Taiwan Church News
3469 Edition
August 20 – 26, 2018
Topical News

A New Book, Lalaksu Memoir, Launched To Remember An Aboriginal Intelligentsia Denigrated And Murdered By KMT

Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong

In the afternoon on August 18, a new book – Lalasku Memoir(Lalasku, a Tsou aboriginal vocabulary, refers to a hill blossomed with flowers of rhododendron)- is launched at Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park of National Human Rights Museum.

Authored by Yavai Yatauyongana, Lalasku Memoir is a collection of reflective essays commemorating Yavai’s father, Uyongu Yatauyongana(1908-1954), a remarkable aboriginal intelligentsia, acting as poet, composer, educator, politician and thinker for his tribal people in a brilliant yet brief life. Framed by an accusation of embezzlement, Mr Uyongu Yatayongana is finally executed in 1954 by KMT regime for his pioneering self-autonomy proposal for the aboriginal peoples in western Taiwan.

As the first Tsou aboriginal youth to receive six years of normal education at Tainan Normal College in the Japanese ruling period, Mr Uyongu Yatayongana started to show his talents and interests in the fields of music and literature. Later, in his adulthood, he became a representative of progressive thoughts and helped to preserve aboriginal culture, record down tribal music and edit linguistic dictionary for Tsou aborigines.

Thanks to Prof Chang Yen-hsieng’s audacious insistence to restore Mr Uyongu Yatayongana’s reputation in history, people can finally appreciate Mr Uyongu’s outstanding contributions and remarkable legacy for his tribal people and Taiwan society today.

Translated by Peter Wolfe