拉瑪斯叢林 | Lammas Lamath

Smangus - From the Black Tribe to the God's Tribe

We departed Taipei for Smangus at 8am, since it takes quite some time to get there, especially the 2-hour bumpy industrial road between the checking point and the tribe.

Neiwan (內灣)

Neiwan Train Station

Most of people will take a break at Neiwan en route to Smangus, as the old Hakka town, for decades, has been the doorway to or from the mountains of Jianshi (尖石) where Smangus is located. Nowadays Neiwan is still a very popular destination of one-day excursion for Taiwanese people.

According to Wikipedia, the characteristic of Neiwan should be the buildings of the old town, where the houses are built with red bricks as the bases and the pillars, and then with wood as the materials of the house body. However, now you will probably never realize when you finish a trip to Neiwan as there is no clue of it from the tourist information -- This is such a pity.

Neiwan Old Town

When you walk along the old street of Neiwan, all what you see (or are attracted) are the street foods and souvenirs all around the little town, which seem quite common as at all the other spots on the island. However, there are still something making the old town quite unique. There is a unique Cartoon Museum of Liu Shin-Chien (劉興欽). Liu's cartoons and mangas, e.g. Great Auntie, are the common history of Taiwanese people in '90s. To invigorate the tourism of the old Hakka town, Liu authorized the town to use his cartoon figures as the images of Neiwan. In Neiwan, the tourists can also try the famous local Hakka product -- the steamed rice dumpling made of wild turmeric. The forest walking trails nearby are some good options to relax oneself on weekends as well.

The renovated old Neiwan Theatre now as a restaurant

lk-Buta, the heroic figure of Atayal as a
pioneer who discovered the mountains
near the Snow Mountains (雪山山脈) as
the new home for his people.

After leaving Neiwan, we kept heading for Smangus. We came to the checking point to the mountainous area. There I thought we would need to show our IDs, but then eventually the officer just asked us to fill in a form and did not even ask us to pay the entrance fee of NTD 10, either. Eventually we arrived at Smangus at 1pm.

Smangus (司馬庫斯)

After hours of bumpy ride, we saw an empty toll gate where a greeting is written: "歡迎光臨上帝的部落司馬庫斯" ("Welcome to God's Tribe, Smangus!"). In the rain, here we finally came to the mythical tribe finally.

There is a tourist information centre right to the left of the entry, which also functions as the reception of the accommodation there. The check-in of our suite should be 3pm, but we were allowed to check in immediately as the room was already available. As a suite of NTD 2,500, the room seems too humble without any renovation. But we didn't expect too much anyway as this is such a remote place -- And the room was quite neat and clean indeed. After taking a short break, we gathered at the information centre for the free tribal tour from 3:30pm.

The beautiful school would be a good place for exchange

programme for those students from big cities, the guide

joked.

The tribe of Smangus belongs to the Atayal people, one of the 14 officially recognized aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. As the 2nd largest tribal group in Taiwan (around 23% of Taiwan's total indigenous population), the Atayal resides in central and northern Taiwan, from Hualien to Taipei.

There are two possible origins of the tribe's name, Smangus. It could be from the name of the Atayal pioneer, Makus, who became the first to come to Smangus and established the tribe. The second origin is from the abundant Bangus (Quercus semecarpifolia) around the area.

Smangus is probably the most remote Atayal tribe. Around 30 years ago, the tribe was still called Black Tribe -- The name not only implied the accessibility of the village, but also the lack of any power supply at the moment. The road to Smangus was even made possible only from 1995. Ever since the discovery of the giant cypress trees in the nearby forest, the tribe became more and more popular. Now Smangus hosts 200-300 tourists every weekend.

Christmas decorations of the school --
100% of the tribal population are Catholic.

Our tour guide in the traditional costume
of the Atayal people.

Our first stop of the tour was the local school buildings. The tribal population is too few that the local government refuses to build a school for the tribe, and so the tribal students used to need to travel couples of hours to the nearest Xinguang Elementary School to study. To improve the education quality, the tribe then decided to build an elementary school by themselves. Now the elementary school in Smangus, as the tribe claims, is among one of the most beautiful schools in Taiwan. All the school buildings were built with the local cypress. A school all made of cypress could be quite controversial as the wood is regarded as very luxurious. But for the people in Smangus, they just built with what they have surrounding them. Now there are 12 elementary school students having class there with 4 teachers. The students who are older than Year 6 still needs to go to Jianxi for further education, where Smangus' community has built a student centre exclusively for the accommodation of the students from Smangus.

Skun khu', "the Granary" for millet, of the
Atayal is built on stilts to keep the grains
dry.

The Atayalic wooden carvings in Smangus.

The funnel-shaped street lamp can be seen
all around the village.

Turkeys

"La qi klokah", the greeting in the Atayal language.

A watchtower for security. It used to be
that only men were allowed to climb the
tower.

Qeqiy, "Two Trees of Husband and Wife"

Smangus' only church

After dinner, we joined another free "party" in Smangus Kyokay, the only church in Smangus.

In the party, all the visitors were amused with the performances of the tribal people, e.g. the folk and modern songs in the Atayal language (and very few in Chinese Mandarin), and the traditional jaw harp playing by the deputy head of Smangus; at the same time, as an atheist, I needed to try to be open-minded whenever we were asked to sing songs to hail to Jesus Christ.

As all the tribal population is catholic, any religious thing becomes very important in Smangus. This can be observed from the importance of the church and also the organizational structure of Tnunan, in which the Catholic father is one of the top positions.

The deputy head of Smangus, explaining
the system of Tnunan and then performed
the traditional jaw harp of the Atayal for the
audience.

Tnunan is the name of the community of Smangus. The word means "to weave together", which best describes the way the tribal people work together to make their common dream come true, which is to live a sustainable life and preserve the nature and the Atayal culture in Smangus. In the beginning in 2001, there were only 16 people from 8 households joined the organization. Now, as the total population of Smangus has grown to 174.5 people (as the Atayal people believe even a fetus should be counted as 0.5 person) from the 28 households living there, around 75% of the residents have joined Tnunan. Every member works and enjoys the revenue together, and, of course, the common welfare. For example, every newlywed can receive NTD 20,000 from Tnunan, and, everyday, the members cook and eat together so that the individual household's loading is largely alleviated, and the resource (e.g. food) can be allocated more efficiently and effectively. Meanwhile, Tnunan set up a common community development plan which every household is asked to follow. Tnunan has regular weekly- or monthly-based meetings to set up every plan. Seemingly this communal system runs quite well in Smangus.