Austronesian Archives | Island Folklore

The Dutch East India Company and Its Taiwanese Legacy

This is the story of how the Dutch East India Company arrived in Taiwan, named it, yanked it from its slumber and pushed it upon the world stage!

Taiwan’s Bunun people are an indigenous Formosan nation of famed warriors and skilled hunters.

How Canadian George Leslie Mackay built Taiwan’s Presbyterian Christian Church and brought healthcare to thousands.

An Australian newspaper’s real-time report of a massacre that forever scarred the Taiwanese.

The fascinating, global story of early Taiwanese money.

Taiwanese traditions that centre around the island’s cows, oxen and buffalos.

A tongue-in-cheek guide to the bizarre and multifaceted history of Taiwanese toponyms.

The story of an old Taiwanese chieftain who dared to march against the Empire of Japan.

A mysterious, otherworldly guide leads unsuspecting Thao hunters to a new homeland.

The indigenous folktale on the origin of the name of Taiwan’s beautiful Sun Moon Lake.

An ancient Atayal tale that tells of two suns in the sky and the hero who shot one down.

As newcomers settled in Taiwan, they faced the terror of the island’s notorious headhunters.