Ancestors Or Oceans Apart?

Or maybe they started in Southeast Asia, traveling down Peninsular Malaysia and along the Indonesian archipelago. Or perhaps they came from South America or lots of other places at the same time.

Leti Pelesala, Minister for Home Affairs, Rural & Urban Development in Tuvalu, right, and Jacques Bole of the New Caledonia Museum examine an item at a museum in an aboriginal village in Taiwan’s eastern county of Hualien. The trip to the Amis tribe village of Tabalong was part of a tour for guests to an international workshop on Austronesian cultures and societies arranged by the Taiwanese government in August last year. (Photo: Graham Norris)

For decades, academic theories about how the islands of the Pacific were settled remained just that: academic. But in the past few years in Taiwan, one theory at least has taken on greater political and cultural significance.

The idea that the Taiwanese government has taken a shine to is that Taiwan is the origin of the Austronesian people, a language group that stretches from Madagascar off the coast of Africa to Easter Island in the eastern Pacific. As a demonstration of its intent, it has created the Forum for Austronesian Cooperation and Exchange (FACE), a non-governmental organization that it hopes will promote and preserve Austronesian cultures. It is also planning an Austronesian culture and research park.

Linguists appear to be reasonably agreed on the scope of the language group, which with more than 1,000 languages and 300 million speakers is one of the largest in the world.

They also tend to go along with the fact that Taiwan is probably the origin of this group, because experience tells them that the place with the greatest diversity within a language group is most likely its origin. And the dozen or so indigenous tribes of Taiwan speak dialects that are mostly unintelligible to each other, yet all fall in the Austronesian language grouping. Taiwan's majority Han population, on the other hand, do not speak Austronesian.

Austronesian is just a language group, however, and does nothing to describe the people who speak it. Negrito people in the Philippines, for example, are ethnically different from the people around them, but still speak an Austronesian language. Conversely, there are tribes in Papua New Guinea who are very similar physically to the majority of Austronesian speakers, but speak an unrelated language.

The mountain of research on the topic includes archaeological, anthropological and DNA evidence covering not just people but also plants and animals. But the work of two professors in particular has caught the eye of the Taiwanese.

Peter Bellwood, an archaeology professor and head of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at Australian National University, has used evidence from sites in the northern Philippines to show that Austronesians migrated to there from Taiwan about 4,500 years ago, although he acknowledges they mixed with other populations on their way through to the Pacific Islands.

And Dr. Geoffrey K. Chambers of the School of Biological Sciences at Victoria University in New Zealand has conducted research on DNA markers for the ability to process alcohol, and found evidence that suggested Taiwan was the possible origin of New Zealand's Maori people, although he maintains that no present theory of Pacific migration is complete. Indeed, not everyone is convinced that Taiwan is the home of Austronesians as a migrationary group, or the significance even if it is.

Paul Li, a linguist at Taiwan's leading academic institution, Academia Sinica, says that the evidence from various sources defies simple conclusion.

"I have the working hypothesis that Taiwan is the home of the Austronesia language family, but I can't be 100 percent certain," Li says. "Politicians like to speak in very simple terms. They use a certain hypothesis to back up a political purpose."

In this case, it appears the political purpose is finding ways to be different from China and closer to diplomatic allies in the Pacific.

The promotion of Taiwan as the origin of Austronesian peoples has been on the Taiwanese government's agenda only since Chen Shui-bian became president in 2000. His Democratic Progressive Party promotes Taiwan's independence from China, and its six diplomatic allies in the Pacific go some way to asserting that independence.

The Forum for Austronesian Cooperation and Exchange was created at an Austronesian Leaders' Meeting in Taipei at the end of 2003. The NGO was to be provisionally headquartered in Taipei, and would be funded by regionally owned sustainable economic projects.

However, since then the Taiwanese government seems to have lost interest in the forum, and funds to set up a secretariat have not been forthcoming. The forum continues now only as an annual workshop held in Taiwan.

Last year's forum gathering, with the slogan "An Ocean Apart, A Family Within," was held in the eastern city of Taitung and focussed on issues of social and cultural development in Austronesian communities. However, several of the participants from Pacific Island countries expressed doubts about Taiwan's claim to be the origin. One said he believed his people came from Malaysia, another said more research had to be done.

A Taiwanese academic, who did want to be named because of his connections to FACE, said the forum faced a number of challenges.

"It's difficult, because Taiwan doesn't really have any connections with Pacific Island countries at the moment," he said. "We really are an ocean apart."

Moreover, he said, much of the research he'd seen was inconclusive, and questioned the emphasis the government was placing on certain theories, asking, "Even if Taiwan is the origin of Austronesian people, so what?"

Despite the cynicism, others are more optimistic about the initiative. Lin Chiang-i, head of the Department of Planning at Taiwan's Council for Indigenous Peoples, acknowledged that there was some academic disagreement and that the DNA evidence was inconclusive, but denied there was any diplomatic motive in promoting Austronesian cooperation.

"Whatever, Taiwan's indigenous peoples are part of the Austronesian language group," Lin said. "We think Taiwan's indigenous people have close relations with other Austronesians, therefore we are interested in establishing relations with them and we would like to know more about the cultural aspects they have in common."

Palau's Minister of Community and Cultural Affairs Alexander Merep said he hadn't considered until recently where Palauans came from, but that his country appreciated Taiwan's attempts to preserve Palauan culture through funding the construction of a cultural center and museum.

"It doesn't matter too much where we come from, but we can come together to share ideas and learn from each other," he said during a trip to an aboriginal village organized by the Taiwanese government ahead of the FACE workshop. "Peace and understanding, that's the bottom line."

The fate of the forum might be secured if the government realizes its goal to set up an Austronesian culture research park. Plans for the US$150 million center include a theme park for tourists, an international convention center and an institute for Austronesian research. The forum's secretariat could be located at this site, next to the National Museum of Prehistory, which has been charged with overseeing the project.

Museum Director Tsang Cheng-hua said that the government was now considering the only bid received by the July deadline for the build-operate-transfer project, from a company with links to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii. If the bid is accepted, and funds are forthcoming, the center could be completed by 2009 or 2010, Tsang said.

While academics continue to debate the origins of the Austronesian peoples and how the Pacific was populated, the culture park may be what proves that Taiwan is willing to put its money where its mouth is. Professor Chambers, for one, believes that Taiwan's interest in Austronesians is a positive thing.

"I am aware there may be some rather cynical views abroad on this topic, but I don't subscribe to them myself," Chambers said. "Rather, I get a feeling that there is a groundswell of genuine concern in Taiwan to try to use economic resources to improve conditions for the aboriginal people."