~Taiwan Church News

3275 Edition

December 1 - 7, 2014

Church Ministry

Vinyl Records Of Tayal Aboriginal Hymnal To Be Digitized As CD

Reported by Simon Lin

The earliest vinyl records of Tayal aboriginal hymnal are to be digitized as CD and announced to Taiwan church and society on December 15. These digitized Tayal aboriginal hymnals, reminiscent of and collected by Canadian missionaries in 1966 and 1969, are planned by PCT Tayal Presbytery to boost an evangelical enthusiasm within Tayal missionary ministry.

Dr. Clare Elliot McGill, a Canadian Presbyterian Missionary, translated Bible verses into oral Tayal and delivered evangelical pamphlets with Romanized alphabets in Tayal tribes, when he started his missionary ministry with his wife Grace from 1953 to 1959. As many Tayal elders and tribe people were illiterate then, Clare and Grace changed to work with Evangelist Ciku Sabiy, Pastor Watan Yawi and many Tayal tribe fellows to produce vinyl records with Bible verses and hymnals in Tayal vernacular. So, these evangelical vinyl records could be kept playing in Tayal tribes all day. Later, as Taiwan's KMT regime ordered the Mandarin and the pin-yin phonetic spelling system as the only lingua franca at public spheres, forbidding any other languages to be used in churches, the resilient McGills changed to use pin-yin system to spell out Tayal Bible verse and hymnals and re-design the cover of vinyl records for the Tayal people.

Lest this extraordinary journey of Tayal missionary by the loyal McGills be forgotten in the passage of time, Evangelist Hoi Ciku of PCT Tayal Presbytery started to collect these vinyl records of Tayal hymnal and Bible verses from 2008. Through the invaluable offerings from Rev. Tseng Kun-dah, Rev. Omi Wilang and the irreplaceable digital recording by the deceased Mr. Lin Hse-han, 5 vinyl records are finally collected and being able to transform into brand new digitized compact diskette(CD). The heavenly pure vocals and angel-like sounds of Tayal hymnals and language, sang and recited 50 years ago by Evangelist Ciku Sabiy who is the mother of Evangelist Hoi Ciku, are going to be publicized as two CD package in mid-December. Readers who are interested to purchase could contact PCT Tayal Presbytery by telephone 03 - 799 3778.

Translated by Peter Wolfe