Bunun hunters

      The Bunun is the fourth largest aboriginal group in Taiwan. It is the only aboriginal group that has a writing system. To the Bunun people, hunting and planting millet are two sacred activities. Therefore, Malahadisa (ear hunting ritual) is the most important time of the year in the Bunun culture.

Bunun Malahadisa is held around the 3rd lunar month every year, which comes after the millet harvest time. Bunun elders usually announce the date and location of the Malahadisa one month before the ceremony is to be held. After the announcement, men go hunting in the mountains. They cut the ears of the hunted animals and hang on a wooden stand lifted on the ceremony ground to let young boys shoot at them with bow and arrow under the instruction of their fathers and older brothers. On the day of Malahadisa, the person who achieves the best hunting record of the year earns the right to light the fire to roast the meat. The fire is put off and relit again in the symbolic meaning of passing skills from generation to generation. Afterward, all the men in the village take turns shooting the ears of the hunted animal. It is believed that those who can hit the target at the first shoot will have good luck during the year.

      Bunun society is a patriarchal system. Women and children must stay away from the ceremony and are forbidden from touching the guns. Women can only participate in the celebrations of hunting in singing, dancing, and serving millet wine to the men after the ceremony. The elders lead the adult males in praying and singing the "Dilas Harvest Song" to express their homage to the gods, which is known as the unique eight-bar chorus "Pasibutbut".

      Traditionally, Bunun Malahadisa is held to show respect to good hunters, meanwhile passing down the hunting skills to the young generations. In this way, the ceremony embodies the multiple functions of family, society, culture, economy, and defense. After the passage of legislation that prohibits hunting, the pig's ears replaced the deer's ears as the shooting targets at the ceremony. Nowadays, most of the Bunun people have embraced Christianity, and many of the traditional rituals have been replaced by praying.

Eight-bar chorus Pasibutbut

Pounding millets

Bunun Malahadisa