Taiwan’s tribes have their day in court (and lose)
May 15th 2021THERE ARE many unwritten rules for hunting in Taiwan. For members of the Bunun tribe, a community of indigenous people who live among the island’s mountains, flatulence and sneezing are bad omens (in addition to scaring off prey). Male deer are fair game, but females, who might be pregnant, are left in peace. Talum Suqluman followed these strictures in the summer of 2013, when he climbed into the hills of Taitung County, on the south-east coast, and shot two deer, a Formosan serow and a Reeve’s muntjac. They would provide a good store of meat for his ageing mother, with plenty left over to share with his village.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.There are some written rules, too. Mr Suqluman was arrested and charged with possession of an illegal firearm and for violating the Wildlife Conservation Act. He was sentenced to more than three years in jail (although appeals have ensured that he has yet to spend any time behind bars). Indigenous communities were outraged at the sentence, which they viewed as unduly harsh. Moreover, they were angry that their traditional hunting practices are prohibited at all.In early May Taiwan’s highest court ruled that while some of the rules around hunting are unconstitutional, because they breach indigenous people’s rights to practice their culture freely, animals also need to be protected. Hunting restrictions will mostly remain in place. The verdict is “far from satisfactory”, says Awi Mona of National Dong Hwa University, the first indigenous person in Taiwan to obtain a doctorate in law.Taiwan’s tribes have lived on the island for some 6,000 years, but only started to receive official recognition in 2001. They are more closely related ethnically to Filipinos than to the island’s Chinese majority, who are descended from settlers who began arriving in large numbers in the 17th century. Today the 16 officially recognised tribes make up 2.5% of the population. Around half of indigenous people live in the countryside, where hunting is central to their way of life. The conservation law, which states that hunting can be done only on certain days and that hunters must apply for a permit indicating which animals they are planning to kill, is routinely ignored. Indigenous hunters also complain about the rule that they must use only traditional, home-made guns. These require gunpowder and ammunition to be loaded from the front end of the barrel, like a musket, making them more dangerous than modern weapons.Just like the guns they are forced to use, many indigenous people feel they themselves are viewed as primitive. Savungaz Valincinan, from the Bunun tribe, complains that ethnic-Chinese people ask her things like, “Can you ride a mountain pig?” It is not just bad attitudes that people are upset about. Aboriginal life expectancy is 8.6 years lower than that of the general population.In 2016 Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president, promised to improve the lot of indigenous people and apologised for centuries of “pain and unfair treatment”. But prohibiting hunting will “wipe out” their culture, said Mr Suqluman, in a statement after last week’s verdict. Regardless of the law, he says that “of course” he will continue to hunt.This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Endangered hunters”