Rare Collections: short coat for men from the Taus/Yamis

 

By Jiang, Guizehn,

National Museum of History

According to the statistic of Council of Indigenous People, Executive Yuan, in November 2009, the Tau tribe, who migrated to the Orchid Island, southeast of Taiwan, hundreds of years ago, now amount to 3,719 people.  Though Tau people belong to Malayo-Polynesian clan as well as all other Austronesian aborigines in Taiwan, they stood out distinctively different from others in their cultural presentation.  The Taus resemble the Ivatans from Batan islands a lot in languages and usual habits, therefore, anthropologists mostly consider the two closely related.  Traditionally, the Taus, among all other Austronesian tribes in Taiwan, are the only ones who do not brew alcoholic drinks, do not practice headhunting customs, and do not use arrows bows.  In Japanese Colonial Period, anthropologist Ryuuzou Torii stated in his essay <Snapshots on Anthropology—Red-headed Island, Taiwan>, that indigenous people of Orchid Island called themselves “yamikami”, and “kami” meant “us”.  Nonetheless, in his other essay <Letters of Red-headed Island>, Torii claimed that through his industrious analysis, “yami” was the correct personal pronoun, with which the indigenous people addressed themselves.  But in recent Name Rectification movements, young generations in Orchid island have raised doubts on the issue.  They asserted that the aborigines have always called themselves “tau”, meaning “people”, and suggested that Torii had misheard “yamen”, meaning us, as “yami”.  However, the elders on the island, mostly over fifty or sixty years old, supported the name “yami” with various evidence from legends and lyrics of songs, indicating the ancestry and legitimacy of this usage.  While it is hard to determine the number of people on each party approving and disapproving on change of the tribal name, the decision is still hanging in the air.
 
The Tau society is not established upon hierarchy or certain leadership, but on egalitarianism.  They tend to seek mild solutions to tribal affairsTribal affairs, and personal wealth cannot define any social status or power.  Generally speaking, the ranking of social status in Tau society is often determined by age rather than wealth.  Social lives of the Taus are closely related to kinship and geographical relationships.  Consisting of all the members living in the same tribal area, each tribe is an autonomy unit, of its own political and social independence.  Not only do members of the tribe possess their fisheries, pastures and agricultural land in common, but also bear equal responsibility on safety guards of the tribe.
 
The Taus have a great abundance of material creations, such as silverwares, and clay pots and mud-dolls, and they especially excel in building paste-up boats.  There are no limits on decorations of woodcarvings for the Taus.  They tend to adorn woodcarvings everywhere, on beams of houses, inner and outer sides of gunwales, maces, knives, and the lips of potteries...etc, as much as the sculptor can.  Winding traces, consecutive triangles, diamonds, concentric circles, spirals, sun-patterns, goat-horn-patterns, and human figures are all common designs of their carvings.  Additionally, the Taus are the only Austronesian tribe in Taiwan to have developed gold and silver craftsmanship, with such materials and techniques imported from foreign lands in earlier eras.  Gold ornaments can mostly be found in oo-shaped plastrons for men, while silver ones in helmets for men, bracelets for all, oo-shape and trapezoid plastrons for women.
 
The Taus weave with horizontal back-strap loom.  While indigenous plants, Mallotus paniculatus and Cypholophus moluccanus are main linen materials for traditional clothing, cotton has taken over the scene after the thirties.  Comparing to other Taiwanese aboriginal tribes, the Taus have a simpler and humbler style, for they do not apply multi-color threads for patterns.  Therefore, their clothing also bears the most features to rectangular-piece-garments, which are commonly seen among all the Taiwanese tribes.  Whereas the Atayal, Amis, Tsou, Bunun, Rukai, Paiwan and Puyumas have regionally different clothing patterns within their tribes; Amis and Puyuma have different costumes for different ages; Paiwan and Rukai differentiate hierarchies by the level of lavishness of their ornaments; unlike all the above, the Taus' clothing patterns are distinguished by age, sex and aesthetics.  Tau clothing is mostly of white, black and navy, and due to weaving techniques, their linnings are more colorful than appearances.  Tau has topped all other tribes with the most complicated weaving patterns, amounting to a total of thirteen categories and seventeen kinds.
 
