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The Yami of Irala
| Article
# : |
13434 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1987 |
7,210 Words |
| Author
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Deszo Benedek
Literary scholar and anthropologist Deszo Benedek spent six
months on Irala studying the language, legends, culture,
folklore, and myths of the Yami. |
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 for 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
... (1965 of 41183 Characters)
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