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The Truku calls every supernatural
being ¡§rutux¡¨, which include benevolent rutuxs (souls from people
who died naturally) and evil rutuxs (souls from people who died
unnaturally). They do not offer sacrifice to evil rutuxs; but the
benevolent rutuxs (including ancestral rutux and some others) are
closely connected to their everyday life and thus receive sacrifice.
In important ceremonies like wedding,
ancestral spirit sacrificial ritual and harvest sacrificial ritual,
all men from a Gaya or a society will join a hunt. The hunting zone
will be far from their residence and cover a large area; it will
take a week or even a month. As a result, the women will prepare
enough food for the hunter before the hunt. During the hunt, the
hunters will start from the peripheral or a part of the peripheral
of the hunting zone and chase the preys to the centre. So it will
require the cooperation of the whole tribe, so as to strengthen
their tribal identification and the cohesion of the Gaya.
1. Ancestral Spirit
Sacrificial Ritual:
Ancestral spirit sacrificial ritual
signifies the core of beliefs of the whole tribe, which is also the
spiritual symbol to the cohesion of the tribe. An ancestral spirit
sacrificial ritual consists of three parts: admonition from an
elder, history telling, and the summoning of ancestral spirits.
A week before the ritual, the chief
will send members to weed the graveyard and start to prepare the
ritual. The ritual will begin with a representative of the Gaya,
with sacrifices such as meat and millet cake clipped with bamboo
chopsticks, leading the tribal members to the ritual site. After the
chief have given an admonition, he will, together with the
vice-chief, lead all the men from the tribe to the ritual site. On
their way to the site, people will hold a touch and sacrifices in
their hands and call the names of their ancestors to ask them to
join the ritual. When they arrive, they will still keep asking their
ancestors to join with fire.
After they arrive at the ritual site
and stick their bamboo chopsticks into the earth, the chief will
first pray to their ancestral spirits, and then the representative,
an elder, or a prestige person from each Gaya will also pray their
ancestral spirits.
After the ceremony, the young will
return first. When they leave, they must go across a fire pile,
symbolizing that they are parting with their ancestral spirit, and
hoping to cleanse themselves and to keep the calamity away. Older
people and the chief will stay there and talk and drink with the
spirits. The alcohol and sacrifice that are left must be left on the
site.
2. Seeding Ritual:
When the tribe is going to hold a
Seeding Ritual, people must steam the millet cakes for the ritual at
the early morning. Fires in one¡¦s home must not be extinguished.
During the ritual, these fires will be used to ignite the touches.
Two priests will then lead the people to the field with millet
cakes, alcohols, millet tassels and small hoes.
They will first come to the field of
one of the priests, and dig a small area in the field for the
Seeding Ritual to pray to their ancestral spirits for the successful
sprouting of all the seeds planted.
After the prayer, half of a piece of
millet cake will be put at the centre of the ritual field, and then
alcohols will be poured on it. And the rest of the millet cakes and
alcohols will be shared by the two priests beside the field. And
then they will go to the field of the other priest and repeat the
same ritual.
3. Harvesting Ritual:
After the millet matured and ready to
be harvest, each family will harvest a few tassels of millet back
home, and then hand one on the tree and plant one in the field.After
the harvest finish, one tassel will also be put on the roof of the
barn.
On the early morning of the ritual day,
two tribal members will be picked to summon the ancestral spirit and
pray for good luck. When the ceremony finish, all the people must
leave the site and must not turn back to look.
4. Hunting Ritual:
Before a hunting group sets out, two
hunters will go first and try to observe the flying direction of the
Sisils, in order to decide whether to set out to hunt. When a group
goes hunting in the mountain, members will setup a hunting hut at
the destination and rest for a night. They will start hunting the
next day.
References:
1. Chou, Y.E. (2001). The Hunting Culture
of the East Sejiq and the Management of National Parks. Taroko
National Park Administration, Construction and Planning Agency,
Ministry of the Interior.
2. Yu, G.H. (1981). ¡¥The Tribal Organization of
the Sejiq of the Atayal¡¦. Collected Papers of Academia Sinica
Institute of Ethnology, 50: 91-110.
3. Liao, S.C. (1998). The Social Organization of
the Atayal. Hualien: Tzu Chi University.
4. Li, N.L., Tu, L.C., Chen, P.Y., edited by
Liu, H.Y. (2001). A Complete Guide to the Sacrifice of Taiwan
Aborigine. Taipei: Chang Min Culture.
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