Repatriation and Representation: National Taiwan Museum

 

By Melaina Leung

In this section, I will discuss the National Taiwan Museum’s approach to repatriation and representation known as “homecoming.” I also will highlight the unique example of the Taiwanese mummy and shaman, Ko Hsiang. 

The National Taiwan Museum’s History¹

Founded in 1908 as the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office Museum, the National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. Located in Taipei, it was created to celebrate the completion and opening of the North-South Main Line railway along Taiwan’s western coast, which improved upon the Qing dynasty’s rail network and reduced travel time by at least ten days. The museum was intended to display Taiwan’s natural resources and commemorate the country’s industrial development.

The National Taiwan Museum currently boasts four locations: the Main Building, the Natural History Branch, the Nanmen Branch, and the Railway Department Park. However, the museum’s first location was in the Lottery Division Building, which unfortunately was destroyed by Allied forces during World War II. The museum’s present-day main building, completed in 1915, was constructed to celebrate Taiwan’s Fourth Governor-General Kodama Gentaro and Chief Civil Administrator Goto Shinpei.

After Taiwan came under the control of the Republic of China’s Nationalist Government, the museum was renamed as the Taiwan Provincial Museum. It received its present name in 1999 when it fell under the jurisdiction of Taiwan’s central government.

Anthropology at the National Taiwan Museum

Since its founding, the National Taiwan Museum has long maintained a research focus on anthropology, along with the earth sciences, zoology, and biology. Currently, the museum holds over 7,000 indigenous objects from over a span of 2000 years.² In total, the anthropological collection contains 40,000 objects that reflect Taiwan’s long history of contact and interaction between its ethnic groups. 

A major early figure at the museum who was responsible for the museum’s effort to build up its anthropology collection and study the indigenous peoples of Taiwan was the Japanese anthropologist Mori Ushinosuke. In 1895, he first came to Taiwan as a Chinese interpreter and soon began working under the famous anthropologist Torii Ryuzo. During this time, he learned how to take photographs, complete surveys of the indigenous peoples, and speak several indigenous languages. Afterwards, while working for the museum from 1896 to 1915, Mori did fieldwork with the indigenous peoples he had befriended and led archaeological excavations at Taiwan’s prehistoric sites. The research records he produced, photographs he took, and the indigenous objects he collected all greatly contributed to the National Taiwan Museum’s initial anthropology collection.

The National Taiwan Museum’s most recent permanent exhibition specifically focusing on the country’s indigenous tribes ran from 2008 to 2018.⁴ It was divided into two sections focusing on prehistoric culture and indigenous culture. The latter featured the pingpu groups, Atayal, Bunun, Saisiyat, Tsou, Paiwan, Rukai, Puyuma, Amis, Yami, and Thao. Though it is now closed, the museum hopes to update the exhibition to reflect the recent addition of more officially recognized indigenous groups in Taiwan. In the meantime, the current permanent exhibition titled “Discovering Taiwan” still features some indigenous objects as it recounts the origins of the National Taiwan Museum’s collections and the founding of natural history studies in Taiwan.⁵

Indigenous Groups in Taiwan

Currently, there are 16 officially recognized indigenous groups in Taiwan.⁶ They are the Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Hla'alua, Kanakanavu, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiyat, Sakizaya, Seediq, Thao, Truku, Tsou, and Yami (Tao) tribes. Although the members of this list have achieved recognition, there still are a number of groups, such as the Pingpu indigenous peoples, campaigning to be recognized by the government.⁷ To gain this official status, groups must prove that their culture has been kept alive through two elements. First, they must compile a dictionary for their tribe’s language and second, they must demonstrate that they have their own unique clothing and ceremonies.⁸ However, the path to official recognition is difficult because indigenous groups still face cultural colonization by and assimilation into the Han Chinese majority in Taiwan.

Homecoming at the National Taiwan Museum

Currently, unlike many museums in North America, museums in Taiwan tend to focus on objects’ “homecoming,” rather than their return to indigenous groups. Homecoming thus positions itself as a term and a practice in opposition to traditional understandings of repatriation, and in fact, the latter is a bit of a controversial term in the country’s museum community. 

There are a number of reasons why homecoming is the major chosen method of how Taiwan’s museums include indigenous peoples in their missions of education, collection, and research. For instance, because there is no legal background for repatriation, the country’s museums have taken on a stewardship role: after their purchase from private collectors, indigenous objects are distributed into as many museums as possible. By doing so, the museums are held responsible for maintaining the objects, which indigenous tribe members can survey in storage and consult on. As these collections grow, more resources would need to be devoted for their upkeep, thus prioritizing the preservation and promotion of indigenous culture. In addition, the indigenous objects’ placement in the country’s museums would allow scholars to research them and curators to educate the public through touring exhibitions.

