Map of Taiwan 1901 showing boundary between Japanese- and Unassimilated Aborigine-controlled areas

"The red line marks the approximate boundary separating savage district and territories under actual Japanese administration."

MC: I'm assuming that "savage" refers to 生番 (Mdn. sheng fan), which I usually translate as "unassimilated Aborigines" as opposed to 熟番 (Mdn. shou fan; "unassimilated Aborigines"). These are sometimes translated as "raw" vs. "cooked" Aborigines, which is simply mind-bogglingly ridiculous!



Copyright
By Compiler: James W. Davidson;
Outliner: T. Obanawa;
Engraver: N. Nagai
http://cdm.reed.edu/u?/formosa,1834, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19016

Ren-ai District (仁愛區), Keelung City

Ren-ai (仁愛, “Benevolence [and] Love”: two of the Confucian “eight virtues” {see Bade 八德}) is the smallest district of Keelung (基隆) and home to the tourist / gourmet mecca of the Temple Entrance Nightmarket (廟口夜市: Mdn. Miaokou Yeshi).

Ren-ai is clearly a Chinese name and dates from after retrocession in 1945 once the Japanese (who primarily follow Shinto and Buddhist beliefs) had been defeated in WWII and replaced by the KMT-led ROC government.

What existed before that is less clear, however.

i) Abe Akiyoshi (安倍明義), since his research was published in 1938 (台灣地名研究; Studies on Taiwan's Place Names), naturally makes no mention of this area, though he has numerous listings for Keelung, including some that today belong to New Taipei City, such as Ruifang, Jinshan and Sandiaojiao.

ii) Wikipedia states that downtown Keelung had four areas during Japanese era: 八尺門 (Mdn. Bachimen; "8ft Gate"), 白米甕 (Mdn. Baimiweng; "White Rice Urn"). 田寮港 (Mdn. Tianliaogang; "Field Office Harbor"), and 石牌街 (Mdn. Shipai Jie; "Stone Marker Machi*"). After retrocession, these became, respectively, 中正 (Mdn. Zhongzheng, referring to Chiang Kai-shek), 中山 (Mdn. Zhongshan, referring to Sun Yat-sen), 信義 (Mdn. Xinyi, another pair of Confucian virtues), and 仁愛 (Ren-ai) districts.

This last, 石牌 (Mdn. Shipai; "Stone Marker") Town / District, which was renamed as Ren-ai District, presumably indicated, like many other similar names around Taiwan (see.Shipai MRT, Taipei City), that it was originally on the boundary between areas designated for Han-Chinese & assimilated Aborigines and those for unassimilated Aborigines, though there is no specific record of such a stone or boundary.

iii) Tsai Pei-hui et al. (蔡培慧等) in 台灣的舊地名 (Taiwan's Old Place Names; 2004) have a similar list of: 基隆街 (Mdn. Jilong Jie; "Keelung Machi"), 田寮港庄 (Mdn. Tianliaogang Zhuang; "Field Office Harbor Sho**"), 石硬港庄 (Mdn. Shiyinggang Zhuang; "Stone Hard Harbor Village") and 獅球嶺庄 (Mdn. Shiqiuling Zhuang; "Lion Ball Ridge Village") from the Qing dynasty and early Japanese period. In 1931 these changed into eight different names, before coalescing into the postwar Ren-ai District,



[MC: Clearly this entry needs further research and editing.]

* 街 was a unit of local government administration during the Period of Japanese Rule. Pronounced machi (the same as its rural equivalent 町) it was used for city districts. In Mandarin it is pronounced jie and means "street".

** 庄 sho was another unit of local government administration, smaller than a 街, but larger than a 社 sha "community / tribe", hence translated here roughly as "village".



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Campaigns for the Rectification of Names

As part of Taiwan's move from authoritarianism during the postwar four-decade Martial Law Era towards democratization, and the concomitant increases in cultural and ethnic pluralism and autonomy, the process of recifying place names is gradually gaining steam.

One example that From Takow to Kaohsiung came across today (albeit dating from June 2021), was the result of a campaign by local people to change the name of Hezuo Village (合作村) in Ren-ai Township, Nantou County.

As already noted on this blog (here), according to legend, the Truku ethnic group arrived in Taiwan from across the South China Sea in prehistoric times, first living on the plains in the island's southwest, before migrating to ever-higher inland locations, eventually taking their name from Truku Truwan in today's Nantou County. This was transliterated into Chinese as 德鹿灣 (Mdn. Deluwan), which later became 合作村 (Hezuo Village).

Following a campaign by local people starting in 2019, in June 2021 the village name was changed "back" to 德鹿谷村 (Mdn. Delugu Village), albeit using the character 谷 (Mdn. gu; "valley") rather than 灣 (Mdn. wan "bay / bend in river").

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Source: Ren-ai Township Household Registration Office bulletin June 23, 2021.

Wu (屋; “House”)

Wu (屋; Hakka vuk) originally referred to a homestead or main family home on a piece of land newly cleared for farming. These often later developed into hamlets, villages and even towns and districts (such as Xinwu District {新屋區 "New House”} in Taoyuan, which has a population of almost 50,000), so that today 屋 is a common second character in place names, often preceded by a family or clan name.

Examples include Luwu (呂屋; “Lu’s House”) in Taoyuan, Shenwu (沈屋; “Shen’s House”) in Hsinchu and Zhengwu (鄧屋; “Zheng’s House”) in Miaoli County.

(See additional notes, including on the role of different Chinese regionalects in Taiwan place names, at Cuo (厝)

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Cuo (厝) and Wu (屋) "Houses"

Cuo (厝; Hoklo-Taiwanese tsu) originally referred to a homestead or main family home on a piece of land newly cleared for farming. These, often later developed into hamlets, villages and even towns, so that today “cuo” is a common second character in place names, often preceded by a family or clan name.

