菲律賓的西班牙船艦航抵台灣東北角海域，準備進佔台灣北部，將此地稱為“San Diego”（聖地牙哥），並相傳於此建立聖地牙哥城堡，後台語將“San Diego”轉音成「三貂角」因而得名，與今日富貴角同為源於歐洲語言之地名。"
2. "根據傳說，西元1626年時西班牙船艦由菲律賓進發，航抵台灣東北角海域，準備進佔台灣北部，在途經三貂角的時候，只見巨石遍地，而且旁邊並沒有河、湖，所以判定這個地方不能成為良好據點，但因不知其地名，為了方便記載於航海日誌，所以就用拉丁文命名該地為San Diego（聖地牙哥)。早期當地居民使用閩南語音譯為「三貂」，又「三貂」地處台灣最東邊的岬角，所以這個地方就被命名為「三貂角」了。"
Presumably there are still remnants of Fort San Diego in 三貂角. Also, Fort San Domingo was not built on some aboriginal site.
There is no doubt many names were initially Aboriginal, e.g., Manka means a canoe, etc. But not in this case.
As to the infrastructure: You can always build roads and highways on top of ancient trails and paths. It is the effort of construction itself that deserves credit. From the maps of late 1800s, it is clear a major South <-> North highway was already in existence that predated the Japanese occupation; although I seriously doubt that the highway was already built when the Han people arrived in the 1600s or the Dutch at even earlier times.
San Diego, California is translated by local Cantonese as 山地雅歌.
回覆刪除The famouse national park, Yosemite is called
優山美地.
Indeed, it is the art of naming.
There was a network of trails running all over Taiwan. I've read the Aborigines first rebelling against the Ching Dynasty in the late 1600s because they were being forced to to pull carts along them as part of the corvee system that was in place. In a mountainous country like Taiwan, the routes, passes, etc. would've been quite useful.
回覆刪除Wasn't there a village right next to Fort Santiago? Why would they build somewhere that wasn't close to the Aborigines, especially if they were looking to trade, do missionary work, extract taxes, etc. Actually, I'm exaggerating about Tayouan. It was built in the vicinity of eight Aboriginal villages. They built it out on the sandy peninsula because they thought it would be easier to defend as Aboriginal attackers would've had to come over the bay to get at it.
The Aborigines must have walked all over the place and left trails for others to build upon. Unless there is evidence of organized construction, I'd still credit others for road-building.
回覆刪除There was a village next to Fort San Domingo? At the same time when the original fort was built? It was sacked presumably by the Aborigines, kind of hard to imagine peaceful co-existence from the beginning.
BTW, Danshui was supposedly Castillo, Keelung = Santisima Trinidad, and Sam-tiau, Santiago when the Spaniards decided to stay permanently in Northern Taiwan - until they were kicked out by the Dutch.
I don't know why I always call Fort San Domingo Fort Santiago. I do this on my blog as well.
回覆刪除Placido Domingo once appeared as Alberto Santiago in The Cosby Show. You might have remembered that?
回覆刪除No, I didn't have a TV growing up. My parents chucked it when I was five, so I'm pretty ignorant about TV shows. Cosby's album "Why Is there Air" is a comic masterpiece however.
回覆刪除Fort Santiago = Santiago = Chile = Pinochet = was a arrogant dictator detained in London for crimes against humanity = Chiang Kai-shek = he's dead and didn't get what was coming to him = Taiwan, still too many people running around in positions of power who deserve a good spanking = San Domingo, it's in Taiwan and sounds sounds similar to Fort Santiago.
The greatest piano teach that Tamsui ever had is Miss Taylor, being called 徳姑娘. Her student, Mr. Tan Sue-Chi陳泗治 teaches piano at his home in Shi-Lin士林 before becoming principal of Tansui High School. His daughter was my dughter's piano teacher in Tamsui, though most of the time mother was teaching. Nobody can afford to have piano at their own hime, so they come to teacher's home and get lessons and use the piano to practice.
回覆刪除There are many artists living in Tamsui, before Kau-Fun 九份 becomes artist's colony.Do you remember the house belongs to 楊佐三郎, the famouse oil painter?
More on the Aborigines in Danshui:
回覆刪除In 1628, the Spaniards arrived in Danshui and built the first Fort San Domingo. It was unclear if there was an aboriginal village nearby. The census data of 1645-55 show 4 aboriginal villages within the Danshui area. The one most close to Fort San Domingo was the Danshui Sha (the Chinar Village) which, in 1645, had 37 families (131 people including 5 widows). This village was located in the vicinity of the now Tam Kang University.
These villages existed into the early Qing era. Some descendants reside in some of the same village sites even today.