To fit in tropical weather, men of Tau tribe usually wear vests and t-backs, and women sling a rectangular cloth over the upper body, and a single-cloth-skirt for the lower part.  Vests for men are of white, black and navy stripe, and the t-backs sustained at both sides are weaved in black or navy horizontal stripes, while the number of the stripes are determined by age.  For example, five or six-year-old boys are given t-backs with three horizontal stripes, while general adults with four.  The cloth for women upper body is made of four pieces of fabric, with white, black or navy stripes.  The stripes are often in even numbers, for instance, eight, ten or twelve, and only those defiant elders dare to apply odd numbers of stripes.  Five or six-year-old girls only wear skirts with single cloth, and it is until they're older, that they are allowed to wear skirts seamed together with three pieces.  And there are three stripes of white, black and navy weaved on each sides of the skirt.  On special occasions and grand ceremonies, such as skipjack hunting, launching ceremony, and inauguration of new houses, extra decorations, hats and vests will be added upon usual outfits.  Due to influences from foreign lands since the Japanese Colonial Period, the Taus tend to use imported cotton for black and navy stripes of clothing.  And women of Tau tribe have also developed a new style of slinging a white or red cotton square cloth in front of their chests.  This Tau coat for men is made of white nylon cloth, weaved with five white stripes and eleven navy stripes altogether from back to front.  It is rimmed with white nylon thread, decorated with two plastic button near the waist, inside the front facing.  For its appliance of plastic material, nylon and cotton threads, rather than traditional hemp, it is clearly a creation under foreign influences; thus it is estimated a work after nineteen seventies.
 
References:
Jiang, Guizehn, Children of Land—Overview of Taiwanese Aborigines, National Museum of History, 2001, Taipei : National Museum of History.
Jiang, Guizehn, Features of Taus/Yamis from Attire and Ornaments, Patterns of Weaving—Special Exhibition of Taiwanese Aborigines Attire and Ornaments, pp 56-61, 2001, Taipei : National Museum of History.
Yu, Guanghong, The Yamis, 2004, Aborigines Series, Taipei : Sanmin Publishing.
 
Lee, Shali, Clothing Culture of Taiwanese Indigenous People: Traditions, Meanings, Illustrations, 1998, Taipei : SMC Publishing Inc.
 
Xu, Yingchow, Xu, Shaojen, Material Creation of Taiwanese Aborigines : Research into Traditional Manual Arts, on Yamis and Bunun, Authorized Project of Ministry of the Interior, 1994, Taipei : Ministry of the Interior.
 
 
Related Collections of Male Coats of the Taus:
 
Vest for Men
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Others
Inventory Number: 34.00
 
Vest for Men
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Hemp
Inventory Number: 66.00
 
Sleeveless Shirt for Men
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Hemp
Inventory Number: 173.00
 
 
Sleeveless Shirt for Men
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Hemp
Inventory Number: 212.00
 
Sleeveless Shirt for Men
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Hemp
Inventory Number: 557.00
 
Vest with Coconut Tassels
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Bark and Leaves of Coconut Trees
Inventory Number: 645.00
 
Cape
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Hemp
Inventory Number: 1188.00
 
Vest for Men
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Hemp
Inventory Number: 1569.00
 
Vest with Coconut Tassels
Topic and keyword: Clothing, Atire
Description: Main Material: Coconut shells
Inventory Number: 1570.00
 
Shirt for Yamis Men
Topic and keyword: Yamis 
Description: This coat was for Yamis male. It was made mainly of hemp, with blue and gray horizontal strip of regular patterns on flaxen cloth.  It was a pullover, for there were no buttons.