The Yami of Irala

Ancient tradition asserts that a flying fish once instructed the Yami in practices and taboos that continue to this day

Forty-five nautical miles off the southeastern coast of Taiwan, to which it belongs, the island of Irala consists of a compact, circular chain of high hills linking at least two extinct volcanoes. The island has virtually no plains; its lopes are short and steep. It has a surface area of only thirty square miles. Known by many names throughout history, the Taiwanese now call it Lan Yu Tao (Orchid Island). In the local language, it is referred to as Pongso No Tawo (island of the people) or Irala (land, in the sense of a landward direction when navigating). Irala is more frequently used in the local folklore.

Irala's indigenous people, the Yami, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian group of peoples. They speak a Bashiic dialect that is part of the large family of Autronesian languages. The Yami rarely had any contact with Formosa during the Ching Dynasty (1644-1912). The Japanese, who occupied the island from 1985 to 1945, declared it an open-air museum from ethnological research and closed it to the public. Yami culture therefore remained one of the most authentic in Southeast Asia.

Although several epidemics have reduced the population since the beginning of this century, at present there are about twice as many people as there were in 1946, but the exact figure is not known. Less than two thousand natives live in six villages on the coast, each containing about three hundred people. There are no settlements in the interior. Including the Taiwanese working on the island (educators, military personnel, and technicians from the one power plant), the population is about three thousand people.

Farming and fishing

Farmers and fishermen, the Yami rely for subsistence on a large annual catch of flying fish and on wet taro, yams, and millet. Fifteen different kinds of taro are grown on wet terraces are harvested throughout the year. Because of the destructive force of the annual typhoons and the damaging effect of the brackish sea spray, no vegetables grow on the island except for root crops. Fruit is also scarce. Most common are bananas, coconuts, papayas, and the fruit of the chayi tree.

Taro fields can be owned by families or lineages but can also be used by the entire village. Rituals of house inauguration or boat launching, which are like potlatch ceremonies, cause the biggest strain on one's taro crops. On these occasions, the roof of the new house, or a new boat, is covered with taro. Many tubers need to be removed from the water terraces at the same time. In order not to abuse one's existing root-crop supplies, the Yami clean, flood, and plant new patches of land with taro three to four years (the length of time the roots require to mature) prior to house or boat building. This practice ensures that the demands for taro in inauguration rituals will not conflict with the safety limits of the food supplies. If there isn't enough taro, boats cannot be carved, painted, and inaugurated in the traditional manner.

Seafood is an important part of the daily diet. Several times a week, women gather shells, seaweed, and small fish from the holes of the coral near the shoreline. All other fishing is performed by men. Spearfishing is done with homemade spears propelled by thick rubber bands released from a simple wooden mechanism. They Yami also practice small-and large-net fishing. Both methods drive schools of fish into U-shaped nets that have been fixed to the ocean bottom, at an average depth of two to four meters for small nets, and six to eight meters for large nets.

Large-net fishing requires the use of a boat. Between twenty-five and forty divers participate, each equipped with instruments to scare the fish. The divers drive the fish into the large net as though they were cattle. The large net is then lifted slowly into the boat, and the catch is taken to the shore, where stone chips are used to scale the fish. The scaled fish are then put back into the boat, and the group performs one or two more drives. On a lucky day, the catch may total over a thousand fish; five to six hundred fish is considered a good catch.

Small-net fishing is performed in a similar fashion, but there is no boat with the divers. The group is usually made up of four to eight people. The fish are caught in a net fixed to the ocean floor and then put into the divers' net bags. Several drives can be performed before the net is relocated to an undisturbed area. The yield of small-net fishing may be as much per capita as large-net fishing may be as much per capital as large-net fishing, but due to the considerable difference in the depth fished, different species are caught.

