SAMI / 薩米
The Sámi people are the only Indigenous peoples in the European Union. The Sami in the Nordic region were split up when the Nordic states drew up their national borders. That is why today the Sámi homeland territory, Sápmi, entails four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
The Sami are the Indigenous people living in the very north of Europe. Their ancestral territory, Sápmi, stretches across the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, FInland and the Kola Peninsula. Linguistically, they belong to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic family.
Reindeer herding was the basis of the Sami economy (Encyclopaedia Britannica). In addition, they have practiced ptarmigan trapping and fishing in the coastal areas (Helander-Renvall). The old Sámi settlement was structured by adapting to their hunting culture. The land are composed of siida territories, each has its own resources, administration, social system and customary rules for resource use. At the center of each siida typically was a winter place.
The Sámi people have had occupation claims in the circumpolar North region for centuries and their self-government system was usurped by European settlement during the 1700s. A religiously-initiated incursion into Sámi-held territory took place, precipitated by a further incursion spurred on by European colonial expansionism, justified by 19th century social Darwinism (Hicks, 2000). From 1851, Norwegianization was introduced as mandated policy by the school system to assimilate and control Sámi.
Phrenology was used as a theoretical basis to correlate and validate claims of inferiority based on skull size and consequently decreased psychological aptitude and intelligence. As both phrenology and religiosity became more pronounced during the early part of the 20th century (1900-1940) the assimilation of the Sámi was consequently normalised and justified in the name of race and eugenics, and a caring paternalism, rendering Sámi people to the category of a dying race, and, according to Henriksen (2016) in need of an improved welfare system.
TAYAL / 泰雅
Tayal, also spelled Atayal, Tayan or Dayan, is referred to a group of Indigenous peoples in Taiwan. Tayal are the descendants of people who inhabited central and northern mountainous regions of Taiwan for thousands of years. For centuries the rivers have sustained Tayal culture and has always been part of their life. Tayal people live by their customary law (called “Gaga”) and a majority of people have converted to a localized Indigenous version of Christianity. They are one of the 16 groups that have been officially recognized by the state of Taiwan.
The Tayal (or Atayal) are the Indigenous people living in Taiwan. Their ancestral territory spreads in 14 river basins in central and northern part of Taiwan. Tayal people belong to the Austronesian-speaking family that stretches across the Eastern islands in the Pacific Ocean to Madagascar.
Tayal, like other Indigenous groups in Taiwan, share numerous cultural characteristics with other Austronesian peoples, such as slash and burn cultivation methods, the use of horizontal backstrap looms for weaving, men’s meeting halls, age hierarchies and spiritual beliefs such as animism. (順益博物館p.13) Traditionally, Tayal live in closely-knit small-scale community (qalang) that is composed of a group that can be traced to the same ancestor (qutux bnkis). The small and closely-knit feature of thee community allows Tayal to pass down historic memories orally, through a ballad singing/chanting called “Lmuhuw”.
Tayal, along with other Austronesian speakers in Taiwan, have inhabited Taiwan for at least 4000 years. From the 17th to 19th centuries, the plains in western Taiwan were governed by the Dutch, an exiled government of Ming Dynasty and then by the Ching Dynasty. In turning into 20th century, imperial Japanese government took control of the eastern Taiwan and central mountains. At the same time, the Tayal ancestral territory was nationalized, while Indigenous peoples are confined through the National Forestry Survey Project established in the beginning of 20th century(Lin, Icyeh and Kuan, 2007).
Many Indigenous communities were forced to migrant to low mountainous areas (or in the name of “national security” to divide and rule, see Yap). Tayal were labelled as “raw savages” (“raw” in relation to the level of acculturation and assimilation to the national culture) a century ago, the old guise of colonial label still continues while “raw” was substituted by “Shāndì” (lit. Mountain or mountainous, referring to a sense of periphery) when Chinese Nationalist Party came during the 1940s. “Savages” was changed to first “compatriots” along with the assimilative sinicization process since 1950s. It was not until the 1990s that “Indigenous people” was utilized institutionally, along with an emerging social welfare system that start to treat the Indigenous peoples in a way that their cultural needs are visible.