By Wayne Chang, Chris Lau, CNN
Taipei (CNN) — A group of indigenous Taiwanese seafarers have completed a daring quest, braving choppy waters and using the stars for navigation as they paddled a traditional wooden canoe to the Philippines –– in a journey that highlights the astonishing feat of human migration across the Pacific.
Taiwan’s indigenous people –– who nowadays make up just a tiny proportion of the island’s population –– are believed to be the ancestors of many of the groups who came to inhabit lands stretching from Hawaii and Easter Island in the eastern Pacific, to Madagascar, off the coast of east Africa.
They share genetic and linguistic links and the navigational skills of their forebears – who travelled extraordinary distances in primitive vessels, successfully finding their way to tiny land masses – is considered one of the great migrations in human history.
On Monday, 60 Tao people from Taiwan’s Orchid Island set off on a 111-mile voyage, taking turns to paddle against strong currents to reach the Ivatan people on Batan Island, located in the far north of the Philippines, replicating a journey first thought to have been made more than 4,000 years ago.
They were welcomed by drum and dance performances when they arrived the following day.
“This is not only a significant day for the Pacific Ocean but also a day of commemoration for the Austronesian people,” Maraos, chairperson of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation (IPCF), said. Maraos, like many Tao people, goes by a single name.
The journey is meant to revive a sea route not used for 300 years, and one that in the past could’ve been considered nearly impossible –– given the lack of maps and the crude vessels early navigators of the Bashi Channel once used.
More than 200 people from six tribal communities took part in making the canoe – named “Ovayan,” or “Golden Friendship” – using traditional methods to bind specially cut wood without the need of nails.
“If the surface is uneven, with slight bumps here and there, the resistance from the sea will be much greater,” said Hsieh Chen-Hsiung, a shipbuilder, in a promotional video. The endeavour was supported by the Taiwanese government.
The Tao people are one of Taiwan’s smaller indigenous groups, with a population of just 5,120, according to government tallies. And indigenous people account for just 3% of modern Taiwan’s 23 million people –– a population now dominated by descendants of Han Chinese who came from the mainland –– but the role they played was crucial in the Great Pacific Migration story.
“It’s absolutely certain” that journey began in Taiwan “maybe 5,000 years ago,” Emeritus Professor of Archaeology Peter Bellwood, from Australian National University, told CNN. “Then, it spread into the Philippines, and then onwards.”
From there, the groups spread further to other places, such as Indonesia and Pacific islands, he said, adding there was archaeological records and DNA traces to back that up.
The Austronesian groups from Taiwan would bring food to their boats during expeditions, he said, including yams and taro as well as livestock.
“Without those animals and plants, they couldn’t survive in small islands,” Bellwood said, adding that there were usually women on board too.
“They had a basic knowledge of astronomy, so they could see where they were going, and they could also record maybe where they’d come from and where the direction was to go back home again,” he also said.
Taiwan was also the first traceable point of the passing of the many Austronesian languages, said Victoria Chen, a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
Many of those languages, she said, still share similar words – such as five, which is “lima” in Bahasa Indonesian, “rima” in the Māori language in New Zealand and “ʻelima” in Hawaiian.
But more variations of Austronesian languages have been identified in Taiwan, accompanied with more intricate grammatical structures and expansive vocabularies, which has provided insights for linguists.
“The high-level diversity suggests that Taiwan was the original dispersal of the family,” Chen said.
Despite being widely accepted by scientists, the so-called “Out of Taiwan” theory has been challenged in recent years by academics in mainland China, who have sought to claim the origins of Austronesian people were instead in southern China.
It’s a narrative that Taipei says is meant to strengthen Beijing’s territorial assertions over Taiwan – which it claims as its own despite never having controlled.
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