The large nets are usually owned by groups of relatives or friends. Net owners may invite other relatives or friends to participate for an equal share of the final catch, especially when many of the owners cannot participate. Active participants usually receive a larger share of the catch than nonparticipating owners. If a group borrows a net from another group, they will return the net with a share of the catch, perhaps as much as half of the total catch, which then will be equally distributed among the owners. Thus, the success of a catch is determined both by the number of fish that each equal share contains, and also by the composition of each equal share according to Yami taboo categories--the rahed, or fish eaten only by men, and ovod, or fish that can be eaten by both men and women.

Small-and large-net fishing is practiced from the middle of June to the end of February. The flying-fish season starts at the end of February and it may last till the end of June. During this period, all other means of fishing are taboo. Octopus and crab may be caught, however, and kono shells may be collected.

Yami divers catch octopus using special skills and a metal hook called a sagit. First, they spot an octopus in a coral hole, then tease it so that it flashes out a tentacle or two in an attempt to grab the sagit. By the thickness and length of the tentacles, the diver can tell the creature's size. A large one is usually caught by more than one diver, for such an octopus could easily drown a lone man.

Hooking the octopus with the sagit, the diver wrenches the mollusk from its hiding hole. In a desperate struggle, octopus and man fight their way to the surface. The enraged octopus squirts ink and snaps its tentacles around the diver's head and shoulders, while the diver tries to hold it away from himself. Yamis claim the next step is particularly dangerous, because the struggling octopus can seriously wound an unskilled diver with its strong, sharp bill: At the surface, the diver bites the hooked octopus' eye. The octopus then loses its strength, enabling the diver to remove its tentacles.

During the summer fishing season, the Yami may spend as much as eighteen hours a day on or near the ocean. During the daytime, men fish for tuna in small boats, or perform large-net fishing from large boats. At night, by torchlight, men continue to fish from large boats or to conduct dragnet fishing from small boats.

Fish taboos

Since the Yami rely so heavily on a large annual catch of flying fish, it has become one of the greatest taboo-generating elements in their culture. According to legend, the Yami suffered from all kinds of skin diseases, but one night, a black-winged flying fish appeared in a man's dream. The fish instructed him how to fell trees, build boats, and how to catch and scale, cut and dry flying fish. It also promised to return each year, provided the Yami respected several instructions and conditions, which are still practiced today in all six villages on the island.

Fish are divided into two basic categories: marahet a among (bad fish), usually called rahed, and ovod a among (real fish), usually called ovod. Fish defined as ovod can be eaten by both men and women' rahed can be eaten only by men. There are even further taboo categories. Some fish may not be eaten at all; some may not be eaten by residents of certain villages. Certain species may be eaten only by the elderly--some only by old men. And some only by old women. Certain fish are edible only by adults; other species may be eaten only by pregnant women; still others may be consumed only by women after childbirth.

The Yami have named approximately 450 species of fish. Of these, 88 species are taboo for everybody, and the remaining 362 species are considered edible. About 60 of these species are occasionally taboo to men. About 60 are always taboo to women, and 140 fall under occasional taboo. Another 37 may be eaten by women occasionally. Only 4 species of fish can be eaten by pregnant women. Women are allowed to choose from 199 species, depending on which taboos apply. Thus, out of the total number of edible fish, men may eat one-third more fish than women.

Boat and house building

The most important manufacturing activities are boat building, house building, and weaving. Once an important tradition, making earthen pots has become an activity of the past because of the introduction of durable metal pots and pans. There is no tradition of building musical instruments, not even drums. All Yami music is sung a Capella.

Because of the many typhoons during the summer, houses are traditionally built in rectangular pits in the ground, with only the roofs showing. Inside the house, the floors are made of wooden planks, on which the Yami sleep without bedding.

The natives make boats of different sizes: one-two-, or three-person boats, and rarely six-person boats. The largest ones are for ten people. Small boats usually belong either to one person or an entire family. Fishing associations, composed of several families of the same or different lineages, own the six- or ten-person boats. Boats are carved and painted in red, white, and black.

