Root Seeking and Remote Sensing with the Bunun in the Mountains of Taiwan

Abstract

Many Indigenous groups in Taiwan, including the Bunun, inhabited remote mountainous regions. Beginning in the 1930s, all mountain settlements were relocated to lower-lying areas by the colonial authorities. These groups lost the territories where they used to hunt, practice slash-and-burn agriculture, and carry out other social and cultural practices. Having being separated from their ancestral lands for decades, their knowledge of their former settlements and traditional ways of life is gradually disappearing. In recent years, there is a tendency among the younger generation of Indigenous people to organize and participate in roots-seeking expeditions. As their knowledge about the former settlements is limited, they seek help from the elderly—and archaeologists. Since 2014, I have collaborated with Bunun communities, recording their ancestors’ lands in the Lakulaku River Basin by joining archaeological surveys on roots-seeking trips. During these surveys, I had to learn Bunun values and gain knowledge of the Lakulaku River Basin via the bodily experience of moving through and being in the landscape with its traditional inhabitants. By applying remote-sensing technologies such as airborne lidar in our surveys, our team managed to identify and record settlements that were unfamiliar to the Bunun.

Older Is Not Necessarily Better: Decolonizing Ifugao History through the Archaeology of the Rice Terraces

“…It seeks to decenter Western epistemologies, prioritize Indigenous perspectives, and value local knowledge systems on par with scientific methods. This means recognizing and rectifying the historical power imbalances in the interpretation, narration, and stewardship of cultural heritage i.e., [8][9][10]. Decolonizing archaeology entails actively involving descendant communities in the research process, respecting their oral traditions, and acknowledging their sovereignty over their cultural narratives and material past [11][12][13].…”