The Dance of Rukai Tribe

  Rukai Tribe is mainly distributed over the mountains of southern Taiwan, placed between two powerful tribes—Puyuma Tribe and Paiwan Tribe, so often gives people a conservative impression. Besides the class system and the clothing, there are many common points in dancing movements between Rukai and Paiwan. Young girls make a circle, singing and dancing in a wedding, while senior men perform hunting dance in harvest festivals. The optimistic tribe people are all masters in songs and dances.

The dance of Rukai in Xia-San-She(下三社) evolves from primitive dance of the life into culture- transitional dance. Its myths, religious belief, economic life, and the worship of spiritual snake totem (靈蛇) show the spirit and the structure of the tribe, and represent the traits of cultural activity of dance, which is natural and realistic. They show symbolic and formal culture of Rukai dance.

In songs of different rhythms and tempos, dances are made up of movements such as walk step, treading, pacing, tread and dot, jump and tread, sway, slide, walking in tiptoe stand, bending and stretching the body, facing up and down , waving both arms, and posing various postures, to present the meaning of tribe law of Rukai in Xia-San-She(下三社). They are used for thanking gods, praying for a peaceful year and avoiding disasters, curing diseases, pacifying ghosts, communicating with forefathers, or entertaining themselves during a party. Cheering in the Harvest Festival, singing and dancing in the ritual plaza, the creation of joy of the whole tribe has been handed down to the life of each generation, and will still be done forever.