„Comic Bale“ - Portrait of the Seediq people of Taiwan living in harmony ...

The comic “The Wushe Incident” was revised several times before it was re-published last year with the new title “Comic • Bale”. In this work, Chiu Row-Lung illustrates the “Wushe Incident” from the perspective of the Seediq people. To draw this comic, Chiu Row-Lung spent much time in the aboriginal villages to study their way of life and he also carried out intensive studies of relevant historical records. This enabled him to produce an authentic portrait of this historical event of 80 years ago and to describe the character of the Seediq people in a lifelike manner. This includes in what way they passed on the social norms, value system and beliefs that they had inherited from their forefathers - a system that the Seediq themselves call “Gaya” (meaning “admonitions of the forefathers”). He also studied further historical records in detail to learn about their relations to other ethnic groups, their clothing, their facial tattoos and including information on the names of their villages, the interaction between them and information on their chiefs.




Before the period of Japanese rule, the Seediq had maintained their traditional way of life as hunter-gatherers. When they came of age, they underwent the initiation rite of facial tattooing. When other ethnic groups penetrated their territory, they would go headhunting to punish them. Only by observing their forefathers’ beliefs would they be able to set foot on the "rainbow bridge" to see their ancestors in the afterlife. Under Japanese rule, the aboriginal people were forced to surrender their weapons, to abandon the custom of facial tattooing and to destroy their skull trophies. This dealt a severe blow to their beliefs and the aboriginal people lost their orientation. For this reason they stood up and rebelled, even if it was only to reach the promised land of their ancestors after their death. This is what the author of this comic really wants to communicate: their conception of history, their beliefs and their way of life.

Illustrator CHIU Row-Lung was born in 1965 and graduated from Fu-Hsin Trade & Arts School. He has been visiting aboriginal villages for many years, acquiring a profound knowledge of the Wushe Incident and of the way of life of the Seediq people. He is also knowledgeable of the culture of the other aboriginal ethnicities of Taiwan and possesses a personal collection of aboriginal artefacts and relics.