The Creation and Transformatin of an Aboriginal Account: The Lin Dong-ya Legend

Abstract

Today most oral accounts of the "Ami Nana Incident" are traced to Lin Dong-ya, so this article will focus on transformations of the "legend of Lin Dong-ya" in different eras; in this it is worth noting that Lin`s role as translator plays a major part of this account. In the late Qing, the issue of sovereignty over "aboriginal lands" provided an excuse for the open up development of houshan ... (beyond [the Imperial] Boundary), and translators followed the [Qing] army wherever it went. At that time Lin Dong-ya traveled with Luo Da-chun to accompany troops on the northern route. But accounts from the late Qing on place Lin Dong-ya with Wu Guang-liang on the central route, even substituting Lins`s name for others. But Lin was pursued only after the Ami Nana Incident; so references to him in connection with the incident in the late Qing accounts are not detailed. Lin`s death was linked to the accident, beginning from the Ino Kanori era of Japanese rule, when he became the Ami were angry about the development of the government road." After World War Two, this legend became historical memory and gained even greater popularity; in fact, in the received account Lin`s evil behavior has been exaggerated and played up to the point where, in an important development, the Ami Nana Incident is now also referred to as the "Lin Dong-ya Incident." That the "Lin Dong-ya legend" underwent this kind of distortion is related to the official nature of translators in the late Qing. Late Qing enterprise in houshan was spearheaded by the military, but the people who really represented military control of the tribes were the local translators. Because the power to appoint them resided with military officials, the cooperation between translators and officials formed power structure of Qing authority in eastern Taiwan, with the translators acting as promulgators of edicts among the tribes.