*3.2. Tayal People's Ontological Understanding of 'Country'*

The above issues prompted me to think deeply about how to frame resilience studies. Decolonizing methodologies introduced me to the idea of framing a research methodology with Indigenous peoples, but it also reminded me that 'Indigenous' is a problematic label, which might conflate diverse experiences of colonized peoples. Indigenous research methodologies should be embedded in a specific context, rather than just adopting a generic decolonizing methodological paradigm without being aware of the context. Thus, I frame this paper as radical contextualism, an idea recently introduced to geography [36]. Extending from this methodological framing here, I address the *Tayal* people's ontological understanding of 'Country'.

In April 2012, a surprising incident occurred on *Tayal* Country. Police caught a *Tayal* person from *Smangus* community 'unlawfully' logging cypress in the traditional territories, which had been categorized as State forest, of another *Tayal* community: *Pyanan* community. On one hand, the Taiwanese State argued the man's action was illegal because according to the ROC legislation, all timber in State-owned forest are State property. Hence, the accused man had stolen State property. On the other hand, *Tayal* people felt the man's action in this case was customarily illegal because the suspect had violated *Tayal Gaga* (the Law in *Tayal* ontology). In *Tayal Gaga*, violating the *Gaga* (Law) of boundaries is the most severe transgression. *Tayal* people have very rigid *Gaga* (Law) of boundaries regarding rivers, hunting grounds and cultivating fields. Respecting the boundary and never moving across it without permission is fundamental in *Tayal* ontology. This incident especially stirred *Tayal* people in the *Pyanan* community to anger because it was a *Tayal* person who had encroached their territory, not an outsider. In order to settle the anger and amend the relationship between the communities, the two communities decided to hold a *Sbalay* (Reconciliation) ceremony in *Quri Sqabu*, one of the vital bifurcated places during *Tayal* people's epic migration [46]. They chose *Quri Sqabu* as the ceremony venue because it was where *Tayal* ancestors had agreed to ally with each other before they separated into different watersheds and built their communities. In their oral history *lmuhuw* chanting, when a *Tayal* ancestor *Kbuta* led *Tayal* people migrated to *Quri Sqabu*, he said to his people they would separate from here, and exhorted his people to follow rivers and build their communities (see also [7]):

You shall not turn your back on each other. When boys turn mature, be prudential of blood relation [to avoid incest taboos]. If you hear of a well-educated girl, you shall ask elders to propose in proper ways. Then your children shall thrive as well as bamboo shoots. (Zheng [46] ch.4 p.9 (my translation))

The *Pyanan* community and the *Smangus* community performed a *Sbalay* (Reconciliation) ceremony not only for amending relations, but also for proclaiming their sovereignty over their Country and re-strengthening the *Tayal* alliance. Thus, this ceremony was also a *Phaban* (Alliance) ceremony (see: [47]). The *Sbalay* (Reconciliation) ceremony was held on 4 May 2012 at *Quri Sqabu* near the *Pyanan* community. I arrived at the *Pyanan* community on 3 May 2012. I was visiting the *Pyanan* community as a postgraduate student and was about to commence my fieldwork in the community. That night, elders from *Tayal* Country gathered together at the *Pyanan* Presbyterian Church. A map was drawn to denote the *Tayal* Country (Figure 1). This map was used in the *Sbalay* (Reconciliation)/*Phaban* (Alliance) ceremony the next day (Figure 2).

This map is titled 'the traditional territory of *Tayal* people' (the green words on the top). This map represents *Tayal* Country. Each river in *Tayal* Country is drawn in blue lines with the *Tayal* name labelled in blue and the Mandarin name labelled in purple. Each river represents a watershed and a clan of *Tayal* people. For instance, *llyung Tmail* is the name of river *Tmali* and the name of the clan living inside the watershed of river *Tmali*. The location of *Quri*

*Sqabu* is marked in the red circle, and the presented point the elder is pointing at is the sacred mountain *Papak waqa*. The small figure in the right bottom corner indicates the area of *Tayal* Country in Taiwan (the red bordered area) and indicates other Indigenous peoples in the island (the yellow bordered area). (Photo taken on 3 May 2012 at the *Pyanan* Presbyterian Church. Credit: Huei-Chung Hsiao. Reproduced with permission)

**Figure 1.** A map of *Tayal* County prepared for the *Sbalay* (Reconciliation)/*Phaban* (Alliance) ceremony.

**Figure 2.** The *Sbalay* (Reconciliation)/*Phaban* (Alliance) ceremony. (Photo taken on 4 May 2012 at *Quri Sqabu*. Credit: Huei-Chung Hsiao. Reproduced with permission).