Another reason is that older museums in Taiwan tend to be more conservative in their approach. There is the belief among various institutions that having one initial case of repatriation would establish a pattern with more cases following. Museums are reluctant and oppose creating a precedent of repatriation because the collections of national museums have already become public property. Transitioning objects over into the private, non-governmental section is a complex process and thus seen as too troublesome.

Instead, by keeping the objects in museum collections and facilities, institutions believe that they can foster closer connections with indigenous and local communities. However, different museums do have different approaches to homecoming. For example, the National Taiwan University’s Museum of Anthropology has previously held a traditional wedding between a Paiwan ancestor post from Kaviyangan village representing the community’s female ancestor, Muakai, and the university’s president, Dr. Pan-Chyr Yang.⁹ The ceremony took place on September 12, 2015 and involved the return of indigenous artifacts, along with a replica of Muakai.¹⁰ This type of homecoming was undertaken because Muakai uniquely has four sides with six fingers on each hand and has been designated as a “national treasure.”¹¹ 

In contrast, the National Taiwan Museum focuses instead on inviting local communities to organize, curate, and interpret the exhibitions put on by the museum. Ultimately, homecoming is prioritized over repatriation because doing so would promote efforts to empower indigenous communities. This aim is seen as far more important than returning the objects.

The Return of Ko Hsiang¹²

One unique example of homecoming at the National Taiwan Museum is the case of the mummy of Ko Hsiang, a shaman from Yunlin County who lived during the Qing dynasty.¹³ While Ko Hsiang holds great significance for the community he comes from, little is known about his life. In fact, it could be said that his afterlife is far more eventful.

From 1879 to 1912, he was kept at the Lord of Mysterious Heaven temple in Luzhuhou Village, Yunlin County. However, due to the Tuku Incident of 1912, a planned revolt against the Japanese, Ko Hsiang was taken as evidence against the organizers and participants and was held in the Police Officer School of the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office. Then, from 1945 to 1993, he was used as an anatomical teaching model at the Taiwan Police Academy before being given to and kept in storage at the Taiwan Provincial Museum/National Taiwan Museum. Because Ko Hsiang was displayed in two exhibitions on the country’s cultural development and studies in naturalism in 1992 and 1997 respectively, the mummy once again became a symbol of Taiwan’s anti-Japanese history. 

In 2010, through a course on community cultural heritage preservation and history research co-organized with the museum, students from the National Taiwan Normal University’s Institute of Taiwan History discovered that Ko Hsiang was still very much ingrained in his hometown’s historical memory. Community members subsequently campaigned for the mummy’s return, which took place the following year and featured various religious dances, music, and shamans.

It is tricky to label Ko Hsiang’s case as one of “true” repatriation. First, although he is an artificially-created mummy, Ko Hsiang is seen as an incarnation of a god, the Lord of Mysterious Heaven, rather than the actual remains of a human. In addition, since 2011, Ko Hsiang has split his time between the National Taiwan Museum and the Beiji Temple in Dade Village, Dapi, Yunlin County. When the museum has custody, a specially-made statue acts as a substitute for the god.

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Footnotes

1. The National Taiwan Museum’s International Docent Training Program’s Qualification Materials
2. National Taiwan Museum Website: Research
3. International Docent Training Program: Facebook Live Streamed Tour of “Discovering Taiwan” Exhibition
4. National Taiwan Museum Website: "Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan" Exhibition Description
5. National Taiwan Museum Website: "Discovering Taiwan" Exhibition Description
6. Taiwan Indigenous People's Knowledge Economic Development Association Website: Introduction to the 16 Indigenous Peoples
7. International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs Website: Indigenous Peoples in Taiwan
8. International Docent Training Program: Facebook Live Streamed Tour of “Discovering Taiwan” Exhibition
9. "Taiwan's national treasures: Plunder or preservation" by Noah Buchan, Taipei Times (May 25, 2017)
10. Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival Website: Muakai's Wedding (2019)
11. National Taiwan University Website: "NTU's Anthropology Museum Marries a National Treasure"
12. International Docent Training Program’s Virtual Happy Hour Talk with Chin-Hsien Lee (August 13, 2020)
13. "Life goes on" by Nancy Liu, Taipei Times (January 19, 2013)