The boats are made of several boards, mounted symmetrically on the keel, and fastened to each other with wooden pegs. The spaces between boards are caulked with tree cotton to prevent leaking. Taboo forbids the use of old boards in new boats. Boats can be made by one person, but feeling trees, cutting the boards, and transporting them from the rain forest to the village is very hard work. Family members and friends of the building party are usually all involved in the work, and participants receive shares of taro and meat. Relatives living in different villages who did not participate in the work receive a share as well.

Kinship and social organization

The largest unit in Yami society is the tribe, a word used here in its anthropological sense, to refer to a population larger than a band but smaller than a state. Ping-hsiung Liu provided the following description of Yami kinship in his 1962 study: The Yami have a patrilineal system which is determined by descent as well as by residential rules. The existence of this system with the Yami has not been sufficiently recognized, but has been mistaken for a bilateral or cognatic type of society. In fact, every village unit is constituted of more than one group of lineage segments. … The closest relationship is called ripus, including three generations of kindreds, and four sets of cousins, while the inainapo includes five generations of parents and extends to third cousins. The former is regarded as an incest group, while the latter is considered responsible for blood vengeance. Of course, many other functional performances are executed by these cognatic corporate groups.

The Yami are monogamous. The incest taboo of ripus has been substituted for an exogamic rule, but the conception of ripus is not strictly delimited. Apparently, the first cousins of two parental sides are considered fully ripus, second cousins are half ripus, and third cousins are regarded as quarter ripus. But from third cousins on, marriage is tolerated. Marriages of fourth cousins are considered most acceptable.

The Yami have no unitary authority of local groups and no permanent chieftainships. Certain principles of leadership are recognized, however: gerontocracy, priesthood of the fishing ceremony, combatant heroes, and chiefs of fighting groups. Rich men of the village are informally recognized.

Crimes are clearly distinguished from transgressions. There is no public informer and no juridical organization in their village communities. Every offense is disposed of first by the kin groups of both parties and then compromised by the temporal council of village elders. Final decisions, such as blood vengeance, may then be taken by the cognatic groups that are called asa so inawan, recruited from the families on both sides, extending to the third degree of kindred.

The nature of the Yami ownership system is extremely rich, manifold, and complicated. It includes the natural resource3s of land and sea, the materials necessary for ceremonial usages, and raw materials for handicraft and decorative artifacts. Ownership may be divided into four categories: communal ownership exercised by the village units and lineage groups, private possession of households, and individual ownership. The natural resources in the sea and the wild fields belong to the villages in common, while dry land and the irrigation system are administered by the patrilineal groups. Wet taro fields and homesteads are all possessed by households. Utensils, weapons, clothes, and ornaments are regarded as personal possessions.

Ceremonial life and cosmology

The numerous Yami ceremonial occasions are extremely varied is scope and quality. Those that are not related to a certain date include inaugurations of boats, houses, and new clothing, taboo washing of woven items, name giving, and funerals. Those that are performed at fixed dates or within the fishing season include ceremonies performed for safety during the approaching fishing season, fish summoning, cleansing from infringements of a fishing taboo, bringing the catch home, lifting taboos, closing the season, pounding millet, and exchanging gifts of dried fish.

The traditional Yami belief system involves a cosmology that today is either not well developed or has gradually regressed from a more sophisticated level. Although Christianity has been introduced to the Yami, it has not become their new religion. They have, however, blended Christian concepts (Catholic and Presbyterian) into their overall polytheistic cosmology. Many Yami have joined one of the two Christian denominations, and some have become devout Christians. Their fears of demons continue, however, and if a professing Christian dies under tabooed circumstances, he or she may very well not receive a Christian burial.

Yami cosmology consists of several divine layers. The first layer is inhabited by the main god Simo-Rapao. He is in charge of all the other gods, who report their observations to him and complain about the activities of the people of Irala. It is Simo-Rapao who created the first two people and who passes out punishments according to the suggestions of the other gods. These include all sorts of natural calamities and usually affect at least a whole village.