The ceremony began with an introduction and included following programs:


The *Sbalay* (Reconciliation)/*Phaban* (Alliance) ceremony profoundly shaped my methodological framing. I can still recall the memory vividly. It altered my understanding of 'Taiwan'. I was born and raised in a Han family, the descendants of Chinese settlers. Having faith in the State for me was something normalized in my daily life. Yet, in that ceremony, *Tayal* people requested apologies from the State for sabotaging *Tayal* forest regulations and rejected State policy that they saw as fallacious [48]. In the ceremony the territory was presented, the vow was made, and the alliance was strengthened. 'It was and always will be their Country' I thought. I had a strong feeling that they were/are governing their Country in *Tayal* ways. Given the suspect has been arrested by the ROC police force, *Tayal* people decided to settle according to the *Tayal Gaga* (the Law). The reconciliation process in *Tayal* ontology is about re-connecting and strengthening ongoing relations. There was a strong connection of time and space in that ceremony. Choosing where the *Tayal* ancestors had bifurcated during their epic migration as the ceremony venue connected the past of *Tayal* people to their present, as well as connecting to an allied and reconciled future. Representatives from every watershed vowed to work together in the program of alliance, connecting *Tayal* places across Country into a congregation. The notion of *Tayal* Country is more than a bounded area. Rather, it encompasses connections across time and space between *Tayal* people, place and *Gaga*.

Attending the *Sbalay* (Reconciliation)/*Phaban* (Alliance) ceremony in 2012 altered my understanding of *Tayal* Country utterly. It made me realize *Tayal* people governed and continue to govern their Country in their own ways, despite persistent colonial interventions. *Tayal* people are always retaining and renewing their connections to their Country and each other. *Tayal* connections to Country are built on relations with rivers, mountain and people co-existing in the Country. In order to emplace this paper in the ways *Tayal* people see, think and do, it is important to explore the ways in which the *Tayal*-centric approach to questions of belonging, connection and Country. It also requires a profound rethinking of Indigenous peoples' connections to space, time and place.

#### **4. Recognizing Relational Webs in** *Tayal* **Country**

In the wake of transitional justice in the Taiwanese national polity see [38], recognizing the conceptual framework of ontological pluralism [14,15] in Taiwanese contested cultural landscapes sets the ground for later discussion. Inspired by the Australian Aboriginal protocol of an 'Acknowledgement of Country', my research responds to the methodological challenges of contextualizing this paper in a specific-temporal-and-spatial scale and cultural-and-geographical-appropriate context.

Acknowledging *Tayal* people's custodianship of Country is the entry point to establishing that a *Tayal* ontology of place must inevitably shape research about *Tayal* places. In Taiwan, the complex histories of colonization failed to accommodate *Tayal* people and *Tayal* Country as already encompassed by *Tayal* ontology, law (*Gaga*) and responsibilities has seen much scholarly research framed in ways that privilege colonial and colonizing values. As Rose (1999) recognizes, even well-intentioned research risks being caught in the web she characterizes as "deep colonizing". Recent Indigenous and other scholarship in Australia [49], Aotearoa New Zealand [50] and North America [51] and more broadly in the emerging field of Indigenous geographies [52,53] offer timely and contextualized advice on how to reconceptualize research methodology in Indigenous settings. The challenge of radical contextualism, however, is to move beyond some sort of generic and abstracted Indigenous frame to the particularities of a specifically *Tayal* frame for this research.

In their work on "being-together-in-place", Johnson and Larsen [54] offer some valuable insights into the challenges of building a *Tayal*-centric methodology for this research, but their work does not refer to *Tayal* Country and culture. Rather it draws on work in New Zealand and North America. Similarly, the powerful insights of the Bawaka Country research collective [16,27] provide valuable guidance and suggestions, but is not *Tayal*-specific. The key challenge is to take the reader into the relational web of *Tayal* Country and its people, to move beyond acknowledgement and towards engagement.

I have sought to follow a path to Country that sits comfortably in and is able to be challenged and transformed by my *Tayal* guides, mentors and teachers. In other words, my methodology has developed as *Tayal*-centric-drawing on guidance and insights from wider scholarly debates about Decolonizing methodology and Indigenous geographies, but always coming home to *Tayal* Country, *Tayal* advisors for review, affirmation and approval. My personal journey has immersed me in *Tayal* social relations, taken me into my *Tayal* family, and held me accountable in *Tayal* customary discourses. This is a continuing journey, and one that I hope will allow me to nurture research that moves from being *Tayal*-centric to being *Tayal* controlled, governed and driven. But in explaining the *Tayal*-centric methods developed and applied in this research, let me first take the reader on some of my journey into that relation web of people, mountains and rivers in *Tayal* Country.

