Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa

PTE

NS FROM A

sa from a Steamer's Deck in passing-Hearsay in Japan concerning the I

ng been substantiated. But that the name should descend in the line of the mother, or that the newly married couple should take up its residence in the tribe or phratry of the bride, has not of necessity

"matriarchates of antiquity" I was inclined to class with the "Golden Age" of the Theosophists, as representing a state of affairs not only "too good to be true," but one in which the wish was-to paraphrase-father to the belief. And as to pre

often the case with a quest of any sort, rather by accident. Residence among the American Indians of New Mexico, of Arizona, and of Nevada, and a slight knowledge of the natives of certain of the Pacific Islands-particularly those of Hawaii and of the Philippines-had

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ating slowly past-an emerald on a turquoise bed. For on that day there was no typhoon or threat of typhoon, and on such a day the China Sea can, with its wonderful blueness and calm, make amends for the many other days on which, like the raging dragon that the Chinese peasants believe it veritably to be, of murky green, spitting white foam, deck-high, it threatens-and often brings-death and destruction to those who venture upon it. Nor was the emerald island a jewel in the rough. The Chinese call it Taiwan, a name which means, in the characters of their language, Terrace Beach, Chinese character.[3] This name[30] the Japanese-the present masters of the Isla

id colouring, and seemingly wondrously carved surface, remained with m

llous energy and skill of the Japanese in exploiting the resources of the island-sugar, camphor, tea-and the manufacture of opium, a Government monopoly. From the English, Scottish, and Canadian missionaries st

ese dirty head-hunters had dared to rebel against the Japanese Government of the island. Of the manners and customs of the aborigines, however, the Japanese seemed wholly ignorant. Nor were the missionaries from Formosa much better informed, as far as the aborigines were concerned. Their mission work, they said, was confined to the Chinese population of the island, with now and then tactful attempts at the conversion of the Japanese. But as for

al of misinformation. One book in particular, I remember, written obviously by one who had never been there, gave the impression t

-measures" of extraordinary severity taken by the Japanese Government of Formosa against certain of the aboriginal tribes, some members of which had risen in revolt against the Japanese gendarmerie (Aiyu-sen) placed in authority over them. This curiously cruel strain in the J

ur" could, finances permitting, have easily been arranged. I would have been most politely received by the Japanese officials of the island, and escorted by them to those places which they wished me to see, and introduced to those people whom they wished me to meet. Such had been the experience of several "foreigners" who had gone to visit the island and "study its people." To live for any length of time in Formosa o

n to other things. Then, curiously enough, as coincidences always seem curious when they affect ourselves, a few months later, when I was in Kyoto, studying Mahayana

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lation of a European tongue. This in rather curious contrast to their ability for imitation in other respects. No; teaching English to Japanese was no sinecure. But it opened for me the way to go to Formosa; it gave me an "excuse for being," as far as existence on