Topic: Contemporary Significance of Reading Indigenous Myths and Legends
Lecturer: Paelabang Danapan (孫大川) (Founding Member of the Taiwan Indigenous Voice Bimonthly and Part-time Professor, GITL, NTU)
Time: 2020, October 13 (Tue.) 14:30~16:30
Venue: : Conference Room, GITL, NTU
Lecture Summary
Indigenous myths and legends ARE ALL REAL!
Taiwan’s indigenous populations do not use written language. Rather they express the worlds through oral transmission of myths, Through oral practices, they evoke aesthetic experiences and construct collective memories. Myths are not merely oral texts but are cultural practice of texts and thus tightly connected to the life world.
After the Age of Discovery, Taiwan has been through several different political regimes, a period in which its indigenous populations were gradually deprived of discourse power. They only regained their voices in the 1990s during when local islanders began to find back the rights to tell their own stories. Indigenous rituals and cultures were brought back to life. Among these practices, artisanship and craftsmanship, folklore and dance as well as other creative productions embody the return of the myth.
The experience of reading myths and legends resembles a summoning through which we have the chance to regain the ability to relate our own stories.