Michael Rudolph 2006:

Elites’ Competition, Ritual Restoration, and Identity Formation: The Case of the ‘Harvest Festivals’ of Taiwan’s Ami”.

In: Köpping, Leistle, Rudolph (ed) 2006, Ritual and Identity: Performative Practices as Effective Transformations of Social Reality. Hamburg/Münster/London: LIT (ISBN 3-8258-8042-7), p. 209-248.

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the dynamics and the efficacy of contemporary collective ritual of the Ami – one of 12 aboriginal groups in Taiwan – under the influence of Taiwanese nativism, Christianization, and competition among elites. It is argued that ritual performance and identity formation in aboriginal society are closely interrelated today: apart from serving as a means of authentication (not only in the larger framework of Taiwan’s politics of recognition, but also vis-à-vis other Ami tribes), contemporary ritual supports the reorganization of group relations (e.g. through re-negotiation of social statuses and exertion of social control), the nurturing of more positive self-perceptions vis-à-vis Taiwan’s Han (diminishing the identity stigma accumulated in the decades before) as well as the deepening of a sense of community. Competition among elites, however, seems to be the most decisive factor with regard to identity formation in contemporary Ami ritual. Within the highly syncretic cosmology of Ami society today, different political, clerical and traditional leaders select and guide cultural symbols in specific ways in order to reinforce or to gain legitimacy and to bring common people in line with their power ambitions. Essential to the performances is the elites’ demonstration of their linkage to traditional authority, which in today’s hybrid cultural setting has become manifold and multiple – a phenomenon that enables opposing elites to restore and instrumentalize alternative forms of traditional authority. Although the supporters of the syncretic status quo who rely on well-established syncretic traditional authority are still predominant today, rapid changes in the ethnic group’s exogenous political and economical environment are enhancing the popularity of traditionalist forces who underline their legitimacy by clinging to traditional authorities different from that of Christianized aboriginal religion. As a forum of constant renegotiation and reassessment of cultural values and attitudes, contemporary collective ritual may thus be said to be an important identity-shaping force in Ami society today.

Keywords: Taiwan Aborigines, ritual, competition among elites, politics of recognition, hybridity