The First Nations of Taiwan: A Special Report on Taiwan's indigenous peoples | Cultural Survival

1.7.16

The First Nations of Taiwan: A Special Report on Taiwan's indigenous peoples | Cultural Survival: The island’s 400,000 Aboriginal people are frequently overlooked in geopolitical assessments of Taiwan. Yet at nearly two percent of Taiwan’s 22 million people, they compose a similar percentage of the national population as do First Nations in Canada (3 percent) and Australia (1.8 percent). The number of officially recognized peoples in Taiwan stands at 10. Today’s official classification schemes were originally developed by Japanese government anthropologists a century ago as part of colonization efforts. These classifications are rejected by some Taroko (or Sediq) people who question their official designation as "subtribes" of the Tayal (or Atayal), as well as the Tao, who reject their official name of "Yamei."