The Yami creation story involves genesis from stone and bamboo, elements common in the Southeast Asian folklore. The myth starts with an empty island. A rock is thrown down from Heaven by the Supreme Being. The rock opens, and the first man is born. Then a piece of bamboo is thrown down on the island, out of which a girl is born. Due to additional divine interventions, they manage to grow up. Genesis from the knee follows, and a boy and a girl are born who will populate the island. Their offspring are born blind because of incest, but after the incest taboo is introduced, offspring are born healthy.

After many generations, a pregnant woman goes to the shore one day at low tide and overturns a white coral stone. Seawater gushes out from underneath the stone, and the tide rises to cover the island, killing off all both two men. Two heavenly maidens, sent to Earth by the Supreme Being, are discovered, and thus the island is repopulated.

The creation myths of Irala do not, however, include the creation of the universe or the birth of any of their gods. Some elderly yami remember having heard that in ancient times heaven and Earth were one and the same, but a giant separated them, and this is how the sky and the land came into being. They also once believed that the Milky Way was made up of fish that jumped from the ocean and stuck to the firmament before the separation of Heaven and Earth. These story fragments, however, are not told as part of any of the yami creation myths.

The second layer of the Yami cosmology hosts Sio-Mima who, according to some Yamis, is in charge of the rest of the world, which consists of the islands of Japan, Ivatan, Taiwan and America, where all white people live. The third layer is the place of Si-Toryaw, who brings the rains and lightning. The messenger of the gods is Si-Lovolovoin, whose name is sometimes mentioned in the Yami chants requesting an abundance of flying fish during the fishing season.

In the lowest layer of the Yami Heaven reside some of the malevolent gods, such as Si-Videy and Si-Pariod, who occasionally stuff their potbellies with taro and yams, leaving hardly enough crops for the people to survive. Horrid invasions of caterpillars and locusts are attributed to them, and they are also known to report on people to Si-Lovolovoin, who forwards the complaint to Simo-Rapao. Two female supernatural entities, the Pina Langalangao, are not deities, but they do have control over a person's birth and lifetime.

The gods are rarely mentioned in everyday life, and their names seldom occur in myths. Yami men present a sacrificial offering to all the gods during only one annual celebration. The timing of this ceremony, in December, is believed to have something to do with the beginning of millet sowing. During the ritual, the gods are not mentioned by their names but are called akey do to (heavenly grandfathers). In everyday life and in the local mythology, the gods are referred to as tawo do to (person from above).

Yami fear of the dead

In a Yami person's daily life, the most important representatives of their pantheon are not the gods but the "ghosts" (not an exact translation). They are also the most sophisticated components of the Yami belief system.

According to traditional Yami belief, in the human body there is the pahad (freely translatable as "main soul") that resides in the head and several other souls located primarily in the joints. The latter ones occasionally leave the body at the time of sickness or severe distress, but they can be recalled by means of magic. When a person dies, his pahad will fly away to a place that they call Malavang a Pongso (White Island). The ones living in other parts of the body will become anito ((evil ghosts), who roam the island to harm the people.

Thus, the strongest Yami taboos are related to the dead--especially to funerals and burial grounds. Because of these taboos, the Yami live in a constant, uncontrollable fear of the dead.

The sense of the word anito is not quite clear. Most Yami agree that it designates an invisible entity. But the corpse is also spoken of as an anito. Furthermore, they often talk about the anito no mavyay a tawo (the ghost of the living person). This should not be confused with the pahad of a living person. What the yami possibly mean is that there is a potential malevolent ghost in all the living, and in certain cases the malevolence is being manifested even during a person's lifetime. It is not clear whether the "ghost of the living person" is the same as the ghosts that are released at the time of death. The Yami themselves cannot tell the difference. Whenever pressed, they make up some fantastic, unacceptable answer.

