Recently, the weather has become warmer, and the timing has entered the spring, which is the season when the Dawu people of Lanyu Island begin to catch flying fish. Every March, when flying fish swim north with the warm black tide and swim back to the waters near Orchid Island, the Dawu people will hold the famous FishIng Festival (Mivanuwa), after which ten large boats are launched, officially announcing the start of the flying fish season.
The flying fish season begins in February and lasts all the way to August and September, when you can start catching flying fish and stop eating flying fish, a total of seven or eight months. During this period, the Da wu people will hold a number of festivals, such as the "Fish Festival", "Ten Large Boat Launch Ceremony", "Single and Double Boat Launch Ceremony", "Scooping Water Festival", "Crab Festival", "Millet Festival", "Harvest Festival", "Flying Fish Final Eating Festival" and so on.
During the flying fish season, the Dawu people must observe many taboos, but outside the flying fish season, the Dawu people have to observe many taboos. Some of these taboos seem unreasonable, but there are quite scientific explanations behind them, but before diving into these taboos, do you wonder where these taboos come from?
<h1>The legend of the black wings</h1>
Legend has it that the Dawu people used to cook flying fish and other fish and shellfish together, and they had strange itchy sores. At night, an old man dreamed of a flying fish with black wings and said to him, "I am the leader of the flying fish, the black-winged flying fish, and I have come to tell you that you must not cook the flying fish with other fish, crabs, and shellfish." In doing so, not only will you yourself become sores and puffy, but the flying fish will also become seriously ill. In order for you to familiarize yourself with the time and rules of hunting flying fish, come to me tomorrow morning on the shore."
The next morning, the old man went to the beach as promised, and sure enough, he saw a huge black-winged flying fish, only to see it lying on a large rock with two fins, and there were various kinds of flying fish behind it. It said, "The mavaheng so panid like me is the least abundant, the noble and most prestigious of the flying fish." You must fish by fire at night and boat during the day, and you must not eat it by roasting, otherwise you will get sores. The red-winged flying fish (saliliyan) are the most abundant, fishing by boat during the day and fire fishing at night, and they are sacrificed with the blood of livestock. White-winged flying fish (sosowoen) are small, the first to reach Orchid Island, can only be fished at night, not in daytime boats. Kakalaw is of little use, mostly in the late Pikaokaod (March of the Da wu calendar, about april of the National Calendar), only to come with the red-winged flying fish, small in size, just right for children to eat, do not need to be dried into dried fish, caught and cooked directly. At night, they do not eat bait (that is, they cannot fish by boat). Loklok doesn't swim in droves and is arayo's favorite fish and can be used to catch ghost-headed knives. Children can't eat, old people can eat, can fire fish. Sanisi, can't eat, can be used to fish for ghost head knives."
Black-finned flying fish (Cheilopogon cyanopterus).
Red-winged flying fish (Cheilopogon spilonotopterus.)
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White-finned flying fish (Cheilopogon unicolor).
After that, the black-winged flying fish taught the old man some ways to sacrifice and kill the fish, and then left with the other flying fish in groups. Since then, the Enlightened People have followed the teachings of the black-winged flying fish and maintained these taboos to this day, which is the origin of the flying fish season.
<h1>Good fish and bad fish</h1>
The black wing's classification of flying fish was later extended to the taboo of the Goku people on eating general fish species. Friends who have visited Orchid Island or like to watch Taiwan's foot shows must have heard the saying that fish are divided into "good fish" and "bad fish", or "man fish", "woman fish", "old man fish", right?
The Dalai people believe that "good fish" (or "real fish", oyad) is a fish that everyone can eat, also known as "woman fish"; "bad fish" (rahet) is called "man fish" because it is fishy and only suitable for men; and fishy fish that tastes more fishy is considered to be eaten only by grandfather-level elderly people, and is called "old man fish". (The old man fish is a subdivision under the bad fish, which means that the old man fish must be a bad fish, but the bad fish is not necessarily an old man fish.) ）
According to gender and class, some fish are suitable for pregnant women, some are suitable for women who feed young children, wives and pregnant husbands, nursing fathers, boys, girls, etc. people who have experienced different stages of life, but most of them change according to the classification of good fish and bad fish. Simply put, a grandfather-level man can eat all the fish, while a grandmother-level woman can eat all the good fish.
People at different stages of life also have different taboos and rules for eating fish.
The flesh of "good fish" is generally thinner and brighter, while the flesh of "bad fish" is coarser, fishier, and plainer, but the distinction between the two is not clear. Some scholars have pointed out several classification criteria, such as the name is unlucky, the taste is not good, the appearance of the ugly, will not hurt people, etc., but the beauty and ugliness and taste are quite subjective, whether a fish is because of its own factors, or after being classified to have a sense of disgust, which cause and effect is actually quite difficult to distinguish, as for the name is even more unable to distinguish the cause and effect.
For example, the butterflyfish is a tropical fish with a fairly bright body color, often raised as an ornamental fish, and it is said that the meat is quite delicious, but most of the butterfly fish that can be eaten are classified as elderly fish. The classification standards of good fish and bad fish have not yet been clearly determined by scholars.
It is worth mentioning that not all men who become grandfathers can eat old fish, if the father of a man who becomes a grandfather is still alive, he will also make eating old fish a taboo, otherwise "eating as if the father is no longer there"; and sometimes even if it is not a grandfather, widowers of a certain age can eat it. The standard of whether the elderly fish can be eaten is sometimes quite by feeling.
