ZHUOXI, Taiwan – The scent of damp earth fills the air on a recent moonless night as the hunter weaves through the dense mountain clouds, grabbing with a homemade rifle and using only the narrow white beam of a headlamp to illuminate his prey.
But the hunter, Vilian Istasipal, was confident. He knew this area well.
A member of the Bunun, one of the 16 officially recognized indigenous groups in Taiwan, Mr. Vilian (70), has been hunting in this country for over 60 years.
Some of his earliest memories of growing up in Zhuoxi, a city of about 6,000 people in eastern Taiwan, were engaged in a day-long hunt with his father deep in the mountains, where he learned essential skills. to be a Bunun man, like laying a snare, shooting a flying squirrel and skinning a bear.
“We kill them, but we also respect their lives,” he said. Vilian said in the courtyard of his house in Zhuoxi, also known as Takkei in the Bunun language.
Behind him was a visual proof of the decades-long hunt: barking deer, wild goat skulls, flying squirrel skins, a monkey preserved. He grabs a souvenir from one of his most precious murders: a wild boar’s head, still covered with coarse black hair.
“So big,” Mr. Vilian wondered as he rocked the animal’s head, twice as big as his own.
For thousands of years, the indigenous peoples of Taiwan hunted and fished with little interference. About four centuries ago, waves of colonial settlers began arriving from mainland China, Europe, and later also imperial Japan, leading to frequent violent clashes. Eventually, the indigenous people had to be forced to curtail their hunting traditions, assimilate their cultures and languages, and abandon their land rights.
Currently, there are about 580,000 indigenous people in Taiwan, or about 2 percent of the island’s population, who are mostly ethnic Han Chinese.
In response to years of economic and social marginalization, an indigenous rights movement has emerged here in recent decades. The movement gained ground as Taiwan, a self-governing territory claimed by Beijing, increasingly sought to separate a clear identity, separate from China. In 2016, President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan formally apologized to the island’s indigenous people for centuries of ‘pain and abuse’, the first leader to do so.
A general court case linked to traditional hunting has put indigenous rights in the spotlight.
The Taiwanese constitutional court is reviewing a case in which a Bunun man was sentenced in 2015 to three and a half years in prison for using an illegal firearm to hunt protected animals. The man, Talum Suqluman, also known as Tama Talum, said he followed the tribal habits and was looking for his sick mother who was used to eating wild game. The sentence was appealed, so Mr. Talum has not yet served a prison sentence.
Scholars and activists say that the result of Mr. Talum’s case could have major consequences for the indigenous rights movement in Taiwan. The court is expected to issue its interpretation on the status of indigenous hunting culture next month.
A decision in favor of Mr. Talum will promote the pressure on land rights and greater self-government, his supporters say.
“The court decision will be an important case,” said Awi Mona, a professor and expert in indigenous law at Dong Hwa National University in the eastern city of Hualien. “What we are actually discussing is the indigenous right to self-government over natural resources.”
Hunting has always been a central part of Taiwanese indigenous culture. In the green Eastern Rift Valley of Taiwan, the Bunun people maintained the practice even after being forced out of their traditional mountain homes by their colonial Japanese government in the 1930s.
Many Bunun have relocated to the foothills in towns like Zhuoxi, nestled between neatly fenced and rice fields and scattered with papaya trees and pink bougainvillea.
Indigenous hunting culture, as it is now, has been defined by an intricate web of taboos and rituals. Traditionally, only men can hunt. Beneath the Bunun is flatulence and sneezing are some of the many bad omens that can lead to a hunt. The same goes if a hunter has a bad dream.
In Bunun culture, the hunting of female deer in the spring, when they are likely to be pregnant, is off limits. The hunting of black bears, who are seen as friends, is also discouraged.
Among other groups, such as the Seediq and the Truku, the hunting culture is also limited by long-standing practices, the core of which is a belief in the fundamental balance between man and nature.
“When I see an animal, I feel like I’m destined to meet it,” said Alang Takisvilainan, 28, a Bunun hunter. He made a distinction with hunting in America, where the use of semi-automatic rifles effectively amounts to bullying the animals.
“That people and animals can have an honest fight,” he said, “I think it’s incredible.”
While only indigenous people can use rifles to hunt, they are not allowed to kill protected species such as leopards and Formosan black bears, and must use certain types of traps, knives or old-fashioned homemade rifles that can easily make jam and sometimes unsafe. The simple firearms are based on those long used by indigenous hunters and must be loaded with gunpowder before each shot.
They must also apply for permits, a process that involves answering questions that hunters consider absurd. For example, asking which animals a hunter plans to target is considered an insult to the indigenous belief that the animals are gifts from ancestors.
Although law enforcement was unequal, arrests continued over the years. Just to be safe, Bayan Tanapima, 62, said he was applying for a gun permit, even though he had been hunting since he was young.
“It’s very strange – we’ve lived in the mountains for so long, so why do we have to do it?” Mr. Bayan said. “They do not seem to approve of the indigenous way of life.”
Conservationists have argued that the weakening of such restrictions would be destructive to the environment and wildlife, rejecting animal rights advocates who see them as cruel practices. Defenders of local hunting traditions note that indigenous peoples have cared for the Taiwanese environment for thousands of years and that such expertise must be respected.
Ciang Isbabanal, a police officer working on indigenous issues in the nearby city of Yuli, said that although hunting laws are needed to restrict extreme behavior, the cultural taboos about hunting are so deeply rooted that outside supervision is unnecessary.
“I hope the country can respect their culture and give them space to live freely,” he said. Ciang, a Bunun, said who also hunts when he is not serving. “Having too many legal restrictions doesn’t work.”
Back in the woods on a recent night, Mr. Vilian, the 70-year-old hunter, pulled up the mountain to where he knew there were trees heavy with freshly ripened olives – a favorite snack of deer and pigs.
Mr. Vilian found a small bear writhing in a trap. According to tribal customs, it was still too young to be killed.
After wrapping it in his shirt, he went home to a late-night party of braised bamboo shoots and deer meat soup.
But before they could dig in, the ancestors had to be thanked. Mr. Vilian, his son, Qaivang, and mr. Bayan, his cousin, dips their fingers into a bowl of rice wine. They sprinkled a few drops on the bear – now in a rusty cage. The bear was later given to a family member to raise for a few years.
“Today we are very happy,” the men in the Bunun language chanted. “To our ancestors and mountain gods we thank you for giving us this food.”