Fading Family Silhouettes

The majority of the photographs in this book capture aspects of indigenous Taiwanese material culture, such as weapons, houses, dress, and handicrafts. The objects shown in these photographs are relatively easy for people of a different generation or ethnicity to interpret. But it is hard to precisely identify the relationships between the groups of people in this set of group photographs. Perhaps they were members of the same family or clan, the same fishing or hunting party, or just assembled by the photographer for that particular photograph.
There are 18 photographs in this category. Many of them are photographs of adult men and women with children. We can perhaps infer that these are family photographs. As children tend to lack special skills, they were not normally involved in production, and therefore often of no interest to the photographer. However in these family group photographs, because children are members of the family, they are an element of the photograph that helps give us an insight into how Taiwan’s indigenous families looked a century ago.
This book assembles over 400 photographs of indigenous people. The aim of compiling such a book was not only to look back at how indigenous Taiwanese once lived, but also help the reader understand their historical image. Perhaps looking at these pictures will cause the current generation of indigenous Taiwanese to reflect on their traditions, and find in them a new source of vitality for their people.
The reader should not view indigenous culture like a static museum display, frozen in time; the photographs in this book are just the product of their time, the first half of the twentieth century. The traditions they depict differ from those of their indigenous ancestors living in the nineteenth century and earlier, and even more so from the lives of twenty-first century indigenous people.
Due to the distance in time and culture, this book makes no attempt to interpret the lives of the indigenous people in these photographs. It is hoped that the photographs will capture the reader’s interest, and enable him or her to layer by layer build up an image of the indigenous people of the time. Even if it is only a partial image, it is still a precious one and a difficult one to reproduce.
When we gaze at these faded photographs, it is if the people in the photographs are looking back at us, transcending time, space, ethnicity, and language. Friends and relatives are welcome to look through the pages of this book, like an old family album.