The Wushe Incident

The Wushe Incident

(Wushe today and Wushe at the time of the incident)

   The Incident

      On October 27^th, 1930, following an earlier raid of a police post for weapons and ammunition, about 300 people from the Seediq indigenous group attacked and killed more than 130 Japanese in an elementary school in Wushe, a mountainous area in central Taiwan. This planned uprising, led by Mona Rudao, the leader of one of the six Seediq tribal villages that participated in the uprising, is known as the Wushe Incident. The incident is the most widely known resistance by Taiwan’s aborigines against Japanese colonial rule in response to longstanding oppression and exploitation. In retaliation, 2,000 Japanese soldiers, armed with modern weapons and toxic gas, killed about 650 Seediq people from the six villages and forcibly relocated the survivors to another place far away from their homes for monitoring. In addition to those who were killed by the Japanese, a number of the people from the villages hanged themselves in the woods to avoid dishonor. Others were killed by Seediq people from pro-Japanese villages, who were mobilized and patronized by the Japanese to do their bidding. The population of the villages involved reduced from 1,236 before the incident to 298 after the incident.

   The Causes

       The official Japanese report attributed the cause of the Wushe Incident to the issues of labor exploitation, intermarriage between the aborigines and Japanese, and Mona Rudao’s ill-intended rebellion. However, later research by Taiwanese scholars concluded that a significant cause of the incident was the cultural hegemony of Japanese colonial rule. In addition to occupying their land, the Japanese forced the Seediq people to construct a number of buildings such as police stations, schools, bridges and so forth in return for fairly low wages. Working for the Japanese spared the Seediq people little time for their own hunting and farming. Furthermore, the aborigines were regarded as barbarians, with their culture and customs denied; they thus needed to be “corrected” and “civilized” through assimilation with the Japanese. For example, the colonial authorities gave Japanese names to the aborigines who performed well in school and placed them in public positions after graduation to uphold them as models of Japanized aborigines. The cultural colonization had a significant impact on the lives, cultural beliefs and identity of the indigenous population, finally resulting in a devastating clash between the colonizer and the colonized.

   The Representation

   After the Japanese empire was defeated in the Second World War, Japan’s colonial authorities withdrew from Taiwan in 1945, and the Republic of China (ROC), led by the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party, took over the island. In the historiography of the KMT, which had fought against the Japanese invasion and was later defeated by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Wushe Incident is represented not as a negative riot but a courageous insurrection against Japanese occupiers. Mona Rudao and his warriors were portrayed as heroes who fought on behalf of ROC citizens against the Japanese. Their cultural identity was again muted by the new ruler of the island.

    Apart from the official narrative of the Wushe Incident, numerous cultural works that depict the incident have been published and serve as alternative representations. The works come in various forms, including literature, comic books, documentaries, TV drama series and motion pictures. For instance, published in the year following the incident, “Nan Guo Ai Ge” (Southland Lamentations) by Lao Ho, known as the “father of Taiwan’s modern literature,” is a critical poem that narrates the incident and questions the oppression of the Seediq people by the Japanese. Chung Chao-cheng’s 1985 novels Chuan Zhong Dao (Kawanakajima) and Zhan Huo (Flames of War) are considered classic works that represent the incident from the indigenous perspective. Others include “Gao Sha Bai He” (Takasago Lilies), the 1996 story by Hong Suli that recounts the incident from a woman’s perspective; Yu Sheng (The Remains of Life), the 1999 fiction novel by Wu He that depicts the lives of the Seediq survivors of the uprising; The Wushe Incident, the 1990 comic by Qiu Ruolong, who is also the first to tape and preserve images from the incident for documentary purposes; the 2003 TV series Dana Sakura; and the record-breaking two-part film Seediq Bale (Becoming a Real Person) directed by Wei Te-sheng. 

(A picture of the Seediq fighting against the Japanese in the mountains by Qiu Ruolong)

This article will now turn to some of the key locations in the incident along Taiwan Provincial Highway 14, the route that connects central-western Taiwan and Wushe of central Taiwan. Heading east on the route, travelers will discover that the elevation rises until they find themselves 1,000 meters above sea level in Wushe, the mountainous areas where the aborigines lived. The following spots lie from the west to east on PH 14, starting from Renzhi Guan to Nenggao Police Post and finally to Qingliu Village.

