Laipunuk, in the southern mountain highlands, was the last refuge of the Bunun, remaining unconquered by the Japanese until just before the end of WWII. It remained the only unmapped location in all of Taiwan. Bunun youth at that time grew up with traditional culture – until the arrival of the Japanese field police.

A few of these children survived, and at the time of my graduate research, they ranged in age from 70 to 90 years old. I found that they were eager to share their personal experiences and unique culture.

Below, is the map I developed for publication marking the location of Laipunuk.

The Laipunuk project formed part of my post-graduate studies and ultimately my MA thesis at NCCU, and in 2006, I received my Master's Degree in Taiwan Studies. If your interested in studying in this program, follow the links here for the International Master's Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IMAS).

Within a few months of starting my graduate program at National Chengchi University, I was lucky enough to meet filmmaker Tommie Williamson. He was the key person who invited me to Taitung on the southeastern coast of the island and opened the door to the Laipunuk oral history project.

Tommie provided me with technical support, office space, and lodging at the Bunun Cultural and Educational Foundation (Bunun Village).

Having lived on the Big Island of Hawaii for twenty-five years, I immediately felt a personal connection to Taiwan and the native culture, naming it the other Big Island. The two islands share the ancient and mysterious Pacific Ocean legacy of Austronesian-speaking peoples.

Little did I know when I first came to study in Taiwan, but the island was the source of the centuries-long process of the peopling of the Pacific, the so-called “Pacific Rainbow” that maps the migration of peoples, materials and languages across the islands of the Pacific, from Taiwan all the way across to Hawaii (see Figure 1 below, Distribution of the Austronesian Language Family, ECAI Pacific Language Mapping).

My Master's thesis focused on the last living members of the Istanda family, elderly Bunun who were born in or near Laipunuk.

The research was made possible through my Taiwan Scholarship and friends like Nabu Istanda at the Bunun Cultural and Educational Foundation (BCEF), Taiwan's first charitable body created by indigenous people, for indigenous people.

Developed by Pastor Pai Kwang Sheng in 1995 based on his vision to build the Bunun Village, BCEF is managed by Laipunuk descendants and their families.

Research note: Supporting this work, I was able to locate this rare photo of a young Bunun leader (center) in Laipunuk, apparently cloaked in Leopard skin and adorned with Paiwan (one of the 16 Taiwanese indigenous peoples) style headdress adorned with boar teeth. The photo attests to the eclectic nature of the Bunun who adopted cultural traditions for other tribes, likely through trade and the practice of marriage exchange, and was likely taken in the early-mid 1900s.

In my research, I refer to Laipunuk as the last refuge of the Bunun. Their history is that of a marginalized people who experienced rapid and forced integration into a dominant foreign culture – spelling the end of the life the Bunun and neighboring tribal peoples had known for centuries.

Nevertheless, the remoteness of the region, coupled with the relatively late arrival of Japanese forces compared to the rest of Taiwan, afforded the Bunun children of the 1930s a traditional indigenous way of life. The boys learned hunting skills from their fathers, and the girls learned weaving and food-gathering from their mothers.

They are the last of their kind, and it is an immense privilege to have the opportunity to document their stories.

– Steven Martin