Indigenous Taiwanese Tao Group Recreates Ancestral Sea Voyage to Philippines

When he was young, Lanyu local Maraos was warned against singing the island's traditional songs. Don't sing. Your ancestors will be summoned back to Earth, he was told. But today, as he and others from the village prepare for a dangerous sea voyage, he wants the ancestors by his side. In our traditional customs, we believe our ancestors are blessing and protecting this boat. We hope our seafaring culture can continue to develop.

We're on Lanyu Island, some 40 miles off the southeast of Taiwan, home to the Tao, an Indigenous group with only 5,000 or so members that belongs to the broader Austronesian language family. Today, we've come with Maraos, chairperson of Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation, who goes by only one name, to watch as Tao villagers prepare an enormous 39-foot rowing boat for a treacherous journey. This boat has its own spirit. We hope that this blessing and protection will continue to stay with us.

They'll need the protection. That's because this ceremony is preparing villagers to row more than 100 miles to the Batanes islands of the northern Philippines. And with that noise, they're trying to pick up the boat and take it over to the water, all of them together at once.

The challenge they're undertaking is more than just a test of strength. They'll also be following in the footsteps of their Austronesian ancestors because from the Maori of New Zealand to the Malagasy of Madagascar, peoples from the Austronesian language family can trace their roots back to Taiwan.

This is Peter Bellwood, emeritus professor of archaeology at the Australian National University. Taiwan was a place of formation of what later became the Austronesian-speaking peoples. And those Austronesian languages themselves tell a story. Lanyu still shares much of its language with the Indigenous Austronesian Ivatan tribes of the Batanes, evidence that only a few hundred years ago, both sides were in frequent contact.

Back in the port, Lanyu's villagers take to the water. In the back of their minds, the islands spoke history that tells stories of expeditions, just like this one. For rower Zhang Shi-Kai, the voyage is a chance to turn legend into real life. This boat's journey is about demonstrating that our ancestors had these practices in the past and letting the next generation see it firsthand so that they can recognize our oral history is real.

After more than a day at sea, they arrive in the Philippines, where they're greeted by Ivatan tribespeople. It's the first time a boat of this kind has crossed these waters in some 300 years. And it hasn't been easy. Rough seas threatened the voyage. But as Shi-Kai reminds us, the expedition had to go on because for Lanyu's people, each boat has its own spirit. You can't keep standing still, he says. Once a boat is made, it must be paddled.

For NPR News, I'm Jan Camenzind Broomby on Lanyu Island.