#### *4.1. Rivers, Mountains and Peoples: A Relational Web*

From January 2018 to February 2018, I intensively visited a *Tayal* pastor recently retired from the Presbyterian Church. Pastor Sangus is a pioneer and social activist from the 1980s. He is one of the people I have come to admire since I started working with *Tayal* people in 2009. I was lucky enough to interview him at some length. I wanted to interview him because of a figure he drew for another scholar's doctoral dissertation to explain the ontology of *Tayal* People (p. 157) [55]. As elaborated in Chen, Suchet-Pearson and Howitt [7], *Tayal* people migrated from central Taiwan to northern Taiwan and continuously built communities along rivers [7].

Figure 3, a map recorded by Japanese anthropologists Utsurikawa, Mabuchi and Miyamoto [56], gives a sense of geography of *Tayal* people's migration pathway. The red square shows the area discussed in this paper. The mountain *Papak Waqa* plays a paramount role in the *Tayal* people's creation. The actual geography of *Papak Waqa* is a matter of dispute among various clans of *Tayal* people, while generally in the research area people name it as the Dabajian Mountain (Mandarin: 大霸尖山; Elevation: 3490 m; Coordinate: 24◦27 58 N 121◦15 29 E). *Papak* means 'ear' in *Tayal* language and *waqa* means 'split'. Mountain *Papak Waqa* might be named after the shape of its peak. It looks like an ear-shaped stone came out from a split (Provisional Commission for the Investigation if Taiwanese Old Customs 1996 (1915): 18).

**Figure 3.** *Tayal* People's migration pathway recorded by Japanese anthropologist (Utsurikawa, Mabuchi and Miyamoto [56]) (Reproduced with permission for non-profit use).

The various versions of *Tayal* creation myths share common features. Here I present one to demonstrate the role of *Papak Waqa* (sacred mountain):

In the old time, there was one huge rock on *Papak Waqa* (sacred mountain) which suddenly split and one man and one woman walked from it ( ... ) gradually their descendants multiplied and spread out. One day, a deluge took place, and only the peak of *Papak Waqa* (sacred mountain) was not drowned. All the people rushed to the peak. After discussion, the public agreed that someone must have violated taboos and that was the reason for the deluge. Hence, compensation was demanded. The public threw a dog into the water, but nothing happened. Then the public threw an elder into the water, but still nothing happened. The public confirmed there must have been offenders among them. They did a thorough investigation and found out that a brother and sister committed incest. The public threw them into the water and this time, the deluge subsided. [57] (p. 34; my translation)

The triangle in the middle of Figures 4 and 5 indicates *Papak Waqa* (scared mountain). Locating *Papak Waqa* as the coordinate starting point, each curve indicates a river along which *Tayal* people have built communities and reside. As can see at Figures 4 and 5, each river diffuses from *Papak Waqa* and brings a *Papak Waqa*-centric Country into being. However, not every river physically originates from *Papak Waqa*' (the scared mountain). For instance, those rivers with a cross mark on them do not originate from *Papak Waqa* (the scared mountain). Moreover, it is clear that Figure 4 is more simplified than Figure 5. The reason is that Teru hesitates to over-generalize the 'name' of rivers in *Tayal* Country:

When they were naming the rivers, they named it section by section. Because people from downstream could not go over border. You know we have the sense of territory, *qes* (border). Even though we all belong *Tayal* people. For example, I am *Kanzi* clan. I would not go over to *Mrqwang* clan's territory. If you across the border, then you *hmiriq Gaga* (against customary law). (Teru from *Kanzi* people, fieldwork interview on 7 January 2018 at Hêngshan Township)

**Figure 4.** Papak waqa-centric Rivers reproduced by Hsiao.

For *Tayal* people, the rivers and tributaries provide the pathways by which the ancestors migrated and built a series of settlements (Kuan, 2009: 141). When Pastor Sangus redrew the figure for me (Figure 6), he said:

*Tayal* society is a society without writing system. Moreover, we do not have the concept of 'ocean'. We do not have 'ocean' in our creation myth. Only mountains and rivers in our creation myth ... For instance, in our creation myth, it was *Papak Waqa* (the scared mountain) saved our life ... Our migration is about mountains and rivers. We emphasize mountains and rivers ... a very important point is that when speaking of our sense of space, because we do not have writing system, we use myth and *lmuhuw* (oral history) to deliver (our sense of space). Either we use chanting or description to record our ancestral migration pathway along rivers. (Pastor Sangus, fieldwork interview on 8 January 2018 at Chutung Township)