Have lived so many years in Tamsui, I have never met anyone claimed himself as the descendent of aboriginal. Moved to Karenkou 花蓮港, East Taiwan, I met so many aboriginals, even having them as classmates. In the States, I only see American Indians in the Hollywood movies. Those Indians in the movie are not even the real ones, but white men just dressed up like Indians. Indeed, the aboriginals are endangers spices, and almost wiped out completely from the planet earth. Is this part of the so-called progress? Not only human races, so is our gadgets. Where can we find a pair of the 6 inch-high wooden sandals called 基隆柴屐 nowadays?
回覆刪除Some don't even know they are aborigines. I'll try to organize the materials and post more on this subject.
回覆刪除Not only the wooden sandals (the ones with brown palm-leave-fiber straps), the pocket knives with a black handle (made with the horn of a buffalo) called 番刀仔 are nowhere to be found. They were once ubiquitous. Maybe I have not loked hard enough. Come to think of it, perhaps these knives are also aboriginal.
The other name of that kind of knife is 士林刀 or 八芝蘭刀, probably manufactured in Shi-Lin, hence the name; I still have couple of them in position. The manufacture seems still alive and kicking. Re: http://www.66163.com/Fujian_w/news/bc/big5/20050306/tbxx100500.html
回覆刪除Bad thing about that kind of knife is that they do not have safety lock to prevent accidental closing. It is the reason I prefer Buck knife instead since it can be easily swing open by gravity and cannot be closed without releasing the safety lock.
The sandals are favored by the people working in the market. Wearing that kind of sandals, they are high up from the wet floor. Closing the eyes, I can almost visualize the scene and hear the unique sound of sandals kicking the floor. We are connected with Taiwan by the sweet memories.
Thanks for the link. Yes, that is the one. And you are absolutely right about the lack of a safety lock. I am looking at the backside of my left index finger right now - a 1/2 inch long diagonal scar courtesy of a much treasured Shi-lin pocket knife.
回覆刪除I wonder what those village sites are today.
回覆刪除"Have lived so many years in Tamsui, I have never met anyone claimed himself as the descendent of aboriginal."
The practical reason for this is Taiwan's patriarchal system for passing on family names. If your mom is an Aborigine but your Dad is Taiwanese, the government lists you as a Taiwanese - Han Chinese. There are so many other reasons too: ethnocentric stereotypes (Aborigines are alcoholic, lazy, etc.) would've made it a strong incentive for those with Aboriginal blood to want to bury this fact, not celebrate it, with their offspring or around town. I am from the Melissa Brown school of thought - that 85% of Taiwanese people have Aboriginal blood. I simply go with historical data. Until the end of the 18th century, Chinese women were restricted in their immigration here. Taiwanese married Aboriginal women because there were no Chinese women. They also married Aboriginal women because they, or their families, owned property while many Taiwanese immigrants were landless and penniless. The uxorilocal marriage system was prevalent in Taiwan culture up until two generations ago, and is born out of what I am talking about. Eyedoc and I differ on this point, but I'll here's some figures from J. Shepherd on family immigration early on in the Ching Dynasty:
1684 - 1732: Forbidden
1732 - 40: Allowed
1740 - 46: Forbidden
1746 - 48: Allowed
1748 - 60: Forbidden
1760 - 61: Allowed
1761 - 88: Forbidden
Simply put, a lot of the early Taiwanese immigrants were men. They tried to keep up family ties - many of them were married and had left wives behind - but finally ended up taking a second Aboriginal wife and never returning to China. The numbers of women coming here were minimal during the Dutch era as well, especially in the last decade, when it was in the teens annually. During the time of Koxinga, it was pretty much a flat zero. The thinking of the Ming and Ching rulers was that Taiwan was a land of troublemakers, see the refrain "every three years an uprising and every five a rebellion". They figured they would be able to hold male workers in Taiwan under their thumb if their families were back in China, as a kind of ransom.
Much of this has been whitewashed for, like I said, some pretty off-putting bigotry against non-Han Aborigines. Then there's the KMT Sinification efforts that served a political agenda. The KMT had/has little use for the Taiwanese seeing themselves for what history tells they are - a non-Han people.
There are always seemingly scholarly tomes that seek to enlighten us the Taiwanese, as if we are a whole lot of simpletons:
回覆刪除(1) Since only Han men were allowed to migrate into Taiwan, off and on, during the Qing Era, therefore the expanding population must have been from inter-marriages with the Aborigines;
(2) At least one blood typing study has claimed that most Taiwanese blood contained contributions from the Aborigines;
(3) That all Taiwanese family histories even the Aboriginal ones have been altered by the Qing officials to hide the Aboriginal origins;
(4) That the anthropological evidence pointed to the adoption of Aboriginal customs in, e.g., the funerals, by the Taiwanese.
And so on.
