TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On Saturday (Oct. 1), the Indigenous people of the Sakizaya tribe in Hualien County held their annual ritual to honor the fire god, known as Palamalan a Lisin in the Sakizaya language.

The Palamalan a Lisin is an annual event for the Sakizaya people. It honors their ancestors and memorializes an attack by the Qing dynasty of China in 1878, which destroyed the tribe’s largest ancestral settlement and forced the Sakizaya people to scatter throughout Taiwan.

The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) nominee for the Hualien mayoral election, Kolas Yotaka, was also in attendance. She remarked on the importance of such events and remembering history. “History cannot be forgotten. Only those who know history know where they have come from,” said Kolas, per LTN.

At the Palamalan a Lisin, Sakizaya people in ceremonial dress create a ring of straw on the ground and invoke the spirits of their ancestors and the fire god. Tribespeople stand in the center of the ring, which is set on fire around them.

Sakizaya people prepare for the ceremony. (Hualien City Government photo)

The ritual is a symbolic recreation of a historical event known as the Takubuwa Incident, which occurred 144 years ago. A large Sakizaya village on a river bank, surrounded by bamboo fortifications, was burned down by Qing soldiers. Following the attack, the Sakizaya tribe was uprooted and absorbed into other tribes, notably the Amis, according to Taiwan’s Council of Indigenous Peoples.



Today, the ritual memorializes the ancestors who were killed and asks for blessings from the fire god. The ritual is an important annual community-building activity for the Sakizaya, a tribe of only about 1,000 members.

Kolas Yotaka, previously the spokesperson for the office of the President, said that if elected as mayor of Hualien she will be committed to protecting the language and legacy of Hualien’s many different ethnic groups, reports LTN.

Kolas Yotaka, center left, attends the Sakizaya ceremony. (Hualien City Government photo)