According to Siapen-Sirongen, a native of Yayo village, the journey of the main anito to White Island takes place in several phases. When a person dies a natural death, the anito, which resides in the head, flies down to the ancestral landing-place, where a boat containing previously deceased relatives is waiting. They receive the antio aboard and immediately proceed to an island, where they wait for several days. After the newly arrived anito has lost its death-stench, which may take three to seven days, the party again boards the ship, and they sail to White Island. The place of the intermediate stop was named by the narrator as Tung-sa island (the Mandarin name of the Pratas Islands, an atoll-like formation of a few small islands in the South China Sea).

Siapen-Mangavat, a native of Imorod village, explained the ghosts as follows: The ghosts lure people with temptations, they make good-hearted people turn bad, and they make people feel sick. Ghosts make even their own children sick and their own relatives as well. This is how people get ill or injured. These are all the wrongdoings of the ghosts.

The good anito, whenever they hear that their relatives are about to have a celebration, row their own boats to the island of the Yami and take the fruit offerings of their relatives, after which they return to their island.

The anito of bad people will enter all kinds of bodies. They will enter not only people's hearts but also that of animals, and of fish, causing injuries and sickness. The anito of insane people cause sickness in their relatives.

Ghosts also harm plants and eat some too. Ghosts can make wings for themselves and fly, walk on the surface of the ocean, make their own boats or make wings for themselves and fly, walk on the surface of the ocean, make their own boats or make their own taro fields. They can do anything. Since they were once living people they can do anything that people can do.

Long ago, the caves were full of ghosts and they all had a huge fire burning. People had not used fire yet that time, it came from the ghosts. Such bad ghosts can also enter the body of a pig and make the animal eat things which originate or have something to do with ghosts. Bad ghosts can also enter the body of fish. When diving, if one is bit or stung by something, that is also the doing of the ghosts. Bad-hearted people after death may also become bamboo snakes and lie in wait on the taro fields to bite the feet of people. So this is how the bad ghosts act. When one is depressed or prone to steal or fight, it is all caused by the ghosts. When it is day for us, it is night for the ghosts and vice versa.

The yami practice both interment and exposure burial. The decision about the kind of burial depends on the circumstances surrounding someone's death. If someone dies of old age and was known throughout life as a good person, then interment is chosen. If the person was considered mean, having used black magic to cause sickness, distress, or even death, exposure burial is chosen. In the case of accidental death during work in the jungle, or (more frequently) during diving, the corpse is not even returned to the family home, but is carried straight to the disposal site for exposure burial.

In the village of Yayo, this site consists of the ledges and the crevices of a huge wave-breaking rock called Igang. The corpses of children are either buried at the children's burial ground or deposited in the clefts of old coral rocks by the shore. In recent years, the government of the Republic of China has strongly discouraged exposure burials, and as a result the practice has declined.

If death occurs after sunset or shortly before sunset so that there is no time to bury the corpse before the setting of the sun, interment will take place early the next morning. It is never carried out in the dark.

The Yami mourn their dead. Parents wail for their children, and children for their parents, citing the good qualities or brave deeds of the deceased. If the body stays in the home overnight, nobody sleeps and a mourning ritual is performed in the fashion of a wake. According to most informants in Yayo, the reason for not sleeping is to be alert against the possible danger of being harmed by the ghost of the newly deceased. The corpse is even verbally associated with a malevolent ghost, and likewise, the mourning house is associated with the abode of the ghost by the rest of the village.

Magic

Both white and black magic are practiced by the Yami. While white magic can be performed by anyone, black magic is usually performed only by people who do not have children, because according to Yami belief, the children of those who perform maniblis, as they call it, will surely die. Not only the children but finally the performer of black magic himself will die as well.

The most horrible deed in the realm of black magic is to bring someone into contact with the sand of the burial ground. According to several Yami explanations, the person who wants to harm others goes to the cemetery and collects a handful of earth or sand. On his way home, he may just throw it on his enemy's roof, or right into his house. Local belief holds that the mixing of the sand into someone's drinking water produces the strongest effect. After the deed has been committed, the person who serves as a target for the magic, together with all the members of the home, will soon get sick and may even die. The performer of magic will not escape his or her fate either, and if he or she does not die of sickness, surely some kind of accident will cause the performer to meet the same fate as the victim.