The 三年一小反,五年一大反 were not revolts driven by sex deprivation but were provoked by corruption of the ruling class who over-taxed and extorted the common folks. They were not references to the 羅漢腳s who often settled their arguments with fistfights, also not to the territorial fights between different clans. They were true peasant revolts.
The parents of 林塽文, one of the leaders of the revolts, arrived together in Taiwan on board of a junk during a period of prohibition. Look at the coastlines of Taiwan, no board patrol could effectively control people smuggling across a narrow Taiwan Strait. And if the controls back in Hokkien were so strict and effective, why were there so many of them populating South East Asia? The official versions probably should be taken less seriously. The US-Mexico border is even much tougher to cross, yet we now have 10's of millions of illegals.
A wholesale statement such as 85% of Taiwanese are non-Hans or the like is too simplistic. Each part of Taiwan has its own history. Such a statement does not seem to serve any useful purposes, perhaps only politically. But what is the agenda here? The Aborigines should reclaim their property rights? Taiwanese are non-Hans, therefore Taiwan is not part of China? Or Taiwan belongs to non-Han Taiwanese, everyone else including the most recent immigrants get out?
Scientifically, the only way to settle the Aboriginal issue is an island-wide mitochondrial DNA analysis. Or at least do it in Danshui for demo purposes.
I think perhaps the whole concept of Han Chinese is misguided. But there are so many people, regardless of their politics, that subscribe to it. China itself is so big, with so many people coming and going. Some have written that the people of the area where Confucius came from, if he existed at all, were more closely related to barbarians than to Chinese. Then there have been the fierce efforts inside China's academia to disprove the whole out of Africa migration theory. Why?
回覆刪除In Taiwan, a lot of people held on to genealogies. But what often happened was drifters would latch on to communities based on the coincidence of a last name. In this way, the family records they soon would come to keep (and their children cherish), did not belong to them. Rich people also created family records. You should check out Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall / Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. According to the permanent exhibition, Chiang traces back to a noble and upright Duke in something like 1000 B.C. The DNA analyses are going to be pretty interesting. Perhaps the records will be proven to be accurate . . . But you just need a couple of drifters in a community and everything gets mucked up.
And then we have to remember whole nations of Aboriginal people in Taiwan have vanished. Like the plains Aborigines. What happened to the plains Aborigines? Did they simply pack up and move to the mountains? Were their lands completely swiped from them? I sometimes wonder about this. Perhaps their ancestors are still living in Tainan, Changhua, etc. They just don't know it. They think they are Wang, Huang, Fu, etc. and that they come from China.
"Enlighten us the Taiwanese, as if we are a whole lot of simpletons" - Actually Taiwanese are fabulously educated. There's a literacy rate at around 99%. University graduation rates are off the boards. But if you talk to Taiwanese people about their own history, well, that's often a conversation killer. Get ready for lots of blank stares. That could change though.
And yet, 孔子世家譜Confucius's family record does trace directly back to him, and his direct descendants now live in Taiwan. So do the direct descendants of Menfucius (孟子), BTW.
回覆刪除It all comes down to "Mandate from Heaven(天命)", on different levels. Throughout history, the rulers of China must have the Mandate as each dynasty founder usually rose from organized peasant revolts and was regarded as being illegitimate at least at the beginning. The most coveted mandate is of course if the line can be traced back to Emperor Huang then no history revision is necessary. Otherwise, creative tracking must be done. The authenticity of Chinese history has always been jealously guarded by the court historians (御史) who'd rather die than give in to the emperor's wishes (to revise). And that sometimes is a big problem for the emperor because rulers without the Mandate are illegitimate who are soon toppled by another with. And the events faithfully recorded in history.
The same applies to the concept of Han: Since the Han people were "given" the whole of the Middle Kingdom, they could therefore legitimately dominate over others.
However, insistence on the purity of Han blood has never been important. Look at the Qin terracotta soldiers and you see many non-Han people. And the capital of Tang Dynasty, now Xi-An, was crowded with foreign traders. Of course there have been intermarriages just like that in Taiwan. How wide-spread? Just like that in Taiwan, no one really knows.
One culture totally assimilated by another is probably not that unusual (e.g., Okinawa is now part of Japan). One people disappearing into history is not that unusual either, just look at the Mayan ruins. So, did the Plain Aborigines disappear? Not at all. There are many present-day anthropological studies conducted on site in their villages. Inter-marriages even today still run into family oppositions from both sides. If you are interested in this aspect, a good starting point is papers published by the anthropology section at Academia Sinica. Melissa Brown's work is but a tiny portion of research in this area.
Literacy does not equal being knowledgeable. The history of Taiwan has never been properly explained to the last two generations. Blank stares are about right. It is up to those of us interested or motivated enough to set the records straight and to remember not to allow the records hijacked by politicians.