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- Panel 1-4 Fish as First Foods Among Indigenous Atayal Communities in Taiwan /Brendan A. Galipeau
Panel 1-4 Fish as First Foods Among Indigenous Atayal Communities in Taiwan /Brendan A. Galipeau
Brendan A. Galipeau
Assistant professor, Institute of Anthropology, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan
Atayal communities in the mountains of Yilan in northeast Taiwan have for long periods been associated with an indigenous and today highly endangered species of salmon, the Formosan Landlocked Salmon (Oncorhynchus masou formosanus). Once a major food source for some Atayal communities, the fish is now faced with possible extinction and has become a national symbol for conservation while serving as a bellwether for climate change. Today national park managers and conservation officials in Taiwan have worked to involve Atayal communities in habitat restoration, monitoring, and fish recovery, calling upon the Atayal supposed close relations with the salmon as a major food source in past times. Based on ethnographic evidence, we can say that while this fish did serve as a major source of food for some Atayal communities in the past, it was not the most important source of food or species of fish to Yilan Atayal identity and indigenous practice. While some communities found themselves living side by side with salmon and began to cultivate and develop this fish as a food source, in fact, another species of fish, known as kole balay in Atayal, was more closely aligned with indigenous identities in the Yilan region and often even called the fish of the Atayal. This species is very often used in ceremonies and rituals with respect to feasts and other occasions and considered an essential source of both livelihoods and identity for these indigenous communities. In Chinese this fish is called 苦花魚 or ‘bitter flower fish’. This is a Shovel Jaw Carp (Onychostoma barbatulum), and like the Formosan Landlocked salmon it requires clean, cool, and fast flowing water to thrive, perpetuating the importance among the Atayal regarding water and river protection to protect and perpetuate the fish. Acknowledging the importance of kole balay and its cultivation to Yilan Atayal identity, in this paper I frame and discuss fish rearing and river conservation among the Atayal as a form of practice in ‘first foods’, drawing from scholarship among indigenous communities and salmon in the Pacific Northwest of America. Here salmon and other species of fish such as lamprey are framed as vital and essentially to indigenous sovereignty, making their conservation and perpetuation essential to indigenous revitalization and survival.
Assistant professor, Institute of Anthropology, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan
Atayal communities in the mountains of Yilan in northeast Taiwan have for long periods been associated with an indigenous and today highly endangered species of salmon, the Formosan Landlocked Salmon (Oncorhynchus masou formosanus). Once a major food source for some Atayal communities, the fish is now faced with possible extinction and has become a national symbol for conservation while serving as a bellwether for climate change. Today national park managers and conservation officials in Taiwan have worked to involve Atayal communities in habitat restoration, monitoring, and fish recovery, calling upon the Atayal supposed close relations with the salmon as a major food source in past times. Based on ethnographic evidence, we can say that while this fish did serve as a major source of food for some Atayal communities in the past, it was not the most important source of food or species of fish to Yilan Atayal identity and indigenous practice. While some communities found themselves living side by side with salmon and began to cultivate and develop this fish as a food source, in fact, another species of fish, known as kole balay in Atayal, was more closely aligned with indigenous identities in the Yilan region and often even called the fish of the Atayal. This species is very often used in ceremonies and rituals with respect to feasts and other occasions and considered an essential source of both livelihoods and identity for these indigenous communities. In Chinese this fish is called 苦花魚 or ‘bitter flower fish’. This is a Shovel Jaw Carp (Onychostoma barbatulum), and like the Formosan Landlocked salmon it requires clean, cool, and fast flowing water to thrive, perpetuating the importance among the Atayal regarding water and river protection to protect and perpetuate the fish. Acknowledging the importance of kole balay and its cultivation to Yilan Atayal identity, in this paper I frame and discuss fish rearing and river conservation among the Atayal as a form of practice in ‘first foods’, drawing from scholarship among indigenous communities and salmon in the Pacific Northwest of America. Here salmon and other species of fish such as lamprey are framed as vital and essentially to indigenous sovereignty, making their conservation and perpetuation essential to indigenous revitalization and survival.