    Renzhi Guan

 

(Renzhi Guan in the Japanese colonial period’s and today’s Renzhi Guan)

Named in the Qing Dynasty to prevent Han Chinese from entering the autonomous area of the aborigines, Renzhi Guan, literally meaning “the pass of people who stop here”, is a spot all travelers hoping to reach Wushe from western Taiwan must pass through. As the entrance to the indigenous area, its naturally harsh terrain formed a strong fort to help the aborigines defend against outsiders. In 1902, with the advantage of the terrain, the aborigines around the pass successfully took down Japanese troops sent to Wushe to overtake the area, forcing the colonial authorities to halt their plans. This turned out to be the only confrontation in which Taiwanese aborigines defeated the Japanese. 

Musha Elementary School

(Musha Elementary School in the Japanese colonial period)

Founded by Japanese colonial authorities in 1916, Musha (Wushe in Japanese) Elementary School is where the Seediq people of the six villages carried out their major assault on the Japanese. They picked a date when Japanese students, their parents, officials and police gathered for an athletic event, aiming to kill as many Japanese as they could. The Seediq people killed or beheaded all the Japanese they saw regardless of age or sex, contrary to their tradition of beheading only men. The carnage began early in the morning and continued all the way until 3 o’clock in the afternoon. In total, 134 Japanese were killed and 26 were injured. Two Han Chinese were mistakenly killed as they were dressed in kimonos. Today, the school no longer exists; the site has become an office of the Taiwan Power Company.

Gungu, the Village of Cherry Blossom

(Gungu Village in the Japanese colonial period)

Continuing east on PH 14 from Musha Elementary School, one will see Chungyang Village, formerly called Gungu by the Seediq people, and Hege or Sakura Village by the Japanese because of its wealth of cherry blossoms. The KMT government renamed it Chunyang after taking over Taiwan from the Japanese. Gungu is among the six villages that participated in the uprising. The village is the birthplace of Hanaoka Ichiro (Dakis Nomin) and Hanaoka Jiro (Dakis Nawi), two controversial aboriginal police officers who found their loyalties torn between Japanese colonialists and the Seediq people during the incident. Often mistaken as brothers by their surname, the two Hanaokas were both given Japanese names due to their excellent performances under Japanese education and were regarded as models of highly-Japanized aborigines. However, when their people conflicted with the colonialists, they struggled with a severe identity crisis: Who are they? On which side should they stand? Should they show their loyalty to the colonial authorities and report the uprising plan or should they help their people revolt against colonial tyranny? Knowing that they would be branded traitors regardless of which side they chose, the two police officers ended up killing themselves and their families, leaving behind notes pointing out the intolerable labor exploitation of the Seediq people by the Japanese on the walls of the elementary school. Ichiro chose to end his life in the Japanese way of seppuku – ritual suicide by disembowelment – while Jiro hanged himself. The members of the two families were all killed except for Jiro’s wife, Obin Tadao, the daughter of the leader of one of the six participant villages. She had three names throughout her life: her original Seediq name, a Japanese name, and a Han Chinese name given by the KMT government.

  Suku Iron-Wire Bridge

(Suku Iron-Wire Bridge in the Japanese colonial period)

Suku Iron-Wire Bridge was a suspension bridge that connected Bowalun Village and Suku Village in the Japanese colonial period. One also needed this bridge to reach Mahebo Village, the home of Mona Rudao. The bridge played an important role for the Seediq people involved in the uprising as a means to communicate with each other. When fighting against the Japanese troops, Mona Rudao decisively ordered to cut down this bridge to prevent the enemy from progressing. The bridge was rebuilt by the Japanese after the incident. The KMT later renamed it after a Chinese general, Longyun, for his anti-Japanese efforts. Yet the government later changed the name of the bridge again to Yunlong, as the general later surrendered himself to the Chinese Communist Party. The remains of the iron-wire suspension can still be seen around the piers of Yunlong Bridge.