Another form of black magic involves the use of a small lizard called gozagozan. If someone steals another person's root crops or bananas, the aggrieved party may take revenge by performing the following ritual. He catches a lizard and slashes it with his knife, or guts it without killing it, and urges the innocent lizard to avenge the unjust suffering by harming the primal cause of the incident--the thief. Another version reduces this rite to homeopathic magic with a touch of voodoo-like behavior: The aggrieved party wraps the dying lizard in a banana peel left behind by the thief, hangs it on the plundered tree, or places it in one of the culprit's footprints. Then he murmurs over the suffering lizard: "The one who stole my crop should suffer like this lizard." The general idea is that the lizard will have to look for the culprit to avenge its unjustly inflicted suffering.

Yet another form of black magic involves the vine of a rattanlike plant. Like most black-magic-related items, this is also referred to as kamanrarahet\ (the bad one, the evil one, or the tabooed one). The performer of this type of magic does not use any secrecy. It is performed with the consent of all the parties involved. For example, if two persons disagree on the rightful ownership of any kind of property, and if they have exhausted all peaceful possibilities of settling the matter, they will resort to the ultimate judge--the kamanrarahet. They go to a certain place outside the village, and they place a piece of the vine on a certain rock known for serving this purpose. Then, one at a time, each of the men will present his argument, after which he will cut through the vine with his knife. According to Yami belief, the person who lies or is wrong will die within a year.

The yami also employ a "conditional curse." If a person leaves a pile of cut wood in the forest, or has a tree with ripening fruits, and wants to make certain that they will not be abused in any form, the person makes knots in a certain shape on a handful of grass and leaves it in a conspicuous position next to their property. For the traditional Yami this is not only a "keep out" sign but a matter of potential trouble that "may not be controlled if it happens."

The Yami believe that if they squat at the edges of the irrigated taro fields, or stand bent over their plants while plucking them, they are always potential targets for the ghosts to sneak up on them. To protect themselves from these attacks, they stick a small bundle of grass, sinasa, has a strong fiber. The Yami believe its sharp points can prick right through the ghosts' skin. Sinasa is very widely used among the Yami. It appears in almost every story in which a Yami fights the ghosts.

Special 'diviners'

Certain forms of magic are the exclusive privilege of special individuals. These "psychic" activities include detection of ailments and their healing, prediction of certain events, locating lost objects, and revealing the truth about lying, mischief, theft, and crimes committed secretly. People with the ability to perform these activities are called by a variety of names according to the goal of their magic and the way they perform it: zomyak, somkey, mamahad, makahaw, and makazid. "Diviner" is the best English translation for these Yami terms.

A zomyak is a person who can detect, identify, and heal a sickness. It is believed that the magic power of the person comes from a celestial agent, who can be akey ta do to (our heavenly grandfather)--the "Supreme Being" of the Yami myths, or more recently, "our Lord" of the Christian faith. A zomyak can heal without having to touch the sick, simply by invoking and concentrating the healing power upon the suffering person. Of course, if the sickness is due to the presence of a malicious ghost, the zomyak can promptly chase it away. He or she can interpret dreams, cause coconuts to fall to the ground from their branches, and command birds to do the same thing as they fly through the sky. According to myth, a close encounter with death can instantly make a person a zomyak. All cases of possession, especially those manifested as trances, fall into this category.

A somkey (synonymous with a mamahad) is a healer. While murmuring certain spells to make his intervention efficient, he massages the limbs or body of a sick person. He can obtain and interpret important information about the sickness from the crackling noise produced when pulling the patient's finger joints.

A makahaw is a native who can tell right away if another person has lied, stolen, or committed a punishable crime. There is no way to keep anything secret from the makahaw. He or she will know of all adulteries and can even detect adulterous thoughts. If someone violates taboos or performs black magic of some sort, the makahaw will know that too.

