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Title |
Shamanism as Method: Siraya Ong-I as National Allegory and Cultural Heritage |
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Author |
Chen, Chih-Fan |
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Associate Professor, Institute of Taiwan Literature, National Tsing Hua University |
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Abstract |
This article examines the Siraya Ong-I (female medium) as a critical lens for understanding how relational formations generated through Shamanism practices contribute to the making of Taiwanese subjectivity. Historically, Indigenous shamanic traditions were marginalized as primitive or superstitious under shifting political regimes, and archival representations of the Ong-I exemplify this devaluation. Since the 1990s, however, the ritual knowledge and spiritual agency associated with the Ong-I have been revalorized within cultural-revitalization efforts. Their spiritual power fosters alternative relational imaginaries that increasingly inform contemporary articulations of Taiwanese identity. Literary works draw on this relationality to construct reconciliatory narratives, amplifying the metaphoric of possession and generating tensions that function as national allegory. The study pursues two main lines of inquiry. First, it analyzes the Ong-I's post-1990s transformation into an object of "heritage-making." Through reviewing documentary materials and cultural programs, the article traces how an ethnic-specific ritual figure becomes incorporated into state-defined cultural-heritage frameworks, revealing how heritage discourse selectively appropriates Indigenous practices in service of national cultural identity. Second, it examines the national-allegorical implications that arise from this process. The Ong-I's spiritual efficacy overlays personal, familial, and collective memories, linking disparate histories through reconciliatory narrative structures. In doing so, the Ong-I becomes both an ethnographic figure and an allegorical medium through which contested histories, cultural imaginaries, and notions of nationhood are negotiated. |
