Gaoshan People, the Austronesian Highlanders of Taiwan

Under a single Chinese name meaning the high mountain people, one of the country’s recognised nationalities gathers the indigenous, Austronesian peoples of the island of Taiwan and their kin on the mainland: the Gaoshan. Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, and others, they are among the oldest inhabitants of their island and are widely held to descend from the very peoples whose voyages carried the Austronesian world across the Pacific.

This account follows the Gaoshan from their ancient origins in Taiwan through their languages, their homeland of mountain and coast, their old ways of millet and the hunt, their society, their ancestral beliefs, traditions, crafts, food, and their great harvest festivals, to the life these peoples lead today. It treats them as the diverse but deeply rooted first peoples of their island world.

Origins of the Gaoshan, an Austronesian People
What the Name Gaoshan Means
Austronesian Tongues of the Island Peoples
A Homeland in the Mountains and Coasts of Taiwan
Old Ways of Hunting, Millet and the Forest
Clan and Village Among the Gaoshan
Ancestral Spirits and the Beliefs of the Gaoshan
Tattoos, Weaving and the Living Gaoshan Traditions
Weaving, Carving and Gaoshan Handwork
Millet, Game and the Gaoshan Table
The Harvest Festivals of the Gaoshan
A People of the Island and the Mainland
The Gaoshan in the Present Day

Origins of the Gaoshan, an Austronesian People

A photograph of Taiwanese indigenous people from 1895, the Austronesian peoples China calls the Gaoshan — Indigenous Taiwan, 1895, the peoples known as Gaoshan

Among the peoples China officially recognises is one whose roots lie not on the mainland but across the sea, on the island of Taiwan: the Gaoshan, a name meaning the high mountain people. Under this single label China groups the indigenous, Austronesian peoples of Taiwan, together with the small community of their descendants who live on the mainland.

The peoples gathered under the name Gaoshan are, in fact, many. They include the Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, and other distinct groups, each with its own language, customs, and territory, who together form the aboriginal population of Taiwan. What unites them is a common Austronesian heritage far older than the arrival of Chinese settlers on the island.

These Austronesian peoples are of great importance in the wider history of the Pacific, for the island of Taiwan is widely regarded as the ancient homeland from which Austronesian-speaking peoples spread out across the seas to the Philippines, Indonesia, and far into the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Gaoshan are thus among the oldest inhabitants of their island world.

Their origin is therefore that of a deeply rooted island people, settled in Taiwan for thousands of years before later migrations. On the mainland, the Gaoshan nationality is made up of those of this heritage who came to live there, a small community carrying the identity of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.

What makes the Gaoshan remarkable, beyond their antiquity, is their place at the very source of the Austronesian expansion. From an island homeland these peoples and their relatives are thought to have launched one of the greatest migrations in human history, one that eventually reached from Madagascar to Easter Island. To trace the Gaoshan is to touch the beginning of that vast oceanic story.

What the Name Gaoshan Means

The traditional dress of an Amis chief, one of the Taiwan indigenous groups counted as Gaoshan — An Amis chief in full dress, one of the Gaoshan peoples

The name Gaoshan means high mountain, and it reflects the way the indigenous peoples of Taiwan came to be seen and grouped from the outside. Many of these peoples lived in the mountainous interior of the island, and the name marks them as the people of the high country, distinct from the lowland settlers.

In truth the name is an umbrella covering many separate peoples, each with its own name for itself. The Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, and the rest are distinct nations in their own right, and Gaoshan is the collective term under which they are officially grouped as a single Chinese nationality.

Because it lumps together so many different groups, the name Gaoshan describes a category more than a single unified people. Yet it points to a real shared heritage, the common Austronesian origin and the indigenous status of all these peoples as the original inhabitants of Taiwan before later arrivals.

To speak of the Gaoshan is thus to speak of the whole family of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples and their mainland kin, a diverse group united by ancient roots in their island and by their place as its first peoples.

Austronesian Tongues of the Island Peoples

An old postcard of the Amis, an Austronesian-speaking people of Taiwan — The Amis, whose Austronesian tongue is a Gaoshan language

The languages of the Gaoshan belong to the Austronesian family, one of the great language families of the world, spread across the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The tongues of the Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, and the other peoples are distinct from one another, yet all share this deep Austronesian ancestry.

The Austronesian languages of Taiwan are of special interest to scholars, for they preserve some of the oldest and most varied branches of the entire family. This diversity is one of the main reasons Taiwan is seen as the ancient homeland of the Austronesian peoples, the point from which their languages and their voyages spread across the oceans.

