Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Yu tptw/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
MEMBERS OF THE Bahuan community, who are Bunun Indigenous, demonstrated outside of National Taiwan University (NTU) earlier this week. The demonstration led to some clashes with police, with a large number of police deployed for a relatively small number of protestors.
Members of the Bahuan community were demonstrating calling for the return of bones of their ancestors that were excavated by NTU in 1960 for research purposes. Likewise, members of the Bahuan community called for reparations of 1.5 billion NT. At present, 43 boxes of human remains are in the possession of the NTU Department of Anthropology’s Physical Anthropology Section. The remains are from Wanrong Township in Hualien.
For its part, the NTU administration claims that it is willing to return the bones, to fund the construction of memorials, participate in ceremonies for the reburial of the bones, and set up a foundation for compensation. Nevertheless, the university asserts that it does not have the financial ability to pay such reparations. While negotiations have taken place between the two sides in the past, negotiations have broken down.
Members of the Bahuan community state that the funds would be used for maintaining memorials and ceremonies for the return, rather than only for individual compensation. The calculation of 1.49 billion NT was based on an hourly wage for the deceased, across some odd sixty-three years. Community members have also cited being denied the university the opportunity to visit the deceased individuals. Indeed, members of the Bahuan community have criticized the NTU administration’s attitude toward demonstrators as arrogant.
At the same time, this has not prevented some from trying to frame members of the Bahuan community as simply wanting money. In the past year, one saw a number of incidents of discrimination against Indigenous students at NTU over preferential admissions for Indigenous students, leading to discriminatory statements made against Indigenous students at Taiwan’s most prestigious educational institution.
News clip about the demonstration
In particular, the demonstration takes place not long after the University of Edinburgh returned the skulls of four Paiwan warriors that were taken by Japanese forces in 1874, during a punitive expedition in the wake of the Mudan incident. This is part of what has led to renewed discussion of the issue of Indigenous remains held by educational institutions in Taiwan. Bahuan community members have emphasized that, where culpability is concerned, the University of Edinburgh was actually a third party that later acquired the skulls.
By contrast, NTU dug up the remains itself. Moreover, the Bahuan remains are only a subset of the Indigenous remains held by NTU, pointing to a broader issue, though NTU has returned some remains in the past.
This is not the first time the issue has been raised. In 2017, for example, members of the Bahuan community called for the return of the remains. But the issue has evidently gone unsettled for many years now.
In 2017, while NTU agreed to return the bones, it claimed that the bones were taken with the permission of the community in 1960, using the local police as intermediaries. Yet the bones were, in fact, dug up in conditions of compulsory labor, as community members who were alive then attest to. Community members also cite that records of meetings during the period show that the community did not agree to the unearthing of the remains. The bones were dug up using workers from outside the village because Bahuan community members were not willing to dig up the bones, with workers paid 35 NTD a day.
The bodies had been buried between 1933 and 1955 and so these are, in fact, fairly recent burials. When the bones were dug up, members of the community witnessed their relatives being dug up.
Nevertheless, irreparable harm has been done. While 64 sets of bones were dug up by NTU, the university only currently has 43 boxes of bones, meaning that 21 sets of bones have gone missing. Previously, members of the Bahuan community called on the university to return all of the bones.
It is to be seen whether action is taken on the issue. Indeed, with much publicity given to the University of Edinburgh’s return of the remains, it is to be seen whether this pressures NTU to take action.