Cilamitay: The Tribe Guarded by Giant Tree Roots
Editor's note: The members of the Hualien-Taitung Happiness Association's fieldwork camp come from all walks of life. Some are veterans of related issues, while others are novices, but their passion for the development of indigenous communities in Hualien and Taitung is the same. Pan Hsin-jung planned the camp's itinerary of community visits in order to understand the needs and situations of different communities, and then, through everyone's collective brainstorming, to work out the cooperative economic model best suited to Hualien and Taitung.
Cilamitay community is located in Fengnan Village, Fuli Township, bordered to the east by the Coastal Mountain Range adjacent to Taitung County, and resting against the Donghe River to the south; it is the southernmost community in Hualien. The community's name, Cilamitay, means "big tree root" in the Amis language. When the tribespeople first felt the land was too far from their farmland and moved here, they saw a maple tree whose roots were so large they could serve as a bridge, so they named the village Cilamitay. This article records the fourth group of trainees' experience visiting the community and their discussions.
Farmland with terraced fields
Cilamitay has many agricultural advantages, such as irrigation canals; the clean mountain spring water is of a quality good enough to cook rice with directly. Organic farming has been practiced here for years, and its organic fruit trees and plums both have a good reputation. The most special is the organic rice; the terraced fields where the rice is grown are a distinctive sight in the community, and one of the cultural landscapes listed by the Hualien government.
At present, Cilamitay's agricultural products are self-produced and self-sold, through ordinary sales and contract farming and other arrangements. Community farmers usually hand their rice over to the rice mill, but the mill buys rice at a low price and then buys fruit trees at a high price, which makes the farmers feel it is unfair. Although the community association also has a simple rice mill, doing its own distribution usually results in poor sales. The group members believe that Cilamitay's high-quality organic crops should command a more reasonable price, and that the association will gradually become disconnected from the farmers.
An experimental hunter experience itinerary
The highlight of the fourth group's visit to the community was the unpredictable hunter experience itinerary. In fact, Cilamitay has long been trying to develop tourism, and this hunter itinerary is also an experiment in the community's tourism development. The fourth group happily served as guinea pigs, actually experiencing its feasibility and how much fun it was.
Three veteran hunter brothers led the group members on foot up the mountain. "While climbing, we saw a lot of the terrible traces left by mountain rats." The mountain rats had stripped the bark from a tree in a complete ring, exposing the shocking trunk; before long the tree would die because it could no longer transport nutrients. "They also dig out the entire Taiwanofungus camphoratus, not giving it any chance to grow." The hunters even pointed out the shotgun marks left on a trunk by armed mountain rats. "For forest rangers, catching mountain rats is actually very difficult."
A tree ring-barked by mountain rats
After finally climbing to the spot where the hunting lodge was built, the first day ended after dinner. Early the next morning, the hunter brothers began teaching the trainees how to make traps and gather wild vegetables. "The traps we make are very traditional, like a loop with a peg in the middle. So as not to catch baby animals, it only springs when a heavier prey steps on it, binding the animal's leg."
For indigenous people, wild vegetables are not only food but also medicine, and the practical knowledge of the hunter brothers amazed the trainees even more. "People like us city folk care a lot about the names of things, but although the hunter brothers don't know the scientific names of plants, they can tell which will poison you, which is medicine, and which is tasty." One group member said the hunters' knowledge didn't stop there: "Usually, if a goat has eaten it, you can eat it too, and whatever has been chopped down is Taiwanofungus camphoratus!"
The hunters' sensitivity to and observation of the environment were even more impressive. "They really are experienced. From the shape of a bush that has been pushed through, they know whether it was a reeve's muntjac; they never miss the tracks of a wild boar; pangolin burrows, bear claw marks, they can identify them all."
The brothers show the trainees animal tracks
The brothers' sense of humor also kept the laughter going throughout the trip. "They often say they've fought bears, wrestled wild boars and so on, though we don't know how credible it is." The group members also shared several jokes the hunter brothers told: "If you get caught hunting a reeve's muntjac (the reeve's muntjac is a protected species), what do you do? When they ask you, why did you shoot the muntjac (san qiang, three shots)? You answer, what do you mean! I only fired one shot!"; "How do you tell a male tree from a female tree? The one with a little bird perched on it is the male tree!" This kept everyone laughing.
There had originally been a plan to go looking for flying squirrels in the middle of the night, but the exhaustion from climbing was too much for the other three group members, and only one went with the hunter brothers into the darkness. "When looking for flying squirrels, you have to be very, very quiet, and the brothers were silent too, standing still in the dark, with only the smoke from the hunters' mouths curling upward. Suddenly I had a feeling of being a man and his apprentice; it was a high-level emotional exchange," he shared. "I really wanted to hold a cigarette in my mouth like them, like a man, but all I had was a flashlight." Everyone burst out laughing.
The plum wine and handmade Taiwanofungus camphoratus tableware that the fourth group brought along were their spoils from this hunter experience. The Forestry Bureau had once considered inviting the heads of various communities to discuss together the restricted times for hunting in the mountains, the reason being so-called biological sustainability.
"Although hunting has always been controversial, I think indigenous people are more in harmony with the environment and closer to nature than outsiders believe." Besides not catching small animals, they also don't hunt pregnant animals. "In the middle of the night, the hunter brothers and I went to look for flying squirrels, mainly the white-faced flying squirrel and the large red flying squirrel. The brothers said the white-faced one is not hunted because it is rarer." By comparison, outsiders who come with hunting as their goal, once they apply to enter the mountains, hunt a great deal and for a long time, and that is the real cause of harm to wildlife.
Proposals for a tourism route
Cilamitay community once set aside its traditional culture for the sake of the economy. "For example, when people came to buy jewel orchids and Taiwanofungus camphoratus, the community's grandmothers would go up the mountain to gather them to sell, ending up with leeches or insect bites all over their legs." Now Cilamitay wants to return to its community culture, hoping to use its original way of life to attract people who want to experience it, but hunting is, after all, still controversial and perhaps won't happen too soon.
The fourth group suggested that, because Cilamitay's location is not on the main Provincial Highway 9, it could first develop food as a selling point; farm-work experiences and hunter itineraries could be paired with each other; up in the mountains, local materials could be used to make equipment, tableware and so on, which would also be very appealing as souvenirs; it could open up work exchanges and let cyclists come to experience the life; the hunter itinerary could have more routes to keep visitors from exhausting themselves; and the online information could be expanded, focusing on the wild vegetables, animals and so on that the hunter itinerary would encounter, to make people more interested.
Follow-up discussion: What are the difficulties in wanting to develop a hunter itinerary?
The first is the question of whether hunting is legal at all. Some hunters are also very afraid that people will take photos and post them online, because they have suffered a lot from this kind of thing. If hunting cannot be legalized, it will always be a problem.
Second, the hunters are all experienced veterans, and much of their wisdom cannot be put into words but must be learned through actual experience. The barriers that must be crossed between tourists and veteran hunters, whether in knowledge or mindset, both need to be overcome. If people participate too rashly, might it one day cause harm? If there were a translator between the hunters and the guests, someone who could blend the two cultures and serve as a bridge for communication, that would be a better approach.
Finally, by no means should a route be made for the sake of tourism. For example, it should be "I'm going hunting, you can come along and watch if you like," rather than "because you've come, we'll go hunting." Otherwise, if three hundred groups came, the hunters would have to go up the mountain three hundred times; that would be terrible. Nothing can be done with tourism as the goal.
Cilamitay Community Official Website
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