TAIPEI, Taiwan — “If the indigenes had know how to put down their experiences in writing, I believe that the past 400 years of Taiwan’s history will not only be Han people’s soliloquy,” Paelabang Danapan wrote.
As in many parts of the world, Taiwan’s native inhabitants do not have its own writing system. Born as a Puyuman to the Pinaski tribe in Taitung County, Paelabang Danapan was raised in a culture where knowledge and history are transmitted through oral tradition and lived experience. Fascinated by the power of written words, Danapan has found a way to express the voices of his own, and that of his fellow Puyumans: writing.