Mona Rudao and Mahebo Village

(Mona Rudao, middle; Mahebo Village)

Continuing south along PH 14 from the suspension bridge, one will reach Lushan Hot Spring. The resort is where Mahebo Village was once located, and was previously named Fuji Hot Spring by the Japanese authorities after the uprising. Mona Rudao was the chief of the village. He was invited by Japanese authorities in 1911, together with more than 40 leaders of other aboriginal villages, to join a tour in Japan for assimilation. Although the Seediq villages around Wushe were considered the best “tamed” aboriginal villages, Mona Rudao eventually carried out the revolt due to the long–standing mistreatment and oppression of his people at the hands of the Japanese. The actual trigger for the incident, however, was when a Japanese official reported that he was beaten up by Mona Rudao’s son after the official refused an offering of wine at the son’s wedding banquet.

On November 5^th, more than a week after the outbreak of the uprising and sensing no chance of victory, Mona Rudao committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol in a cave after killing his two grandchildren. His remains were found by the Japanese a couple of years after the incident. The Japanese displayed his half-mummified body at several places as a warning to the public and later sent the remains to Taihoku Imperial University (today’s National Taiwan University) for anthropological research. The remains were kept at the university until they were noticed by the school’s scholars in 1973 and finally returned to Wushe for a proper burial on the 43th anniversary of the incident. Despite the controversies over whether his deeds actually brought permanent harm or were a form of justice for his people, and whether the participants of the incident could monolithically represent all the Seediq people around Wushe, Mona Rudao, with his legendary height of nearly 190 cm, has been described as an anti-Japanese hero in Taiwanese history in both official and cultural representations. A monument of Mona Rudao was erected in a park in Wushe by the local government in 1997 to commemorate his spirit of resistance and, more importantly, all the lives sacrificed in the incident.

Nenggao Police Post 

(Nenggao Police Post in the Japanese colonial period)

Moving north along the winding PH 14 from Lushan Hot Spring, one will see Tianchi Hills Resort. The Japanese had built a police post here in 1918 for road maintenance and mail deliveries, though it was raided and burned down by Seediq forces in the afternoon after the massacre at Wushe Elementary School. The Seediq combatants obtained a total of 180 guns and 23,037 bullets from the posts they raided during the incident. The Japanese rebuilt the post the year after the uprising. The KMT government later abolished all police posts built by the Japanese and changed them to stations for maintaining power transmission. The station that was formerly Nenggao Police Post was destroyed in an accidental fire. Tianchi Hills Resort was built at the site in 1993.





Qingliu Village

(Qingliu Village, today’s Alang Gluban, also known as Kawanakajima in the Japanese colonial period, where the Japanese authorities relocated the Seediq survivors of the uprising)

This article will complete the tour along PH 14 by jumping west to Qingliu Village, a flatland area about 50 kilometers away from Wushe and where the Japanese relocated the 298 Seediq survivors of the incident. The area was called Kawanakajima, meaning “the island between rivers”, by the Japanese, and Alang Gluban, meaning “the encircled ones”, by the survivors.

In their retaliation, despite using the superior weapons and toxic gas, the Japanese were unable to capture or kill most of the Seediq participants of the uprising, who were familiar with and skilled at moving through the mountains. The Japanese had to turn to Toda and Truku – the other two major groups that made up the Seediq people, along with Tkdaya of Mona Rudao and the six villages – for help. Toda and Truku were pro-Japanese and had long conflicted with Tkdaya over land issues. The Japanese took advantage of their hatred for Tkdaya and patronized them into killing the participants of the uprising. A large number of the participants of the uprising who avoided being captured or beheaded by Toda and Truku hanged themselves in the woods. Similarly, most of the women and their children in the six villages hanged themselves in the woods to save food supplies and to limit the concerns of their husbands and brothers. A survey has revealed that 296 of the remaining 644 Seediq survivors in the six villages ended up committing suicide.

After quelling the uprising, the Japanese interned about 561 Seediq people from the six villages in two camps in the name of sheltering them. Some Seediq aborigines died from malaria while others committed suicide. The year after, the Japanese mobilized the Toda and Truku people to kill the survivors, which is known as the Second Wushe Incident. The number of the survivors eventually dropped to less than 300.

    A tour moving east beginning from Renzhi Guan on PH 14 helps us better understand and visualize what happened during the Wushe Incident. This article, with these valuable photos, hopes to provide one perspective, among many, of the story of the biggest resistance against Japanese colonial rule by Taiwan’s indigenous people, as well their role and representation in the island’s history.