Serene Paiwan waterfall Personages
Buildings and Carvings Grand Dawu
In the handiwork field, the Paiwan Tribe is good at the sculpture in the original residents of Taiwan. There are two major traditional ways of sculpture, one is the relief sculpture, and the other is the plane sculpture. In modern times, a new way is developed, which is called the solid sculpture. Residents in the tribe do their handicraft just in the slack farming season, not to mention that there are the professionals in sculpture. When they have free time, the tribe chiefs also do some handicrafts. As for the huge sculptures, such as the Totem of Ancestor’s Soul and the Totem of Tribe Chief etc. are made and completed by the men in the tribe. Which material they will choose is depending on the functions of the wooden sculpture. For example, if it is used in the building of a house, hard arbor is the first choice, such as camphor wood, Taiwan beech and Erye pine. If it is used in the making of a wooden bucket and chair etc., besides the hard wood, camphor wood and Champaka can be also chosen. As regards the making of a wooden spoon, pipe and comb, a kind of wood which has a slippery and smooth quality will be the best choice, such as orange jasmine.
Essentially, the sculpture of Paiwan Tribe is a kind of symbolic and realistic artwork. There are many sorts of sculpting objects, for example, construction, furniture, tool, weapon, religion material and fancy sculpture etc. The most popular artwork of Paiwan Tribe is the sculpture of “Human Head and Double Snakes”. And the sculptures of naked body, animals and lozenge pattern are also commonly seen. But the image of the sculpture usually depends on the object.
Generally speaking, the main traditional colors for the sculpture, are comprised of black, white and red. The black pigment can be made from the bottom of a pan or Dioscorea matsudae. Red pigment can be made from the Hongtengzai grass which belongs to the Rubiaceae family. White pigment can be made from the quartz in the riverbed, which is put into the cold water after heated. Having been mixed with water and grease, these pigments will be daubed on the sculpture. After this working procedure, the main process of making a sculpture is completed. Green, red pigment and grease painting, which were very popular in Paiwan Tribe at one time, might be also daubed on some of the wooden sculptures. However, from the view of color effect, these three kinds of colors seem to be not so artistic and succinct. The paint or pigment can be considered as one of the evidences of the time, but it is not exactly correct.
Paiwan Tribe’s sculpture belongs to a symbolic and realistic art in character. There is a great variety of the sculpture, such as buildings, furniture, weapons, religious objects and playthings. The most common sculpture is the human head and two snakes in Paiwan Tribe, the next below it is the naked portrait, animals and snake design and so on.