A makazid is someone who is endowed with the ability to see ghosts. He can see them day or night as they walk down the village paths, in the rain forest, at the shore, or on the ocean. The ghosts do know that he can see them, and so they all fear a makazid. He or she cannot only see the ghosts, of course, but can also threaten them and chase them away and, by virtue of this fact, heal. If a native loses his pahad to a ghost, the makazid can go and get it back from the evil ones, who are visible only to the makazid.

These are the main divisions of Yami diviners, but in reality these categories are not sharply divided. Folklore asserts that they constantly infringe on each other's assumed sphere of activity. Sometimes the somkey is also reported to have had the power of knowing about the whereabouts of lost people, and threre are cases when the makazid healed his suffering fellow man by means of rubbing his body while uttering a spell. As for pulling at the finger joints to tell the future, this is performed in the myths also by protagonists who were not known as diviners.

The zomyak of Yayo village, for example, is a middle-aged woman, and a well-known person on the island. She is believed to be able usually to tell, while in a trance, what the ailment of a sick person is, where certain persons are, where lost objects lie, or whatever an aggrieved party would like to know.

The Yami have neither professional priests nor magicians or medicine men or women. Since there are no leaders, not even persons who are primus inter pares, there can be no such professionals because that would automatically create a new social category. This does not preclude the presence of individuals among the Yami who carry out activities performed only by professionals in other societies. Yami diviners need not be considered amateurs. No diviner earns his or her livelihood from the practice of magic: All attend to farming and fishing.

Pregnancy taboos

The Yami observe many taboos. The fiercest ones--those which create the greatest anxiety level if violated--are related to anything connected with death and burial.

The living generate taboos as well--for instance, the taboos families observe when a woman is pregnant, from conception to the postpartum period. One can only wonder how such complicated prohibitions can be memorized and so strictly respected.

First of all, the word pregnant is banned in most conversations during such subsistence activities as fishing, farming, cooking, drying fish, making boats, and building houses. Pregnant women are not allowed to go down to the ancestral landing place. According to some versions of creation myth, the great flood was caused by a pregnant woman. Yamis use the words mamili so kanen (the one who has to choose her food), meaning a woman who has to observe the strict food taboo. The husband of a pregnant woman may not join the divers, and nobody is allowed to accept from or give to him or to any member of his family a share of any common or individual catch. The expectant husband and wife are not allowed to tough any item of fishing paraphernalia, and are not permitted to attend meetings where decisions are made relating to subsistence activity.

The Yamis have a long list of fish that are taboo for the husband from the moment his wife becomes pregnant. They believe that if these taboos are not followed, terrible things could happen to the child's health and appearance: severe headaches, a protruding fishlike mouth, a red face, worms in the stomach, skin as dark as a fish, diseases of the mouth, a fishlike nose, or a red mark around the neck through which body liquids will ooze. If the butterfly fish is eaten, since they mostly swim in pairs, twins may be born and will have to be killed, as twins are considered a bad omen. Kazab (turban shells) are also forbidden, for if someone violates this interdiction, the child will drool constantly while producing a slurping sound, like the shell when it closes. Yamis believe that if the taboo of eating squid, who swim with their head backward, is violated, the child will have problems learning how to walk properly, and probably will always try to walk backward.

The day after birth, a name must be given to the newborn. The naming is somewhat similar to Christian baptism. The mother, brothers, sisters, and the karios (midwife) gather in the house with the infant. The father goes to the canal at the family's irrigated taro field and fills a receptacle with water. He must return home immediately. On the way it is taboo to stop, to engage in conversation of any sort, or to look at the ocean. He must be very careful not to stumble, or hit his foot against anything on the road. He must pay the greatest attention not to spill even one drop of water. Any violation of these taboos will surely result in immediate or premature death of the infant. When he gets home, the members of the family sprinkle water on the top of the child's head while saying, "yako imo sabey so toktok" (I mark you on the top of your head). Several long phrases of good wishes for health, knowledge, and prosperity follow.