<h1>A meal for the Enlightened</h1>
As for understanding the benefits of dividing fish into good fish and bad fish, it is impossible not to first understand how the Da wu people eat for a day. Traditionally, the meal of the Da wu people is usually two meals, breakfast and dinner, and breakfast is usually re-cooked from last night's dinner, and only during festivals or for some reason such as bad weather, visiting friends, etc., will be used at home for lunch.
The meal must contain two types of food, "main food" (kanen) and "side food" (yakan), the former is also simply called "rice", the latter is called "dish", only the same is called dim sum. The staple food is mainly taro, sweet potato and other root crops, and because of the influence of the main island of Taiwan, rice is gradually accepted. There are many kinds of side foods, such as various fish, molluscs, crabs, shellfish, algae, animals and plants collected in various mountains and other non-staple food ingredients in the sea. Livestock such as pigs, sheep and chickens are more special and are only slaughtered during festivals or ceremonies.
Taro is a traditional staple food of the Lanyu people.
Although there are so many types of side foods, Orchid Island, which is surrounded by the sea on all sides, is naturally the most important fish, and if there are no pigs, sheep and chickens to slaughter during the festival, it is often filled with fish. The social division of labor of the Dawu people is quite clear, and the phrase "women take rice, men find vegetables" includes the day's itinerary of Dawu people.
<h1>The science behind the taboo</h1>
Due to the high risk of harvesting, it is quite possible to return empty-handed, and it is natural to want to catch more fish that are easy to catch. If this is the case, the fish that are better caught will probably catch out in a few years, causing a serious ecological catastrophe. However, the taboo of eating fish by the Enlightened People allowed such a catastrophe to be avoided.
In general, good fish (women's fish) are more likely to be frightened and difficult to catch, while bad fish (male fish) are slow or extremely easy to hook. For example, butterflyfish and single-spined pufferfish are fairly easy to catch, and the latter is called "lazy fish" because of its slow movement (Note 3), but because butterflyfish are old fish and single-spined pufferfish are bad fish, in order to feed the family, the hunting of this fish can only be stopped, and extra efforts must be made to catch good fish that other women can eat. Invisibly, it also ensures the survival of bad fish and achieves a certain ecological balance.
In addition, for the Dawu people, the swimming fish such as flying fish, tuna, ghost head knife, etc. are sacred, they believe that these migratory fish usually live in the sky with the gods, and only in the spring will be released to Lanyu for the Dawu people to catch. The start of the flying fish season makes these migratory fish the main target for the Dawu men to prepare side dishes, reducing the usual catch of reef fish, and the period from February to August of the flying fish season is the breeding period of these reef fish. This alternation allows these reef fish to recuperate and achieve the purpose of ecological sustainability.
In addition to ecological science, some taboos are themselves quite scientific. For example, "after the flying fish final eclipse sacrifice, all the uneaten flying fish must be thrown away", because the early Da wu people had no other preservation technology except for drying fish, afraid of spoiling for a long time; and in the black wing legend, it is mentioned that "flying fish should not be mixed with other fish and shellfish", perhaps because the food is mixed, the cooking time is different, which may cause raw food; the detailed version of the black wing legend mentions that "when slaughtering flying fish, it must be placed on zezeteban, not on amongan, Because the former is used to release raw flying fish, the latter is used to release cooked flying fish" is also quite conceptual "raw cooked food separation"; and "the eyes and galls of flying fish must be dug out and placed on mamatan for raw food, and the fish eggs must be cooked" (Note 4), perhaps because of the fear of destroying the nutrition of the eyeballs and bile after cooking, so it is stated.
<h1>epilogue</h1>
Sun-dried flying fish.
Of course, not all taboos have scientific explanations behind them, and some taboos may not make sense in themselves, but they can achieve the function of maintaining social order. For example, during the flying fish season, you can not swear or talk nonsense, nor can you point fingers at the flying fish that swim in; there are also various regulations for fish balls when fishing, such as when returning to the common house, you cannot go through the road that other fish groups usually pass, and except for the pregnant wife of the man in the same group who can come to the common house, pregnant women are not allowed to enter the common house, otherwise it will bring bad luck. Or maybe the shelves of other people's homes can't be walked by at will; even the handling methods of flying fish, which side should cut a few knives have strict rules, otherwise they will all be thrown away.
It is precisely because of full belief that taboos are binding, and without taboos, the order of traditional society is difficult to maintain and unsustainable. However, in the development of science and technology and knowledge, the previous taboos are gradually disappearing. For example, after the "Flying Fish Final Eating Festival", all the traditions of flying fish must be discarded, and because of the appearance of the refrigerator, it was considered too wasteful and gradually no one obeyed. The emergence of motorized boats has also made many taboos related to plywood boats gradually forgotten. In addition, the cooking method of flying fish once had strict rules, such as cooking with raw water with a little seawater, without adding seasonings - and because today's young people pursue taste changes, only the elderly still adhere to this taboo.
The change of tradition is not a bad thing, and folklore should have kept pace with the times. Today's enlightened people, because technology and knowledge have the ability to think independently, although the binding force of taboos has gradually disappeared, some basic values should not be changed. What should be done may be to understand the reasons for these taboos, even if they are no longer afraid of taboos, they can let the Dawu culture and Orchid Island ecology that has been guarded for generations continue to be sustainable.