Historically these were spoken languages, their knowledge, stories, and songs carried by memory and voice rather than by writing. In the villages of the mountains and coasts, each people’s tongue was the intimate medium of daily life, ritual, and tradition, passed down through the generations by ear.

As with indigenous languages everywhere, the tongues of the Gaoshan have faced heavy pressure from the dominant languages around them. Their survival rests, as ever, on their continued use within the community, and the preservation of these ancient Austronesian voices is a matter of concern and effort among the peoples themselves.

A Homeland in the Mountains and Coasts of Taiwan

A Bunun mountain village in Taiwan, in the high country that gives the Gaoshan their Chinese name — A Bunun mountain village, the high homeland of the Gaoshan

The homeland of the Gaoshan is the island of Taiwan, and above all its mountainous interior and its eastern coasts and valleys. The high, forested ranges that run down the spine of the island, and the fertile valleys and shores below them, gave the various indigenous peoples their distinct territories.

This is a land of steep mountains, dense forest, rushing rivers, and a long, varied coastline, ranging from tropical lowlands to high peaks. The different peoples adapted to different parts of it, some to the high interior, some to the foothills, and some, like the Amis, to the plains and coasts of the east, each shaping a way of life suited to its own country.

The mountains in particular gave the Gaoshan their name and much of their character, fostering self-reliant communities skilled in hunting, farming the slopes, and living from the forest. The sea and the coastal plains, meanwhile, shaped the life of the lowland and shore-dwelling peoples among them.

On the mainland, the small Gaoshan community lives dispersed rather than in a single homeland, carrying the heritage of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. But the ancestral homeland of the Gaoshan as a whole remains the island itself, with its mountains, forests, and coasts, the deep-rooted world of these Austronesian peoples.

The contrast between the high interior and the coastal plains gave the Gaoshan world much of its variety. In the misty, forested mountains dwelt hunting peoples skilled in the ways of the high woods, while along the sunlit eastern shore and its valleys lived farming and fishing communities. This range of country, packed into one island, produced the striking diversity of the peoples grouped under the single name.

Old Ways of Hunting, Millet and the Forest

A depiction of Taiwanese indigenous people hunting deer, a mainstay of the old way of life — Deer-hunting, part of the old Gaoshan livelihood

The old life of the Gaoshan peoples was built on farming, hunting, fishing, and the forest. Millet was the great traditional crop, grown on the slopes and holding a central, even sacred, place in the life and ritual of many of the peoples, alongside other grains, root crops, and, in time, rice.

Hunting was of deep importance, especially in the mountain peoples, who pursued deer and other game through the forests with skill and ceremony. The hunt provided meat and materials and was bound up with prestige, ritual, and the passage to manhood, while fishing sustained the coastal and riverine communities.

The forest furnished much of the rest, giving timber, bamboo, rattan, and the wild plants and materials from which houses, tools, weapons, and crafts were made. Each people drew on its own territory, from the high woods to the coastal plains, in a way of life finely fitted to its particular corner of the island.

Through all of this ran the rhythms of ritual and season, above all the cycle of the millet from planting to harvest. The old Gaoshan way was a life closely tied to the land, the forest, and the hunt, in which farming, gathering, and the chase together sustained the mountain and coastal villages.

The head-hunting of earlier times, practised by several of the mountain peoples, was bound up with this old world of ritual and prestige, a solemn and now long-vanished custom tied to manhood, protection, and the honouring of the community. It belonged to a way of life in which the hunt, the harvest, and the spirit world were woven tightly together.

Clan and Village Among the Gaoshan

Two elder Atayal women of Taiwan — Atayal elders, keepers of Gaoshan community life

Gaoshan society varied from people to people, but everywhere it was built on the clan, the family, and the village. Kinship bound people together, and the village community, tied by blood, shared labour, and common ritual, formed the basic unit of life across the mountains and coasts of the island.

The different peoples had different social forms. Some, such as the Paiwan and Rukai, developed ranked societies with hereditary chiefs and noble families, while others, like the Amis, were organised around age-grades and, in their case, along lines that gave women a strong place in the household and descent. This variety reflected the distinctness of each people.

Across these differences, certain values ran deep, above all the honouring of ancestors, the importance of the clan and village, and the customs of cooperation, ritual, and hospitality. The community acted together at the great moments of life and at the festivals of the ritual year, binding its members into a shared world.

Leadership, whether by hereditary chiefs, elders, or councils, rested on custom and the respect of the community rather than on any wider state. In their villages, ordered by kinship, rank, or age, the Gaoshan peoples governed their own affairs in the manner each had developed over long ages on the island.

