Paiwan folktale

Earlier this week on Facebook I ran into a friend of mine who is a scholar in contributing to indigenous Taiwanese culture academically ...so had a little chat with her, asking her if there's any ideas could help on my research ( had called her like million times but she hardly responded)...

so below is an ancient story regarding Paiwanese respect for Hundred Pacer snake in her own town:

The vengeance of Hundred Pacer:

Once upon a time, there is a woman whose husband has an important ceremony to attend. The woman wants to have his husband outstanding in the ceremony, so she intends to make him beautiful “Kulin” (a scarf that covers men’s chest). However, she feels lack of inspiration and could not come up with any ideas.

One day, the woman is on her way home from collecting herbs, she runs into a female Hundred Pacer snake with her baby snake, and she is amazed by the beautiful totem on the baby snake’s back. Therefore, she begs to the mother snake to borrow her baby snake home, so that she could follow that beautiful design on its back to weave the Kulin for her husband. The mother snake agrees to let the baby snake out for a week, so the woman takes little snake back and quickly follows the totem to make the Kulin. However, the Kulin based on the little Hundred Pacer’s totem amazes everyone in the village, so the baby snake is borrowed again by other villagers over and over. One week later, the mother snake comes to the woman’s village and wants her baby snake back, the woman lies to her that her Kukin is not complete yet and wants to keep her baby snake for one more week. However, in fact, the baby snake is already dead due to the endless torture of travelling between villagers’ houses.

Weeks and weeks pass by and every time the mother snake comes to claim her baby snake back, the woman makes up different excuses. Hence, one day, the mother snake found out about the death of her baby snake, and she is extremely wrathful. A few days later in a very early morning, millions and millions of Hundred Pacer snakes are sent to this village attack every villager including the woman, and only a few of them survive. The dead bodies are way too many to bury and begin to decay and stink, so the survivors have no choice but to move out of the tribe.

Ever since then, Paiwan people have realized that the Hundred Pacer snakes shall not be offended, and they are very vengeful. They say that whoever kills a Hundred Pacer snake he/she will leave the scent that other Hundred Pacer snakes can trace, and they will all come together to revenge for their companion.

Conclusion: Hundred Pacer snakes are vengeful...