Taoist Festivals

Taoism using the term "birthday" of gods and immortals as festivals. The ninth day of the first lunar month of every year is considered as the "birthday" of the Jade Emperor of Heaven, the nineteenth day of the first lunar month is considered as the "birthday" of Qiu Chuji and the eighteenth day of the fourth month is considered as the "birthday" of Lord Bixia, etc.

On those dates, the Fasting and Sacrificial Ceremonies are held and the alter is set up for Taoists to chant sutras. When the "birthday" of Lord Bixia arrives, there are multitudes of pilgrims who come to Tai Mountain to offer incense and to pledge a vow. On the twenty-eighth day of the third lunar month, the "birthday" of the Great Emperor of Tai Mountain, a large-scale temple festival is recognized. This special Taoist ceremony has been recognized ever since the Song and Yuan Dynasties.

 

 

Taoist Philosophy

Although some similarities between Taoist philosophy and psychology, one feature becomes very likely when comparing Taoist and psychological approaches to the idea of self-transformation. Many psychological techniques, such as psychoanalysis, rely completely as a methodology.

This aversion to language as a tool for self-expression, Taoists learned to use other methods of self-expression. The art of calligraphy, for instance, seeks to express certain qualities using written symbols and exactly what is said is not the only important factor. The true beauty in calligraphy is found in the lettering itself.


Calligraphy

Generally, the ideas of Taoism have been expressed in painting, poetry, fables, legends, and even in medicine and the martial arts. Since it is an inherent truth of Taoism that nothing very bold can ever be said about it.Taoist ideas have assumed a covert and ambiguous character over the centuries.

Painting

Religion

Religious Taoism came in time to have its own chapel of Taoist gods who are worshipped to this day in temples by the various Taoist faiths. These gods may be described as correlatives of human and natural attributes and there are various different rituals and ceremonies attached to the different goddess. Many of these goddess and rituals attached to them are also linked to the group religions and practices of China with a chapel of group goddess of their own.

Some of the major goddess in religious Taoism include Yu-huang, or the Jade Emperor, who is considered to be the great High God of the Taoists. Yu-huang is marked as the ruler of Heaven. He is also considered to be the ruler of all the other gods who in turn must report to him.

The Taoist pantheon also includes gods who seem to come in hand with the Three Pure Ones, the Three Official Gods, and the Eight Immortals come easily to mind. Three Pure Ones include Yu-ch'ing or Pure Jade, Shang-ching, the Most Pure, and T'ai-ching, the Great Pure One.

The Three Official Gods are T'ien-kuan, the ruler of heaven, Ti-kuan, Ruler of the earth, and Shui-kuan who rules the water. Each of the three have, in addition certain roles to play in the lives of humans. T'ien-kuan grants happiness and prosperity, Ti-kuan forgives humans of their sins, and Shui-kuan grants protection from evil.

The most popular Taoist goddess are the pa-hsien or Eight Immortals who were once historical human characters who became gods. The only feminine goddess among the eight is Ho-hsien ku the patron saint of women.

The Cultural Survival of the Tao

Orchid Island - Nuclear Waste and the Yami

Orchid Island's high peaks are densely forested and covered with the flower that gives it its name. The island is only 15 km². The Yami tribe, less than 3,000 in number, live on Orchid Island, harvesting sweet potatoes and taro, raising pigs and goats and fishing the waters of the Pacific.

During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, anthropologists from Japan purposely isolated Orchid Island's Yami from any modern influences, setting up a kind of living museum of stone-age culture.

For the past few decades contemporary problems have come to the island. Now, humankind's most potentially horrifying creations, nuclear power and its accompanying waste, are threatening to turn the Yami's paradise into a nightmare.

Migrations of the Tao

The Yami ethnic group which lives on Lanyu (Orchid Island) off Taiwan's east coast numbers around 2,700 people and has an oceanic island culture very different from those of indigenous groups living on Taiwan proper. They do not make alcohol or practice head-hunting, taro is their staple crop, and their culture is centered on flying fish, which migrate annually through the waters off eastern Taiwan. Distinctive features of traditional Yami culture include the worship of anito (ancestral spirits), ceremonies to summon flying fish, semi-subterranean homes, richly-carved fishing boats, belief in evil spirits, and the hair-swinging dance, as well as a genetic and cultural relationship to the inhabitants of the Batanes Islands of the Philippines.