The men’s house, found among several of the peoples, served as a centre of village life for the unmarried young men, a place of training, defence, and the passing on of custom. Institutions such as this, along with age-grades and councils of elders, gave the villages their order and bound the generations into a working whole.

Ancestral Spirits and the Beliefs of the Gaoshan

A Bunun monument at Xinyi in Nantou, Taiwan, reflecting indigenous ancestral heritage — A Bunun monument, marking the ancestral world of the Gaoshan

The traditional religion of the Gaoshan peoples was rooted in animism and the veneration of ancestors. The world was understood as filled with spirits, of the ancestors, of nature, and of place, and much of religious life was concerned with keeping right relations with these unseen powers through ritual, offering, and observance.

Ancestral spirits held a central place. The ancestors were honoured and appealed to, and their goodwill was seen as vital to the health and fortune of the living, so that the bonds of kinship reached beyond death into the spirit world. Ritual specialists and shamans mediated between the community and these powers.

Belief and ritual were woven into every part of life, from farming and hunting to the passages of birth, initiation, marriage, and death. The great agricultural rites, above all those surrounding the sacred millet, and the ceremonies of the hunt and the head, in earlier times, expressed a religion deeply tied to the land and its cycles.

Each people had its own myths, deities, and observances, yet all shared this animist and ancestral core. In their reverence for the ancestors and the spirits of the natural world, the Gaoshan peoples expressed a religious life as old as their presence on the island and central to their sense of who they were.

Tattoos, Weaving and the Living Gaoshan Traditions

A young Atayal woman; the Atayal were once famed for facial tattooing — An Atayal woman, of a people known for facial tattoos

The traditions of the Gaoshan peoples are rich and varied, expressed in tattoo, weaving, dance, and song. Facial and body tattooing was a striking custom among peoples such as the Atayal, marking status, maturity, and belonging, so that the very skin bore the signs of a person’s place in the community.

Music and dance are central to Gaoshan life, above all at the great festivals. The group dances and songs of the Amis and other peoples, performed in bright traditional dress, are among the most vivid expressions of their culture, and the vocal traditions of some peoples are admired far beyond the island.

Dress itself carries deep tradition. The woven and embroidered clothing of the various peoples, rich with pattern and ornament and often marking rank and role, appears in full at celebrations, and the distinctive costumes of chiefs and nobles express the social order of peoples such as the Paiwan.

These traditions come most alive at the festivals and the passages of life. In the tattoo, the woven cloth, the dance, and the song, the Gaoshan peoples keep alive heritages that reach back through countless generations, binding each community to its ancestors and its ancient island home.

Weaving, Carving and Gaoshan Handwork

A traditional weaving loom of the Taiwanese indigenous peoples — The backstrap loom, a signature Gaoshan craft

Gaoshan craft is renowned for its weaving and its carving. On the backstrap loom, the women of the various peoples wove cloth of great beauty, worked with the patterns proper to each group, producing the garments that clothed the people and displayed their identity and, among some, their rank.

Wood and stone carving reached remarkable heights, above all among the Paiwan and Rukai, whose carved house-posts, lintels, and objects, adorned with figures of ancestors, snakes, and human heads, are among the treasures of Austronesian art. These carvings expressed the myths, rank, and beliefs of the peoples who made them.

The many crafts of daily life drew on the materials of the forest and the field, from bamboo and rattan work to the making of tools, weapons, ornaments, and the beadwork and metalwork that adorned festive dress. Each people had its own signature arts, its own patterns and forms.

In the woven cloth, the carved post, and the beaded ornament, Gaoshan craft expressed peoples deeply skilled in turning the gifts of their island into objects of beauty and meaning. Their handwork stands among the finest achievements of the indigenous cultures of the Pacific world.

The snake, and especially the hundred-pace viper, recurs again and again in the carving of peoples such as the Paiwan, a sacred motif tied to ancestry and rank. In these powerful images, worked into house-posts and treasured objects, the crafts of the Gaoshan carried not only beauty but the deepest meanings of myth, lineage, and belief.

Millet, Game and the Gaoshan Table

Atayal people with food, around 1930 — A traditional Gaoshan meal, built on millet and the hunt

The food of the Gaoshan peoples grew from farming, hunting, and the forest. Millet was the traditional staple and the most honoured crop, eaten as porridge, cakes, and the fermented drinks central to celebration, and grown with the rituals that marked its sacred place in the life of the people.