Examples include Pengcuo (彭厝; “Peng’s House”) in Taipei, Wucuo (吳厝; “Wu’s House”) in Taichung, and Liucuo (劉厝; “Liu’s House”) in Kaohsiung.

Wu (屋; Hakka vuk) has a similar function, appearing in such places as Luwu (呂屋; “Lu’s House”) in Taoyuan, Shenwu (沈屋; “Shen’s House”) in Hsinchu and Zhengwu (鄧屋; “Zheng’s House”) in Miaoli County.

As Professor Lay Jinn-guey (賴進貴) of the Department of Geography at NTU notes*, 厝 is more common in Hoklo-speaking areas, while 屋 is common in Hakka areas (primarily Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli).

Similarly, Abe Akiyoshi (安倍 明義) notes in 台灣地名研究 (Studies on Taiwan's Place Names; 1938) that the 壢 (Mdn. li; Hakka lak) of Zhongli (中壢) in Taoyuan is typically equivalent to 坑 (Mdn. keng; Hoklo <>khiⁿ; meaning “pit / gorge”), such as in New Taipei City’s Shenkeng (深坑).

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* National Geographic, 2017

Taroko / Truku (太魯閣), Hualien County

Taroko Gorge and the Taroko National Park both derive from Japanese-era pronunciation of Qing-dynasty Chinese transliteration of the local Aboriginal group’s name, Truku (太魯閣; Mdn. Tailuge).

According to legend, ancestors of the Truku arrived by rowcing boats (literally “driftwood”) from what is today southern China or Southeast Asia, making land and settling on the fertile plains somewhere between today’s Taichung and Tainan,. After defeat in conflicts with other plains-dwelling indigenous peoples, however, they migrated to mountainous areas of central Taiwan, firstly in a place they called Ayran (愛蘭; Mdn. Ailan; to the west of today’s Puli), and subsequently deeper and deeper into the mountains. They eventually settled at Truku Truwan (德鹿灣; Mdn. Deluwan; today’s Hezuo Village 合作村 [in June 2021 forllowing a campaign by local people, the village name was changed to 德鹿谷村 (Mdn. Delugu Village) to reflect earlier tradition*], Ren’ai Township, Nantou County), a terraced area overlooking three river valleys, the Ayug Lqsan, Ayug Busi, and Ayug Brayaw.

Truku derives from Tru Ruku (“three living places”). From here they expanded to other areas to farm and hunt** including, in the 17th and 18th centuries, to the high mountains of Qilai (奇萊), Nenggao (能高), and Hehuan (合歡) in the Central Mountain Range (中央山脈的) and, from there, down to Hualien in eastern Taiwan.

This new area in the east, is what Han-Chinese immigrants and, later, Japanese colonial authorities, referred to as Truku, albeit in Chinese transliterations such as 大魯閣 (Mdn. Daluge) and 太魯閣 (Mdn. Tailuge), the latter being pronounced in Japanese as Taroko. While this is still the standard romanization for the popular tourist destinations, “Truku” is also becoming more common following increasing autonomy by Taiwan’s indigenous peoples over recent decades.

Confrontations with the Japanese colonial authorites, who reclassified much Truku territory as government land, led to Xincheng Incident (新城事件; see Xincheng) of in 1896, Weili Incident (威里事件) of 1906, and Truku Incident (太魯閣事件) of 1914. Following the last of these, when around 3~5,000 Truku with perhaps 2,000 firearms were defeated by as many as 15~20,000 Japanese soldiers, Truku living in high mountains were forced to migrate down to various low-lying villages.

Today the Truku are mainly settled in Xiulin (秀林), Wanrong (萬榮), and Zhuoxi (卓溪) townships, and in Qingfeng (慶豐), Nanhua (南華), and Fuxing (福興) villages in Ji’an (吉安) Township, all in Hualien County. Official recognition as a separate ethinic group dates from 2004, before which, like the related Seediq people, they were previously considered a subgroup of the Atayal (泰雅; Mdn. Taiya), and by January 2020, the Truku had a population of about 32,333 people.

Text and photos copyright Jiyue Publications 2022

* See Ren-ai Township Household Registration Office bulletin June 23, 2021

** More details at Council of Indigenous Peoples

Xincheng Township (新城鄉), Hualien County



Xincheng (新城; “New City”) was earlier known in Hoklo-Taiwanese as Toloboan (哆囉滿 Mdn. Duoluoman, 大魯宛 Mdn. Daluwan &c.), derived from the Truku name.

During the Jiaqing (嘉慶; 1796-1820) reign period of the Qing Dynasty, Wu Quan (吳全) from Tamsui, led tenant farmers to cultivate land here, but due to attacks and head-hunting by Truku Aborigines, they firstly built fortifications, leading to the name of New City (城; cheng specifies a walled city), and then abandoned the city and moved south to today’s Hualien City.

In 1875, In order to bring the east coast under Qing dynasty control, a road was started to connect Su’ao with Hualien, which led to the re-establishment of Xincheng.

Xincheng is historically famous for the Xincheng Incident (新城事件) of 1896, just one year into the Period of Japanese Rule. Facing attempts to appropriate their lands and traditional hunting grounds in order to exploit natural resources, and sexual harrassment of indigenous women by Japanese soldiers, Holok Naowi, Chief of the Truku, led 20 warriors against the Japanese forces, killing 13 soldiers, before going to hide in the mountains. This was the first of several conflicts in the Truku War, which ended with Japanese victory in 1914 (see Truku/Taroko).



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