Yami People

Neighbors of the Tao

When living in society, we have to interact with other people. Traditional Chinese culture emphasizes virtue and ethics in balancing our interpersonal relationships, including relationships with their neighbors. In ancient China, people believed that treating others compassionately is one of society’s basic principles and that those who do good deeds will receive good returns. Stories about the kind and altruistic deeds of many famous, noble people in China have been passed down through the ages.

The Tao and neighbors celebrating their 30th anniversary.

Birds

While researching for birds in the Tao culture I couldn't really find many birds in this culture. However I did manage to find a few birds which are:



The Banded Broadbill is a species of bird in the Eurylaimidae family. It is found in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.



Banded Broadbill

The belted kingfisher is a stocky, medium-sized bird that measures between 28–35 cm (11–14 in) in length with a wingspan of between 48–58 cm (19–23 in). This kingfisher can weigh from 113 to 178 g (4.0 to 6.3 oz). The adult female averages slightly larger than the adult male.


Banded Kingfishers

 
The White Wagtail is a small passerine bird in the wagtail family Motacillidae, which also includes the pipits and longclaws. This species breeds in much of Europe and Asia and parts of north Africa. It is resident in the mildest parts of its range, but otherwise migrates to Africa. It has a toehold in Alaska as a scarce breeder.




White Wagtail

Cosmos

During my search for looking up what the Tao culture believes about the world was difficult to find their cosmos. I did however find something that they use as practice which I found interesting. They practice the search for immortality and that is the Yin and Yang.
 
UNDERSTANDING YIN AND YANG

In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin-yang is used to describe how opposite or contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world; and, how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many natural dualities such as light and dark, high and low, hot and cold, fire and water, life and death, male and female, sun and moon, and so on are thought of as physical manifestations of the yin-yang concept.

Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary instead of opposing forces interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, for instance shadow cannot exist without light. Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation.

In Taoist metaphysics, good-bad distinctions and other dichotomous moral judgments are perceptual, not real; so, yin-yang is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the other hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu, a moral dimension is attached to the yin-yang idea.

This basic symbolism was extended to include a host of other oppositions. Yin is female, yang is male. Yin occupies the lower position, yang the higher. Any situation in the human or natural world can be analyzed within this framework; yin and yang can be used to understand the modulations of qi on a mountainside as well as the relationships within the family. The social hierarchies of gender and age, for instance the duty of the wife to honor her husband, and of younger generations to obey older ones were interpreted as the natural subordination of yin to yang. The same reasoning can be applied to any two members of a pair. Yin-yang symbolism simultaneously places them on an equal footing and ranks them hierarchically. On the one hand, all processes are marked by change, making it inevitable that yin and yang alternate and imperative that humans seek a harmonious balance between the two. On the other hand, the system as a whole attaches greater value to the ascendant member of the pair, the yang.

The "World" of the Tao

The Tao population as of 2000 was 3,872 Yami people. This was approximately 1% of Taiwan's indigenous population. They originally recognized the Yami aka Tao people as a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island in Taiwan. The Tao are an Austronesian people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people of the Batanes islands in the Philippines than to other aboriginal peoples on the main island of Taiwan. The Tao people are traditionally good at making balangays (native canoes), which is a symbol of their tribe.



Tao people making a balangay.

Almost finished product of the balangay.

The finished balangay.