Game from the hunt, above all deer and wild boar, and fish from the rivers and sea, gave meat to the table, prized at feasts and bound up with ritual and prestige. The forest and the fields added wild plants, vegetables, and, in time, rice and other crops, filling out a varied island diet.

Fermented millet wine held a special place, brewed for festivals and offered to guests and ancestors alike, a drink whose making and sharing were part of the ritual and social life of the community. The sharing of food and drink was central to every celebration.

Meals and feasting were bound up with the ritual year and the bonds of the community. At the great harvest festivals and the gatherings of the village, the foods of the island, millet, game, fish, and wine, were shared in ways that affirmed both the favour of the ancestors and the ties among the living.

The Harvest Festivals of the Gaoshan

Amis people performing a group dance, central to their harvest festival — Amis festival dancing, a great Gaoshan celebration

The festivals of the Gaoshan peoples center on the cycle of the crops and above all on the harvest. The great harvest festivals, such as the famous Ilisin of the Amis, are the high points of the year, when the whole community gathers for days of ritual, feasting, singing, and dancing to give thanks and to renew its bonds.

At these festivals the traditions of the people are displayed in full, the bright woven dress, the group dances, the songs, and the sharing of millet wine and feast foods. They are at once acts of worship, giving thanks to the ancestors and spirits for the harvest, and great social gatherings that hold the community together.

Each people has its own festivals and rites, tied to millet, to the hunt, to initiation, and to the ancestors, and some are famed far beyond the island, such as the solemn and beautiful ceremonies of the Bunun and the grand gatherings of the Amis and Paiwan. The ritual calendar orders the life of the village.

Through these festivals the Gaoshan peoples renew their faith, their traditions, and their bonds. In gathering to give thanks for the harvest and to honour the ancestors with song, dance, and feast, each community affirms its identity and its ancient tie to the land and the spirits of the island.

For the mainland Gaoshan, far fewer in number and dispersed among the wider population, such festivals survive more as cherished memory and revived heritage than as the living calendar they remain on the island. Yet in both places the harvest gathering stands as the emblem of Gaoshan culture, the moment when the people are most fully themselves.

A People of the Island and the Mainland

Plains indigenous people of Taiwan photographed in 1896 — Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, 1896, ancestors of the Gaoshan

The history of the Gaoshan reaches back thousands of years, to the settlement of Taiwan by Austronesian peoples long before the coming of Chinese settlers. For most of that long span, the indigenous peoples held the island as their own, living in their mountain and coastal territories in the ways their ancestors had developed.

The arrival of outsiders, traders, colonisers, and settlers, gradually changed their world. Waves of newcomers pressed upon the indigenous peoples, pushing many into the mountainous interior and bringing conflict, disease, and profound change, even as the peoples resisted and adapted in their different ways.

It was from the outside that the collective name Gaoshan arose, and it was in the modern era that those of this heritage living on the mainland came to be recognised as one of China’s official nationalities. The great body of the indigenous peoples remained on Taiwan, where their history took its own course.

Through centuries of pressure and change, the Gaoshan peoples held to their identities as the first peoples of their island. Their history is one of ancient rootedness, of endurance through the upheavals brought by newcomers, and of the survival of distinct Austronesian cultures into the modern world.

The Gaoshan in the Present Day

Indigenous dancers performing at the Amis Music Festival in modern Taiwan — Gaoshan culture today, alive in music and dance

Today the peoples grouped as Gaoshan endure both on Taiwan, where the indigenous peoples continue their rich cultural life, and on the mainland, where the small Gaoshan nationality carries the heritage of these island peoples. Recognised in China as one of its nationalities, the mainland Gaoshan are a tiny community dispersed among the wider population.

Modern life has brought profound change to the indigenous peoples of the island, and much effort now goes into sustaining their languages, traditions, and identities against the pressures of the dominant culture. Festivals, crafts, music, and language programmes work to keep the ancient heritage alive and to affirm indigenous pride.

The arts of the Gaoshan peoples, their weaving, carving, and above all their music and dance, have won admiration far beyond their own communities, and their festivals draw wide interest. This attention, alongside the peoples’ own determination, has helped support a revival of pride in their distinct heritage.

For the Gaoshan, on the mainland and above all on their island homeland, the present is a matter of holding on to an ancient Austronesian identity in a modern world. As among the oldest peoples of their island and the wider Austronesian family, they preserve a heritage of deep importance to the human story of the Pacific.

On the mainland the Gaoshan are among the very smallest of China’s recognised nationalities, so few and so scattered that they live largely absorbed into the surrounding population. Their identity endures more as a heritage and an origin than as a distinct community life, a link back to the indigenous peoples of the island across the strait.