**Figure 5.** Papak waqa-centric Rivers reproduced by Teru.

**Figure 6.** Papak waqa-centric Rivers drawn by Pastor Sangus.

Rivers and mountains are decisive in *Tayal* ontology. In *Tayal* language there is a term '*qluw llyung*'. Interpreting the term directly, '*qluw*' means relatives and '*llyung*' means river, so *'qluw llyung*' mean

'relatives along the river'. Through migrations, *Tayal* people started to settle down and progressively develop settlements within watersheds. Settlements within the same watershed form a military alliance to defend enemies and use the term '*qluw llyung*' to refer community members who live within the same watershed. Not only rivers have been used to metaphorize social relations in *Tayal* society, but also mountains. When proposing a marriage in *Tayal* society, the groom-to-be is required to give his future brother-in-law '*pintrgyax*'. The term *'pintrgyax*' comes from the word root '*trgyax*', mountain ridge and the term '*trgyax*' comes from the word '*rgyax*', mountain. '*Pintrgyax*', normally is a pig, could be interpreted as the greeting gift the groom-to-be gives to his future brother-in-law when proposing marriage to the bride-to-be's family. Using '*trgyax* (mountain ridge)' as the word root implies marriage is merging two families and building relations, just like crossing mountain ridges.

The other thing Pastor Sangus noted is the sense of 'orientation' in *Tayal* ontology: "Most importantly, other people may believe they came from lowland and migrated to highland. However, for *Tayal* people, our concept is that we migrate from highland; from mountain" [fieldwork interview on 5 January 2018 at Chutung Township]. Teru also mentioned this feature during her interview:

I used to say to Pastor Sangus that: "our ancestors were really clever. It seems like they saw things from highest point. They saw the world and saw the future. Then they slowly walked down ( ... )." So I said to Pastor Sangus: "Our *Tayal* people's environment really starts from *Papak Waqa* (scared mountain) ... when we perceive regions, we perceived it from watersheds instead of administrative districts, such like how many clans dwelled in that watershed. We do not perceive our environment by where can cement roads reach. We perceive our environment by *llyung* (river). People from same *llyung* (river) are belong to that *llyung* (river)". (Teru from *Kanzi* people, fieldwork interview 2 February 2018 at *Tbahu* community)

Rivers, mountains and people weave *Tayal* Country into being and constitute *Tayal* ontological understandings of beings. For *Tayal* ontology, every being is connected within a relational web constituted by rivers, mountains and peoples. For me, it is pivotal to establish *Tayal* ontology when coping with disaster management and climate change as it challenges the predominant paradigm.

#### *4.2. Reframing Ontologically Pluralist Readings of Situated Resilience*

Recognizing and acknowledging *Tayal* Country under Pastor Sangus' mentoring completely altered my way of seeing things. It opened up a *Tayal*-centric perspective as well as a *Tayal*-centric framing of research. It also facilitates emplacing this paper more powerfully in *Tayal* Country: as Howitt [36] argues: "Context matters–the historical, geographical, social, and cultural context in which social geographers undertake research fundamentally shapes what we come to know and how we come to represent it to our various audiences" (p. 142). By applying this 'radical contextualist' lens, a *Tayal*-centric positionality not only acknowledges *Tayal* people's custodianship to their Country but also shapes a way of doing the research that gives that custodianship primacy in shaping knowledge.

Under conditions of climate change, developing resilient strategies has emerged as a central concern for both academic and public policy discourses. However, as argued by Howitt [32] in this special issue, Indigenous peoples are "easily classified as either dangerously vulnerable or inherently resilient to climate risks" (p. 1 of 16). Such over-simplified images of Indigenous peoples ignore the diverse contexts of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples may share the common experience of being colonized. Yet, the historical, geographical, cultural, social and political contexts of that experience differ from place to place. Thinking that there is a universal or singular solution, a panacea, to global climate challenges to be derived from a universal or singular Indigenous perspective would be an illusion. Rather, the insight to be drawn from *Tayal* Country is that responding to climate change in the contemporary era requires listening to and on Country. It demands listening attentively to people's stories of connection and belonging. It also demands listening humbly to Country–listening to

what Country can teach us as a society, rather than assuming a self-privileging-human-centric position or a universalized conclusion relevant regardless of context.
