6 days ago
Taiwan's Truku tribe showcases its culture and traditions – except for facial tattoos
It is April in Hualien, a county on the east coast of Taiwan, and visitors on a Truku tribe experience tour, led by guide Dai Xinzhe, are sweating from the oppressive heat and humidity.
We are here to learn more about the Truku people, one of the island's 16 recognised indigenous groups.
Misclassified by scholars and academics as part of the Atayal tribe, the Truku were officially recognised in 2004. The tribe have been keepers of traditions, warriors against colonisation and quiet architects of Taiwan's cultural identity. Their history is written in flax fibres, battle scars and the very stones of the mountains they once called home.
At the start of the tour, the clothing of the Truku tribe is explained. For them, weaving (pronounced tminun) is a spiritual practice woven into life's milestones. Using hand-spun flax dyed with mountain pigments, women create textiles in five sacred colours: forest green, sunrise red, millet yellow, ancestral black and spirit white; each hue carries meaning.
The laborious process, from harvesting flax to operating backstrap looms, can take months to produce a single garment. Traditional tools – warping machines, bamboo clippers and wooden beaters – become extensions of the weaver's body.
More than craft, tminun marks a woman's passage to adulthood. Traditionally, mastery of it earned the facial tattoos (ptasan) that symbolised maturity and qualified her for marriage.
