In the historically most famous ancestral house of the matrilineal Amis tribe in Taiwan, the carved pillars tell legends. After a strong typhoon toppled the house 40 years ago, the pillars were moved to the Institute of Ethnology Museum. Recently young villagers, with assistance from female shamans, pushed the descendants and village representatives to communicate with ancestors in the pillars.…
Wei Tesheng’s “Seediq Bale” triggered hot discussions on the Wushe Incident. Eighty-one years after the occurrence, most of the relevant studies, research papers, books and films that are available in Taiwan and other countries were made by the Han Chinese or the Japanese. In the course of relevant discussions, two intellectuals from the tribe: Takun Walis (Chiu, Chiang-Tang) and Dakis…
In Japigia, a neighborhood in the periphery of Bari, Italy, a small community of Roma (Gypsies) carve out an existence in an illegal, ramshackle encampment. The local church has offered them a piece of land with prefabricated houses, but the town hall is preventing this offer due to their own plans for a future a railway station. Continually in danger…
Sakuliu is a Paiwan artist who treasures his tribal traditional culture. After leaving his tribal village due to unpleasant circumstances for many years, he decides to return to help rebuild his hometown, Da-She Village, which was devastated in the August 8th typhoon in 2009. However, gulf and conflicts between personal vision and traditional thinking, between old and new, which traumatized…
In 1915, Bronislaw Malinowski set out to document the ‘exotic’ practices of a small group of islanders off the coast of Papua New Guinea. With extensive data on sex, magic and spirits of the dead, his work would set the stage for anthropologists for decades to come and bring him fame as one of the founding fathers of anthropology. Four…
A coming of age story about three young Tibetans trying to realize their dreams. The struggle to enter the modern world while holding onto tradition is palpable as a young woman waiver between teaching and a career in Tibetan medicine. Her childhood friends, a monk and a painter, also grapple with which direction their lives will take in this rare…