Atayal Harvest Festival, Taiwan

Before anything else, I need to apologize to Craig and those involved with the Worldwide Photo Walk in Taipei. My cancelleation was just short of last minute, but this came in to me just short of the last minute. I guess I’ll have to deal with Photoshop CS2 until next year.

Today I attended the final day of the Atayal Harvest Festival in Wulai, an annual occurrence held at the end of the grain harvest season, usually falling in July or August. The Atayal are the second largest aboriginal tribe in Taiwan, (Taiwanese aborigines). To most Taiwanese, they are known for (meaning, distinguished from other Taiwanese aboriginal tribes) their facial tatoos, which were worn by both men and women as symbols of maturity.

Overall, the day was loads of fun. The mountain air was a very welcome break from the daily dose of Taipei City smoke and the weather stayed quite cool for most of the day, although it did heat up quickly in the afternoon. As with any event in Taiwan, there was obviously going to be loads of good food to eat. And there was.

Lunch was the first priority of the day. One window into any culture are the sausages they produce. Sounds weird, but it’s true. I absolutely adore Taiwanese sausage…just please, please let me enjoy it and don’t tell me what’s in it.

Lunch was followed by a quick scouting walk around. The majority of the festival was held within the grounds of the local primary school’s outdoor track. The track area itself was clear as there were some events to come, but on each of the long ends of the track were clusters of booths offering games, selling eats, and various aboriginal handicrafts.

I picked up a Atayal bracelet to go with the Yami necklace I bought last summer on Orchid Island and wear all the time (BTW, the Yami culture is disappearing quickly, so if you’re in Taiwan and have any chance be sure to go to Lanyu/Orchid Island for a day. I’ll re-post some of my photos from there in a later blog entry). I then found a spot along the sidelines and started randomly chatting with the aboriginal young adults waiting for events to start and snacking on cold treats to keep cool.

Around 2pm the sporting events began, starting with was the most entertaining race I have seen in quite a while: The Carry the Bride Relay. Yep, women climbed on the backs of men who, at the sound of the gun, proceeded to race around the track. Even better, every 1/4 lap they would relay the “bride” to a teammate, who would continue. Were the women actually brides? Well, no. They were mostly the lightest women that the men could find hanging around the area…teenagers.

This race was followed by the slightly-less-but-still interesting Carry the Mud Relay and Carry the Log Relay races. The last event held before I needed to head back home was a relay log saw race, in which teams would alternate men and women in a race to see who could saw a log down to a certain length first, with each individual piece being limited in size.

All in all it was a great day and I’m glad I went. I do have a few rolls shot on black & white film, which I will post once I have the chance to process them so stay tuned.

Next year, anyone?

R.I.P. Walter Cronkite.

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