Michael Rudolph 2007:

“Failure of Ritual Reinvention? Efficacious New Rituals of Taiwan’s Aborigines under the Impact of Religious Conversion and Elites’ Competition.

In: Hüsken, Ute (ed): Getting It Wrong? Ritual Dynamics, Mistakes and Failure. Leiden: Brill (Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religion, Vol. 115), p. 325-336.

Abstract

Theoretical reflections on the reasons for ritual failure suggest that the rejection of a certain ritual or ritual element as false or mistaken is often due to the perception that ritual efficacy is endangered—a perception that may be evoked by the violation of ritual rules or by incompetent performance. My contribution on the failure of a reinvented efficacious ritual among Taiwan’s Aborigines shows however that such criteria cannot always serve as a satisfactory explanation of why certain ritual traditions are rejected while others are not: Competing value systems and competition between elites in globalizing and highly hybrid cultural contexts also seem to be decisive factors in the process of selection. Ritual architects who deliberately use aesthetical patterns inscribed into the cultural memory of a people to activate collective agencies should be aware that such icons — if loaded with certain historical experiences — can also assume the function of (warning) signals.

The context of my research is Taiwanese nativism since the beginning of the 1990s. As a part of its multicultural policy, Taiwan’s government today officially welcomes and financially supports any kind of cultural revitalisation if it is only connected to the island’s multifarious cultural heritage. The main aim of this policy is to cure and to readjust the negative results and shortcomings of the former homogenisation policy of the Chinese National Party (KMT) that tried to make Taiwan appear a part of China. Westerntrained scholars and politicians hope that an increasing engagement of the people in their own traditional cultures may enhance the development of a feeling of ‘unity in diversity’, as well as a sense of responsibility for their country. Simultaneously, such a demonstration of diversity can of course also serve as a falsification of the claim that Taiwan is Chinese, not only in cultural terms, but in political terms as well.

Encouraged by this general trend in cultural politics, which is closely connected to Taiwan’s need for self-authentication, intellectuals and artists of Taiwan’s so-far twelve recognized Aboriginal groups today compete with each other in their endeavors to revitalise their Malayo-Polynesian cultures in a modern cultural context. As Aborigines have been severely discriminated against for their ‘backwardness’ in past decades by Han people, this is sometimes not an easy task. In addition, most Aborigines have become Christians today. On the other hand, elements of the former religious beliefs and cultural traditions are still alive in the form of ‘old superstitions’ and habitualizations. In the age of culturalism and tourism, Aborigines today become increasingly aware that the ‘excavation’ and exhibition of these rudiments cannot only help one to regain one’s own ethnic pride and confidence, but also has its usefulness in economic terms. Aboriginal languages may be named as a concrete example here: In order to be eligible for certain subsidies and privileges, Aborigines today must testify to their language ability in special examinations.3 It is this interrelation of religious, cultural, political and economic aspects that has a deep impact on all kinds of cultural practice in Aboriginal society today. This can also been seen from the following account of ritual reinvention in Taroko society, an Aboriginal group that lives in the mountainous regions of Taiwan’s East Coast and that had not been officially recognized as an independent ethnic group before the presidential elections in 2004.