◎ A TRIBE OF BRIGHTNESS LIGHTS THE WAY <2009-05-19>
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| A TRIBE OF |
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BRIGHTNESS |
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LIGHTS THE WAY |
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| Visiting an Indigenous Artist |
| in the Pingtung Mountains |
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By Bryan K. Beaudoin
Photo/ Wen-Jen Fan | |
In the Paiwan village of Majia, Taiwanese and foreigners alike are “lowlanders.” More and more visitors to Taiwan are discovering the island’s rich aboriginal heritage. What beauty and wisdom await us in an indigenous village? Paiwan artist Ljegeay Mavalin’s Tribe of Brightness leads the way.
hen we, myself and two friends from Travel in Taiwan, arrive in Majia it is early afternoon. The tropical haze lends a timeless quality to this village at the foot of Dawu Mountain. Majia is a buluo (aboriginal community) of the Paiwan people. Along the winding road that leads through the settlement you can often see hikers from the nearby city of Pingtung and from as far away as Kaohsiung. On this Sunday afternoon, however, we are met with a much more tranquil scene: a riverbed dry and silent in the winter months, and swallows darting about overhead. Bright-eyed Paiwan children play in the street; many of them are enjoying their last few weekend hours in the village before returning to the city areas where their families make a living. The young ones enjoy themselves with a rural glee hard to find among their urban peers in Taipei.
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| Glass Garden Artist Ljegeay Mavalin is a master of batik painting. With his art and his ideas, he is an inspiration for many talented young tribe members |
At one end of the road lies a small gallery, Liuyuan — the Glass Garden. It is here that Paiwan artist Ljegeay Mavalin introduces us to some of his grander works. I am at once captivated by a large batik painting. One’s eyes are first drawn to the majesty of the local landscape depicted. A row of gigantic peapods sprouts like trees on the mountainside, telling of the mountain bounty upon which Taiwan’s aboriginal people have subsisted for countless generations. A rainbow springs forth from a wide-rimmed urn, one of the three traditional treasures of the Paiwan people. The painting’s colors are at once vibrant and subdued, a quality produced through the painstaking application and removal of wax and dies. At last one’s eyes are drawn to the focal point of the piece, the face of a young woman. She is an unwed Paiwan princess, her earrings signifying chastity. A slender white flower in her hair shows that she has made an important contribution to the tribe. In many of Ljegeay’s pieces eyes are depicted in minimal detail, or are even completely absent from faces. Here, the young princess’s haunting eyes gaze out from the canvas through the viewer and beyond. When asked about the eyeless motif, Ljegeay says simply, “These days everyone’s eyes look like money.” As we learn more about this artist, his work, his life and values, this cryptic response soon comes to make sense.
“Carrying Muni Back Home” was a finalist in Taiwan’s First Annual Indigenous Arts Festival, and would-be owners have offered generous sums for this and Ljegeay’s other pieces. But at the insistence of his wife Muni the piece remains here in Majia, among the tribe, whose legends weave the fiber of its soul. “There is a great demand for pieces like this, but my wife just wouldn't let me sell it,” he states. “I have to keep it in the buluo for posterity.” Indeed, few in Taipei would know the significance, for example, of the painting’s Paiwan’s serpent urn. And how many in Paris would recognize the blossom in the maiden’s hair as a Formosan lily?
Searching for Beauty among the Paiwan
The Paiwan tribe is one of Taiwan’s fourteen government-recognized aboriginal groups, all of which are classified as Austronesian by anthropologists. In fact, there has been scholarly claim that Taiwan is the birthplace of this ancient culture, which today stretches across the Pacific and Indian Oceans and up as high north as Taiwan. There are over 70,000 Paiwan people concentrated in the far south of Taiwan.
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Art is an important part of |
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everyday life in the buluo |
During our stay in Majia we found art is an important part of everyday life in the buluo. As one woman joked, “In ten of us you’ll find nine artists.” Recently, one form of aboriginal art unique to the Paiwan came to the fore of public attention with the success of the Taiwan film Cape No. 7. The glass beads featured in the smash hit were produced not far from Majia in the township of Sandimen. Still, none of us imagined that in Majia we would have the chance to hold a Paiwan chieftess’s bridal beads, a patinaed heirloom that has been passed down for generations.