The fruit of Barringtonia asiatica, a kind of breadfruit tree, is highly taboo to all Yamis. If the fruit, or worse, a branch of the tree, is put into someone's home, then the person will surely get sick. The fruit of the tree is called teva, and it is so feared that its mere mention is considered indecent or aggressive. Many fights often start with an exchange of insults in which "teva teva ina mo" (your mother, teva) ranks as one of the worst. Unlike calling someone's mother bad names in the West, this oath is worse. It creates a verbal contagion that involves the evil plant and the mother of the opponent, and arouses the same degree of anxiety a Yami experiences if victimized by black magic.

Folklore

The rich folklore of the Yami has been kept alive for thousands of years by word of mouth. Storytelling is a great joy for the Yami. They have no professional storytellers, but some Japanese-speaking Yamis have been relied upon by Chinese and Japanese researchers. They are professionals in the sense that they charge money for their stories, but they are not necessarily considered by the rest of the community as either good or authentic narrators or connoisseurs of the stories.

The telling of the myths and stories does not require a special occasion or setting, but there are times when telling stories would be considered out of place. During certain inauguration ceremonies, only the host is welcome to chant part of the genealogical story of his lineage, if he so pleases. According to local custom, it would be inappropriate for a guest to do so. Most stories are told not at ceremonies, but in casual circumstances, for example, among men when they take a rest during diving sessions or when dropping in on a neighbor or relative in the evening. There is considerably less storytelling during work breaks in the jungle, when many taboos must be observed concerning talking in general and the usage of certain vocabulary in particular.

The Yami have a myth about the appearance of the first man on the island. This narrative usually is told as a genealogical story, and it takes the listener through dozens of generations, usually ending in the present, with the narrator as a direct descendent of the heroes of the very lineage whose story is being told. The myth also accounts for the names of places, for how the settlements emerged, and for the discovery of many plants, animals, and objects. It also clarifies the people's relations to their gods and the rest of the Yami pantheon.

In storytelling, the Yami do not have any rules to observe, hence the process of transmission does not follow any particular pattern. Practically anybody who knows a myth or a story can tell a story to anybody who is interested in listening to them. Old people say that if their parents did not know the genealogical story of the lineage, surely there was always an uncle, an aunt, or an even more distant relative who knew it, and was willing to tell it if the right occasion occurred. It was always important, however, that the story be recognized by the lineage as the story of the ancestral grandparent. By this, one usually means a male ancestor, but there are stories where the ancestral grandparent referred to is a grandmother. Siapen-Manabey, the famous storyteller of Ivalino, did not hear the stories from his parents, but from his late uncle. Everyone in his lineage agrees on the legitimacy of his stories, the "real stories of the ancestral grandfather."

A narrator's creation myth or generalogical story is interwoven with stories that have something to do with his or her lineage, or are at least believed to be part of his family history. The stories differ in sequence from lineage to lineage, and often there are substantial differences of versions even within the same lineage. Across villages and different lineages, stories included in the creation myth may differ even more.

Yami traditions and youth

As a possession of the Republic of China, Irala is governed according to the laws of that country. In Taiwan, the Yami are regarded as Chinese citizens, and their language is considered not a separate language, but a dialect. As the yami language has no script, yami legends, songs, and the language itself are a purely oral tradition. Yami children who attend the Chinese village elementary schools (each village has one) or the only high school on the island are told that only Mandarin is a suitable language for a well-educated person. The Yami language is therefore not supposed to be spoken within school compounds.

Young people tend to ignore the old traditional beliefs and fear of ghosts. Instead, they listen to the radio and watch television. Few wear the traditional loincloth. Strongly discouraged and occasionally barred from inheriting the cultural legacy of the older generation, the young Yami graduate from school without any traditional knowledge of how to survive on their own island.

Since there is no industry of any kind on Irala, most young Yamis go to Taiwan to find work. Once they encounter modernized life, they do not want to return to live on their native island. Most visit their parents and relatives during the lunar New Year holiday. Traditional Yami culture is disappearing at an alarming rate.