Seeking the koko’ ta’ay: Investigating the Origins of Little People Myths in Taiwan and Beyond
Tobie Openshaw and Dean Karalekas
Brill: 2024
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Few places are closer to my heart than the mountains of Nanzhuang Township in Miaoli County, northwest Taiwan. I was married there in 2003, and, during my early years in Taiwan, regularly explored the countryside. Later, with my children, I splashed around secluded rock pools deep in the subtropical forest while hooting Formosan macaques hurtled through the canopy.
Amid this raw natural beauty are clues of cultures starkly distinct from Taiwan’s Han Chinese majority. The presence of the Atayal and Saisiyat peoples—two of Taiwan’s sixteen officially recognised Indigenous groups—is evident: mosaic murals and roadside effigies of people pounding millet, transporting baskets brimful of vegetables atop their heads or shielding their eyes from the sun with one hand while clutching the hilts of sheathed knives with the other. Clad in intricately patterned, traditionally woven red-and-white garments, these figures seem out of time and place in contemporary, industrialised Taiwan, yet attuned to their surroundings in these lush, misty mountains.
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- Tags: Dean Karalekas, Issue 38, James Baron, Taiwan, Tobie Openshaw