Ljegeay Mavalin’s art can be seen all over his hometown. A retaining wall along the hiking path is one work in progress. Serpents, urns, and helmets ornamented with boar teeth in bas-relief make what would otherwise be a bare concrete surface a constant reminder of the community’s heritage.
Before devoting himself to art full time, Ljegeay was a career soldier. Eight years ago he opened the Tribe of Brightness workshop, and trademarked the name in 2005. Like any artist, the disorderliness of his workshop attests to the power of his creativity. Half-finished projects — pottery, batik, woodcarvings — fill the shelves, tabletops, and every corner. Fueled by an ample supply of coffee, cigarettes, and the occasional betel nut, Ljegeay is always at work.
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| Simple Steps What looks like random painting of cloth in the beginning turns out to be a well thought-through process of creating eye-pleasing colors and patterns |
He is so busy mentoring struggling local students, overseeing community art projects, and finishing an art degree during the daytime that it is mostly in the evenings that he can devote himself to the creative process. “My mother sometimes complains ‘What is he doing in that workroom at night idle and staring off into space!’” his wife joked during our visit. “I understand he needs his space to make art. Our family knows if dad’s not home for dinner it’s because he’s creating something. He is the kind of person who when he imagines something has a compelling need to make it happen.”
As a child, Ljegeay Mavalin idolized the Paiwan hunter. For the hunter deep in the mountains pursuing his prey, a single blink could mean missing the shot, so a bandana is used to keep the sweat from his eyes. Now Ljegeay can often be spotted just as deep in concentration in Tribe of Brightness. His batik bandana is of his own making, as is the mug from which he sips locally grown tokubun coffee. This hunter, though, is in pursuit of beauty. He treks the legends of his tribe, searching for the inspiration to bring Paiwan totems to life. Yet Ljegeay is at the same time determined to continually expand the range of his influences. Pointing on one occasion, to a saucer with an abstract geometric design, he named Picasso as one of his influences. Although Paiwan tradition is the heart and soul of Ljegeay’s work, he goes far beyond the buluo for inspiration. He has been to international art shows and is in his last semester of studies for a degree from the Techno-craft Department of Kao Fong College.
Despite his success and recognition, Ljegeay is in no hurry to turn Tribe of Brightness into a cash cow. “Commercialization is not the right direction for our community. It took hundreds of years to paint cathedrals in Europe; art cannot be rushed.” With long hours spent on community art projects and teaching art to troubled youth, orders for his signature horse-shaped goblets go unfilled.
Lowlanders in the Buluo
Taiwan is often called the bastion of traditional Chinese culture: Written characters retain their traditional form here, and the influence of Buddhism, Taoism, and popular religion is omnipresent. Our trip to the buluo served as a reminder that there are many other sides to this island’s rich cultural heritage. Arriving in Majia, we were neither Taiwanese, nor Han or Hakka, nor foreigner, nor American. To our Paiwan hosts, the lot of us were pingdiren — lowlanders. We were all outsiders, yet we could not have been treated with more hospitality.
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Ljegeay is a hunter |
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in pursuit of beauty |
Ethnotourism — travel combining leisure and learning about a tribal group’s culture and ways — is gaining popularity in Taiwan. The government increasingly recognizes the important role that the Paiwan and other indigenous peoples have played and continue to play in the cultural fabric of the island. For us lowlanders, an ethnotour may be a one-of-a-kind chance to taste homemade millet wine, sleep in a slate house, or perhaps hear a thousand-year-old legend from a tribal elder and then batik it onto a handkerchief.
Ljegeay Mavalin welcomes tourists to enjoy his art and culture, and a home-cooked meal in his gallery, but not too many and not too often. He is well aware of the challenge posed by ethnotourism. It was with a furrowed brow that he described the way some other tribes perform their ceremonies for tourists. “The dancing is just over the top. If I’m going to share a Paiwan wedding with lowlanders, I want it to be a real wedding.” Ethnotourism is a way for aboriginal peoples to keep their communities economically healthy and traditional cultures strong, but may also force them to repackage their culture in an overly stereotypical form for the outsider’s consumption.
It is no small challenge to strike a balance. In our two days with the Paiwan artist we came to know a man devoted to protecting the richness of his culture yet also yearning for new sources of inspiration — someone bringing beauty to himself, his community, and the outside world. If anyone is up to this challenge, it is Ljegeay Mavalin.
| Tribal Culture Experience Ljegeay welcomes tourists to enjoy his art and culture |
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