In the early days, the Tao people maintained a subsistent economic lifestyle on the island: they planted sweet potatoes and taro along the mountains, while capturing fish and shells on the sea. They also fed animals such as hogs, sheep, and chickens. But all these were just ways to be self-sufficient. Tao people are both producers and consumers. The traditional Tao diet includes wetland taro, taro sweet potatoes, fish, birds and other animals. They also supplement their diet with foods such as coconuts, Lintou, and other kinds of fruit in addition to the two meals. 
The “gift exchange” system is still rooted in the life and rituals on Orchid Island. This custom is a natural result of the “mutually beneficial” inter-personal relations of the Tao, but not motivated by self-interest. However, in recent years, there have been signs indicating that the Tao people have been more and more involved in the trade of goods and the market economy. Moreover, their growing dependence on commercial products and application of currency will also put pressure on the Tao’s traditional material culture and subsistent economy. Guanghong Yu points out that the Tao people may lose their economic independence in the next two or three decades. When modern Tao people are more and more influenced by the wave of currency value and the market economy, it won’t take long for the following wave of capitalism and the global system to reach the “island of humans.” Or, we should say that the wave of currency value and the market economy will flood the Tao people out of Orchid Island – just as other mountain aborigines were forced to leave their mountains after the collapse of their traditional economies and social structures. The only difference will be that for the Tao, it is not “down from the mountain,” but “off of the island!”

Homeland of the Tao

The Tao have modernity become a global notion and essential to people all around the world. In Taiwan, the indigenous communities have only dealt with the phenomenon of modernization for a few decades.

The remote location of Orchid Island from Taiwan became of great interest to the government in the 1970s as land was appropriated to be used to store nuclear waste on the Tao’s homeland. At first the government pretended to build a fish canning factory that would help the locals acquire jobs and to give them opportunities to earn money but the factory was promoted as an inalienable source of income that may bring better technologies and increased infrastructure to the island.

The Tao homes are made of wood or bamboo. Other materials used to build homes were logs and grass for the roofs sometimes.

History

The Real Origin of the Tao

Due to the language and cultural barrier between East and West, it can often be difficult to find reliable and accurate information about the Tao. Misconceptions abound, even from sources that one would normally consider definitive and authoritative. One such misconception, perhaps the most important of all, has to do with the origin of the Tao.

Over time, the language in which it was written has evolved and changed, creating a certain level of ambiguity with respect to the meaning of the verses, as well as the translation of the title. The literal translation of “Tao” is “Way.” “Tao/Way” does not refer to a goal towards which we must strive to travel, but an attitude, state of mind or way of being in the world. “Te” has several meanings, including “strength,” “virtue” and “power.” In translating the term, many experts rely on the ancient concepts of virtue and power, both of which have multiple meanings. “Virtue” includes the concept of “integrity,” and has a dual meaning that encompasses both personal integrity and self-knowledge and the integrity of the eternal principles upon which the Universe is structured. The meaning of “power” or “strength” in this context does not concern worldly power over others, but the personal power that arises from intellectual independence informed by personal experience and understanding, rather than a reliance on dogma or received doctrine.

Many people interested in the Tao are still under the impression that Lao Tzu founded Taoism about 2,500 years ago. There is some truth to this, as long as we are only talking about philosophical Taoism  or religious Taoism. However, the one thing that most people do not realize is that both variants of Taoism came from a much older tradition, known to the Chinese simply as the Tao. It is not possible for Lao Tzu to be the founder of this ancient tradition for the simple reason that it began at least 2,300 years before his time.

Discerning individuals may glimpse this truth when they come across references to Huangdi, one of the legendary emperors of ancient China. Encyclopedia Britannica identifies him as "a patron saint of Taoism," while Columbia Encyclopedia says: "Along with the semi-mythical Lao Tzu, he was associated in the traditional Chinese folk culture with the founding of Taoism."

This is interesting, because Huangdi lived about 4,700 years ago, 2,200 years before Lao Tzu. He could only be a patron saint of Taoism if Taoism already existed at that time. And if he was associated with the founding of it, then Lao Tzu could not logically play the same role. One cannot originate something that has already been around for generations. Thus, most reference works in the West that cite Lao Tzu as the source of Taoism are not completely accurate. We can give Lao Tzu credit for religious Taoism and philosophical Taoism, but not the original Taoism that gave rise to both.

Intro/Index

During the course of this semester, I will be exploring and learning about the culture of the Tao's people.  They have a close relationship with Chinese folk customs and other surrounding sacrifices. The Tao's live in the South East Asia area. This blog will contain everything that I have learned about them from their history, culture and more.

• History

• Homeland of the Tao

• The "World" of the Tao

• Cosmos

• Birds

• Neighbors of the Tao

• Migrations of the Tao

• The Cultural Survival of the Tao

• References