Geelai Hunter School teaches you how to coexist with nature
I happened to see it on Facebook, and after seeing the picnic activity information I was deeply attracted. For a country kid like me, during the drying period after the rice harvest, piling up hardened clods of soil and throwing in a few sweet potatoes to make a kiln-roasted treat was already the most outdoorsy experience I had! How to start a fire from nothing, cook soup with stones…. Skills like these, using natural materials to feed yourself, were something I had absolutely none of.
So I decided to make this trip over the mountains, on one hand to see what the mountains are like, and on the other to make a pilgrimage to the culture of the tribe.
A hunter coach who has been nominated for the Golden Melody Awards
Here the teachers are called coaches. They are responsible for driving, explaining, and also teaching how to identify wild vegetables and how to carry out outdoor cooking. They are a key role in the course, and our group was assigned Coach Butu. With a face full of wrinkles when he smiles, he is a member of the Betel Nut Brothers, who have been nominated for the Golden Melody Awards many times, and is also one of the important tradition bearers at the school!
"Let's stop and buy a mountain entry permit!" Coach Butu said this, and then asked the other participants to get out of the car and buy the so-called mountain entry permit (betel nut and cigarettes, rice wine). Someone curiously asked, "Why is this a mountain entry permit?" He smiled and said it was a secret, then began to introduce the Amis as the indigenous people who know wild vegetables best, and said he would take us participants to get to know wild vegetables.
After winding past several mountain road slopes, the scenery on both sides gradually turned into dense forest, tall and short alike seeming to welcome our arrival. After parking the car, we followed the coach and walked deeper into the mountains. "Do you know what this is?" Along the way, the coach picked up wild vegetables by the roadside several times to teach us: this is shell ginger, which can be used for weaving, and the flowers contain abundant moisture, making it a very good water source when surviving in the wild; this is black nightshade, which you call heizicai, and you can try eating it directly! And all kinds of other wild vegetable knowledge.
That sense of cherishing the land in reverence for heaven and awe of the earth
“You have to calm your mind before you can hear the words of the wind and the voices of the trees."Suddenly we were instructed to stop, and an indigenous woman said this.
Then the coaches quickly placed unnamed leaves, bamboo cups, betel nut, and cigarettes in order on the grass beside the path. "Now we are going to tell the mountain god that we are entering the mountain, and pray for the mountain god to bless today's activity with smoothness and safety." After the elder in charge of the ritual came forward and said this, he began to say a very long prayer in the tribal language, and then signaled that we could step forward to the temporary altar on the grass, pour wine, and pray.
The solemn atmosphere filling the scene was completely different from the joy along the way just before. It made people deeply feel that for them, the mountain is not just a mountain, but also an important resource they rely on in life. Therefore, they sincerely thank the mountains and forests for the nourishment they provide, and from this came this sacrificial ritual, allowing generation after generation to continue that feeling of cherishing the land.
Then our group stopped by the stream, because the coach was going to teach us how to drink water without any vessel.
Picking up a big giant taro leaf and following the coach's gestures, in no time a shape like a natural water bottle appeared. Happily, we went to the stream, scooped up stream water, and brought it straight to our mouths. "This water is so cold and so sweet!" This must be a taste that hand-shaken drinks cannot compare to! I thought to myself.
Only with the mountains and forests is there this meal
After playing and learning all the way, we arrived at the outdoor cooking site. The first thing we had to learn was to wrap the whole chicken, corn, sweet potatoes, and other ingredients tightly with shell ginger leaves.
Then we waited while the stones heated red, preparing for stone soup using black nightshade as the main ingredient. By the time we finished wrapping all the ingredients, the stones were about ready too. Everyone pitched in and quickly filled the entire hot earth pit with the food wrapped in shell ginger leaves, and we threw the glowing red stones one by one into the soup. To our surprise, with just five or six stones in the soup, the whole pot was already boiling and steaming, cooking so quickly that it made people start to consider whether to keep a few big stones in the office just in case (just kidding
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