Resistance is something that can come in many forms — protesting, rebellion, violence, peace. For the Indigenous peoples of Taiwan, it has looked different from what one might expect.
“Under [colonial] rule, Indigenous peoples find it so hard to be human beings,” Ayah Demaladas — who delivered a talk, “Spirit, Indigenous Women, and the Church,” on Tuesday — said to me. “You have to … learn their language, their history, and to deny your history as well. … When I was young, I was taught that I’m Chinese.”
Demaladas — who also goes by her Chinese name, Hong Chung-Chih — is part of the Pinuyumayan people of Taiwan, from the community of Kasavakan. She is an Indigenous scholar, currently a PhD candidate at McGill University’s School of Religious Studies, and a professor of theology. She’s also a Christian, specifically Presbyterian, as are many Indigenous Taiwanese people. Of the Pangcah, Taiwan’s largest Indigenous group, around 70 percent are Christian, despite the religion being a significant minority in the country as a whole.
“Missionaries told us that everyone is created in the image of God, and God loves everyone,” she said, explaining why so many Indigenous peoples embraced the religion at the midpoint of the 20th century. “It’s unconditional love.”
Taiwan has a long and complicated history of occupation. Relatively brief Dutch and Spanish settlements in the early- to mid-1600s were followed by over two centuries under the Qing dynasty, after which the island became a colony of imperial Japan. This rule lasted until 1945, ending in Japan’s surrender of the territory to the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT), which proceeded to control Taiwan for over 40 years under military rule.
Indigenous peoples suffered under occupation. Japanese rule was violent, and restrictive policies of the KMT meant that many Indigenous children born after the 1940s never learned to speak their native languages, as they were instead forced to speak and write in Chinese. Much of this knowledge was not able to be restored until a written system for these indigenous languages was developed.
The KMT’s push for cultural homogeneity led to rampant ethnic discrimination throughout all of Taiwan that persists in the current-day strife between the island and mainland China. In the case of Indigenous peoples, this meant that its plethora of communities with different languages, traditions, and cultural practices were treated as one and the same.
The history of Christian missionaries in Taiwan traces back to the time of Dutch occupation, but circumstances changed in the mid-20th century.
“If the colonists want to control our bodies, but we Indigenous people believe that our spirits and souls are not comfortable, [they aren’t] able to control our minds,” Demaladas said. “[So] they went into the church.”
In this way, embracing Christianity became a method of resistance against the imposition of Han culture on Taiwan’s Indigenous populations — the inverse of the relationship many Indigenous peoples all over the world have to the religion. Still, it wasn’t as though this shift occurred entirely out of free will.
“When we went into the church, we were actually [just] entering another colonial mindset,” Demaladas said.
Christian beliefs frequently emphasize individualism and patriarchy — the very opposite of the communal, matrilineal heritage upheld by Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. Many women have lost the equal footing that they were once on, a struggle that Demaladas focuses on in her studies.
After Christianity became more widespread in these communities, it became more difficult for many to practice their traditions. The severity of this varies by sect; in Catholic communities, they are typically not outright prevented from doing so. In many Presbyterian ones like Demaladas’, however, many are encouraged to go as far as burning their traditional clothes.
Still, for many Indigenous peoples in the 1900s, the Church was better than the alternative. Embracing the loving teachings of an “American God” — a term Demaladas said is common — alleviated the pain of colonial rule. Over time, that’s become ingrained into much of the culture.
“I just want to show Christianity’s impact on Indigenous people’s lives [in] Taiwan,” Demaladas said. “We are not encouraged to criticize our church. … In many ways, I’m kind of like a freak in Taiwan.”
Demaladas came to Oberlin as the fourth speaker in this semester’s installments of the Indigenous Student Council’s Indigenous Women & Trans Series. College fourth-year Anora Lee, the Council’s communications officer, emphasized how the series attempts to bring in speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences.
“[They connect] the academic sphere with the Indigenous sphere, which aren’t necessarily separate, but [they still] really bring that together,” Lee said.
The ISC is involved in several projects throughout the College and City, including collaboration with the town’s Indigenous People’s Day Committee, connecting with the City’s Indigenous community, working on a land acknowledgement for the College, and slowly trying to establish a Native Studies department. Above all, Lee said, the organization wants to make Indigenous students feel comfortable and find community at Oberlin.
“We want to be educational, but we also don’t want our entire job to be educating people about our existence,” she added. “Especially because we’re a group of very diverse Indigenous peoples. … We don’t necessarily have the same struggles.”
In her talk, too, Demaladas emphasized the wide range of struggles faced and traditions practiced not just by Indigenous communities worldwide, but even just within Taiwan itself; even today, how they experience the lingering effects of colonization remains varied. No two Indigenous women’s struggles in Taiwan are the same. Still, Demaladas is confident that, one day, circumstances will improve.
“I hope that I will see, in the future, these women [being] like me,” she said to me when we spoke. “You know, speaking out and trying to share this lived experience with others.”
“Hopefully that’ll happen,” I said.
“It will,” she said, emphatically. “Just wait. It will.”
