Han Colonization Impacts Yamiko First Nations of Orchid Island, Taiwan

Orchid Island is a small island situated in the Western Pacific off the south-east coast of Taiwan. It is approximately 45 square kilometers in area and has abundant rainfall. Almost one hundred protected rare plant and animal species live in the island's tropical forest. Of these one, Otus Scops, is threatened with extinction.

Not only has the island rich natural resources, but it is also the area in which the Yami tribe lives. The Yami people's distinctive culture is an even more valuable example of one of the most well preserved ocean cultues. The Yami population numbers about 3,100 people living scattered over the island's low land.

Within the Yami society there are no clearly defined class distinctions. They are a peace-loving, optimistic and gentle people. Among all the original tribes of Taiwan they are the only one that did not practice head-hunting. Their social life is based on the observance of natural principles and is against the use of force. It also includes great respect for elders. This system rests on the strict observance of working together for the mutual benefit of all.

This spirit of working together for the mutual benefit of all is of great advantage to people.

When a Yami person builds his own house, the whole tribe will co-operate in order to help him do this. Everybody works together in the fields to produce food and everybody co-operates in the catching of fish. The economic life of the tribe is the result of joint discussion. The tribe's fate and general affairs are decided by mutual consultation. Thus Yami culture is extremely rich and complex.

After the take-over of Orchid Island by the Taiwan Government in 1946, the island's natural resources and human culture have suffered serious changes. The first intrusion of the Taiwan Government occurred in 1958 when about 2,500 convicts were sent to Orchid Island to serve their sentences. They were guarded by retired servicemen of the KMT (Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party). In order to build accommodation they took the land that the Yami used to produce their principal crop, taro. They were permitted to roam the island and took advantage of this to rape the Yami women and smash the people's possessions. They did not leave until 1979.

In 1960 the Taiwan Government completely cut down Orchid Island's tropical forest, destroying the habitat of many rare species of plants and animals. After this they established schools in all the tribal areas to teach Han Chinese culture, history, language, etc. All of this was in order to influence Yami children, so that they would lose their mother tongue, and cause the transmission of the Yami cultural heritage to come to a halt.

Thus Yami culture was replaced by Han culture and traditional Yami buildings were torn down and replaced by ugly concrete block houses. Within ten years the concrete buildings began to crumble. The beautiful, traditional housing thus disappeared. The traditional celebration on the completion of a new house was also lost in the process. The Yami's proud culture has thus been extensively wiped out by the intense efforts to impose Han culture.

This process of assimilation has also affected the Okinawans, the original people of the Ryukyu Islands and the Ainumushiri, the original people of Japan. Many people of Ainu ancestry migrated to the big cities of Japan such as Tokyo and northern cities, and ashamed of their heritage, presented themselves as Japanese. Since the massacres of the 17th and 18th centuries, most Ainu are only half Japanese, their culture replaced by Japanese culture and their heritage forgotten as they assimilate into Japanese society.

It is even like this among Vietnamese people, with peoples named Nguyen (Gwen) being Han, or Vietnamese. Most people named Nguyen adopted the name for survival and self-preservation due to internecine warfare between Chinese and Vietnamese people over the centuries.

Asia itself shows definite signs of majority peoples assimilating minorities, and thus is a case history of the effects of colonialism over several millennia, especially in mainland China, when the proto-Sinitic people arose to become the dominant people.

Much of the history of China depicts the early Chinese fighting against barbarian nomadic tribes of white Huns, Turks and Mongols, sometimes chasing them away or conquering and assimilating them into the Han culture.

If anything, Asia is a cultural melting pot many thousands of years in the making. Quite possibly, the ancestors of First Nations peoples in the Americas, being nomadic, sought hunting territories far removed from domination by China and other nations of Asia.

Thus, the struggle of Taiwan aboriginals is shared with the struggle of First Nations people of the Americas.