Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples, Briefly Explained

Taiwan's population is today over 90% Han Chinese. But their arrival to the island comes relatively late in history. I have written a bit about this in a prior article, but Taiwan's Han Chinese first began settling on the island some 400 years ago.

Taiwan island however at the time was not unoccupied. Taiwan's early Han Chinese settlers soon found themselves in conflict with Taiwan's aborigines, the island's first inhabitants. This video briefly goes over the history of these unique and special peoples as a whole.

[hitmusicworldwide]

I am a Native American, so from my point of view, the first " foreigner intrusions" were the Han Chinese settlers and then the Manchurian Empire. ( That's why the Han called the indeginious people "barbarian" in other words foreign.) The Dutch were the third after the Manchurians. Indeginious Formosans are Austronesian. Not Sinitic ( Chinese) or Tungusic/ Altaic ( Manchurian) . Related to Filipinos, Malays, and other pacific islanders. No linguistic or cultural relationship to Han Chinese. I was listening to this as I was in Chinatown getting a haircut. The barber spoke to me in Chinese she said, "I was not sure if you were a foreigner or not" . I was smiling and I answered back in Chinese with a smile " How can I be a foreigner? I was born in America. I'm a Native indeginious American. You are the lao why". To us Navajo, everyone is a "lao why". We both laughed. Han hegemony because of the language is insidious. People will call you a lao why on your own native land. Much like they have assumed the mantle and distinctiveness of the Manchurian Empire and relegated them into an internal ethnicity. The autonomy and distinctiveness of the native Taiwanese is relegated to only being a chapter in Han Chinese history. Would love to hear the Native Taiwanese perspective. I studied Chinese in Taiwan by the way, and the Han Chinese there always treated me like I was a "Hua Chiao". Fond memories.

[Budywieser]

Taiwanese indigenous peoples are Austronesian peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian people in some parts of southeast Asia.

[kevroyce]

I wish people talked more about how the Aborigines were abused and colonized along with the cruel injustices that they faced--by the Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese. My father was born and raised in Taipei and he said that he wasn't taught about how the indigenous people were oppressed. They deserve to have their history and struggle be fully represented.

[KO]

Great job. We Hawaiian ancestors came from some where close to Philippine and Taiwan ( Formosa) island.

The island people ( Polynesian) are the first people that inhabited the land...

Very informative. Keep it up.

Mahalo

[marw]

Your channel is a god send, these are the kind of topics we love to here about, the less frequently mentioned

[mrx]

I belong to the former head hunter tribe of Naga from North east India. We have many similarities with the aborigines of Taiwan and phillipines . Thankfully we were protected from outsiders by successive British and Indian government.

[CocoaLait]

Very interesting! My family have been in Taiwan since at least before the 1850's. We always thought we were 100% ethnically Han but my family recently took a DNA test and found lots of Southeast Asian DNA and even a bit of middle eastern. Anyone from Taiwan found such anomalies?

[vinfacts]

are you not gonna mention that Taiwanese aboriginals were the ancestors of the Austronesians (Malaysians, Filipinos, Malagasy, Polynesians, etc)?

[youxkio]

Very good short doc. Thanks for the good work!

[creatoruser]

Nice job covering this important topic.

[kailawkamo]

These days, everybody is talking about whether PRC or ROC should have claim over the island yet there is not much focus on these people and their say on the matter.

[leeloxleigh]

Very interesting and informative. I have now subscribed to your channel 🇬🇧

[dustin]

Fishing and farming requires more skill than soft-bellied office worker😂😂

[kenruns]

The roots of the island peoples of the Pacific and even to Madagascar go back to at least some of the peoples of Taiwan. For example, counting from 1-10 and terms for mother and father in the Paiwan language are pretty easily recognizable to speakers of Polynesian, Micronesian, and Filipino languages. In relatively “recent” times (1970-ish), one of our traditional (= no navigation instruments) canoes from Satawal in the Caroline Islands voyaged to nearby Okinawa, kind of a visit back to the motherland area, for Ocean Expo ‘75.

[bernardfinucane]

You did another video on it, but it's important to mention that Taiwan is the Proro-Austronesian homeland, making the aborigines a hugely important culture on the world stage.

[glennzoo]

Truth be told the Han (aided by my countrymen, the VOC) robbed the Taiwanese aboriginals of their demographics. A part of them were assimilated and the other lived in primitive conditions in the mountains, where obviously birth rates will be low compared to the Han farms in the plains of Taiwan. The VOC respected the Chinese (and Japanese) as "fellow civilized peoples", and they brought Han settlers over because they were known to be hard working, industrious and good merchants. You can easily imagine a completely native Taiwan with a 20-30 million population like today, if perhaps one of the lowland tribes came into contact with foreign technology and then conquered and fortified the coasts. Or perhaps if instead of the Qing, a western power kept control. It might have been like a smaller Philippines. I can recommend a fun and accurate book on the VOC/Koxinga period of Taiwan: Lord of Formosa.

[carlosbah]

Quite unique video. Suscribed! !
Gracias por compartir!

[Doochos]

Informative, thanks. Do you have any interest in making videos about Western involvement in Taiwan, eg the French invasion, the Rover Incident, the Dutch, Spanish, and the European treaty ports?

[Junokaii]

Very surprised there's so many different kinds of natives in such a small place. I don't think all of usa and Canada has as many maybe.

[Bossbanonuakarnahi]

Taiwan indigenous peoples are found in today arunachal Pradesh of India. Their custom, tradition and dress is so similar to that is found today in this part of world.