The Yami Tribe’s sacrificial boat launching ceremony regularly attracts tourists and photographers from home and abroad. After frantic buying on the run up to the festival on the 25 of June, air and ferry tickets to Lanyu Island were completely sold out, and both guesthouse and hotel vacancies on the island were few and far between. Lanyu County mayor Jiang Duo-li, expressed that this is the first time in between one and three hundred years that a boat holding more than eighteen people has been launched.
As a celebration of this sacrificial launching of the boat ‘Visitor’, the local tribe pooled their resources and distributed taro and pork meat to friends and family on the island. Everyone was invited to come and share this joyous occasion and asked to give their blessings to ensure a successful day. Youngsters first carried the new boat down in the direction of the emerald blue sea where the captain climbed aboard. It was then the task of the clansmen to carry the boat down to the water’s edge, while continuously performing frightening and strange body gestures in order to scare away unwanted malevolent spirits – the clansmen hold both hands firmly clenched in front of the body while maintaining a terrifying gaze with the eyes fixed wide open and crying out Woo!...Oh!...Oh!... Woo!...Oh…Oh!.., driving back evil demons from the new boat. The boat and its eighteen warrior sailors finally made it safely to the ocean to a deafening roar of delight from the jubilant crowds, applause after applause raining down on the clansmen.
This story gave rise to some rather differing opinions from one Lanyu citizen journalist Xiao-Chang who expressed that this sacrificial boat launch challenged many Tao traditions as the pageant is not part of the culture, on the contrary it's a kind of domination and causes harm to the marine culture. Multiplicity of opinion is the beauty of the citizen journalism platform, and this new story is a wonderful example of this function in action. It is certainly worthwhile to come together and discuss the autonomy of indigenous people and related traditional issues.
Yami Tribe’s centennial sacrificial boat launching ceremony
URL: http://www.peopo.org/news/79288
(以下為中文對照)
達悟族百年大船下水祭典 ( 公民記者 欖仁居修行生活網 )
達悟族大船下水祭常常吸引國內外攝影愛好者及遊客到此一遊，今年6月25日前後數天到蘭嶼機票、船票搶購一空，島上飯店與民宿更一床難求。蘭嶼鄉長江多利表示，這是百年來第一艘，很可能也是三百年來第一艘18人以上的大船。
「拜訪號」於25日舉行下水祭典，部落合力分配芋頭及宰殺的豬肉給蘭嶼島上的親朋好友，邀請親友分享大船的喜悅，同時獲得親友祝福。青年們抬著船向海邊走去， 船主坐在新船上，由族人合力抬著新船前往海邊，途中不斷地進行驅逐惡靈的動作，雙手握拳，不斷畫圈晃動，雙眼睜大怒視，發出「嗚」、「哦」吆喝聲，嚇阻邪 靈惡鬼，不得接近新船。趕走了惡魔、在大家的祝福下，大船平安下水，由18名勇士划槳，順利航向大海，觀禮群眾紛紛鼓掌慶賀叫好。
這則新聞後續引起迴響，一則來自蘭嶼的公民記者蘭嶼小張的留言，分享了不同觀點，他轉貼達悟族人瑪飛袱的文章表示，這次舉辦的大船下水其實挑戰了許多的達悟族傳統，這場盛會?不是文化的創製，而是對海洋文化的一種宰制與戕害。
多元的討論就是公民新聞平台的特色，這則新聞引起許多回應，也值得大家一起共同思考，原住民的自主權與傳統問題。
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