Pathway to Japanese Literature

一

Stretching high and long from north to south across Taiwan like the backbone of a cow, the Central Mountain Range cradles right around its middle a renowned aboriginal village called Musha.

The aboriginal village stands atop a naturally formed plateau where ridges extending from Mount Hehuan in the north converge with those stretching northeast from Mount Shuili in the south.
The elevation is 1,221 meters above sea level.
At the foot far below, the source of the Zhuoshui River flows between rocks, sending up sprays of water, while surrounding the valley, the mountains of Nenggao, Hehuan, Cigao, and Beitougan tower faintly layered with the colors of tree leaves.

While long renowned for its exceptional scenery, when spring arrived, cherry trees—unusual for this southern island—proudly displayed their blossoms' splendor across the entire plateau against a backdrop of green mountains.
Few places stirred such intense longing in Japanese residents of Taiwan as this aboriginal village did.

Not only did Musha hold an important position in guides to Taiwan’s famous sites, but it also served as the strategic crossing point for traversing central Taiwan via what was called the Nenggao Pass.
To travel directly from Taichung on the west coast to Hualien Port on the east coast without detouring through northern or southern regions, one had to inevitably cross the steep mountain paths of the Central Mountain Range.
Travelers with dust-covered gaiters, hikers shouldering rucksacks, and soldiers reeking of leather would typically rest their weary legs upon this plateau.
Beneath the cherry trees planted across the entire plateau stood police substations and inns established for this purpose, around which elementary schools, public schools, an aboriginal product exchange, tea shops, and other facilities formed a small Japanese settlement.
Thus it had naturally become the central hub of the Aboriginal Management Policy for pacifying the aboriginal villages scattered throughout the surrounding area.

In Musha, it had become customary to hold a joint athletic meet every fine autumn day at the public school located on a corner of the plateau, bringing together elementary and public schools from across Nenggao District.

Not only for the children but also for their parents—those engaged in security duties or teaching positions in the mountains, so to speak—it was one of the most enjoyable annual events.
Generally speaking, these people living in Taiwan’s mountainous regions rarely had opportunities to encounter mainland Japanese except when occasional inspectors or travelers came to visit.
The athletic meet served as a kind of social gathering for these people.

About ten years prior—on October 27 of Showa 5 (1930), in autumn—
That year too, following annual custom, the joint athletic meet was to be held at Musha Public School.
In areas around Nenggao District, police officials, school staff, and agricultural instructors living among mountain peaks and hills had already begun gathering at this plateau in family groups of two or three since the previous day—as was customary every year.
The husband wore black gaiters and straw sandals over his uniformed legs while his wife, having tucked up the hem of her rarely donned formal attire, walked briskly together with him along the narrow mountain path winding through high peaks.
Along the path leading down to the valley, on the narrow, steeply terraced fields that hung low, an aboriginal girl stood with a basket on her back and bright red gaiters around her legs, sometimes calling out questions.

“Sir, ma’am, where are you headed?”

“We’re headed to Musha… Tomorrow’s the athletic meet there.”

Conscious of the envious gaze the aboriginal woman had directed at the back of her formal attire, the wife answered in an airy tone without even turning her hurried steps.
When they arrived at Musha, the people had to split up to stay at inns or acquaintances’ houses.
The children who had been led by homeroom teachers and arrived early were there awaiting their arrival.

The night was eventful.
On the eve of the athletic meet, following annual custom, a school festival was held at the public school.
During the intervals when their own children performed recitations and songs alongside aboriginal students, they had to exchange a year's worth of accumulated greetings with various acquaintances.
The increase in geese, the hundred-pace viper that fought a chicken, someone’s transfer down to the lowlands—discussing these matters as if feverish, the women’s faces all reeked mutually of powder, and this rare scent further enlivened the moods of both men and women.

That year.
At this school festival that might be called the prelude to the athletic meet, what earned the most enthusiastic applause from everyone was Hanooka Ichiro’s organ performance.
Hanooka Ichiro was a young aboriginal policeman.
From childhood, he had been intelligent and courageous, deeply cherished by all the mainland Japanese residents in Musha.
From an early age, he had also been given a mainland Japanese name.
After graduating from public school, he studied at Taichung Normal School, and at that time, under his police officer qualifications, was engaged in the education of aboriginal children.

When Hanooka finished playing the organ, the people finally released from their sighs of admiration burst into fervent applause.
Quite a few voiced their praises aloud.
Yet Ichiro alone appeared to harbor some inner turmoil, his countenance steeped in melancholy.
His expression bore a startling gravity.
Of course, those with hearts buoyant had no means to discern the profound anguish concealed beneath that shadowed visage.

At last came the day of the athletic meet, when even this fog-prone plateau basked in unusually clear skies.
The pristine mountain sunlight flooded the ochre-colored field, its undimmed brilliance seeping into the hearts of gathered children and their families.
While children ceaselessly bustled about organizing the grounds and changing clothes, joyful interactions blossomed throughout the tent-covered parent seating area, where clamorous chatter and lively laughter swelled like clouds.
How many year's worth of conversations left unfinished the previous night still remained.
That Magistrate Ogasarawa Keitaro of Nenggao County had specially journeyed from Puli Town to attend became a point of pride in parental conversations.
When it came to colonial magistrates, their pomp surpassed even that of mainland governors.
With such an eminent official's presence secured, the event's festive spirit grew all the more intensified.
It was a perfectly harmonious gathering.

And yet, lurking in the shadows of that convivial gathering was an unimaginably horrific tragedy—a barbaric atrocity inconceivable in this civilized world—who among the attendees could have possibly foreseen such a thing?

The event began as scheduled at 8 a.m.

Following Principal Shinbara Shigeshi’s opening address, Magistrate Ogasarawa’s congratulatory speech and Chief Inspector Sazuka Aisuke of the Musha Police Substation’s admonitory address concluded without incident.

Next, centered around the children raising the national flag on the pole erected at the center of the grounds, everyone stood up and began singing Kimigayo—precisely at that moment.

Suddenly and without warning, unexpected calamity descended upon those gathered.
It was undeniably a tragedy that no lenient word like “misfortune” could sufficiently describe.
The majority of the 134 mainland Japanese who had assembled at the venue were all slaughtered in a calculated assault by ignorant, savage indigenous people.

When they first began singing *Kimigayo* in chorus, the people heard a tremendous collective roar—as if trying to drown out their singing—surge up immediately behind them and press in.
The people showed strange expressions, as if doubting their own ears.
In that instant, they felt the chorus’s voices falter.
However, by that time, people had already noticed about one hundred fifty indigenous people—each grasping bamboo spears and indigenous swords—charging into the grounds like an avalanche.

Directly behind the grounds was a small hill called Sakura-dai.
Cherry trees and miscellaneous shrubs grew so densely that the soil’s color was nowhere to be seen, but the indigenous people lurked concealed amidst those thickets.
Some had drawn indigenous swords, others gripped sharp bamboo spears tucked under their arms, all holding bated breath with gleaming eyes, awaiting their moment.

On the grounds, before the people could even comprehend what was happening around them or grasp its grave significance, an eerie scream erupted in an instant.
Five or six mainland Japanese fell victim to the indigenous people’s spearpoints.

“Emergency alert! Emergency alert!”

Chief Inspector Sazuka shouted in a bloodshot voice while drawing his sword.

The mainland Japanese children, now clad only in pure white running shirts, raised terrified screams as they darted about in panic, while their fathers and mothers called out their children’s names like madmen and madwomen, searching frantically.
By that time, not a single one of the aboriginal children who had gathered at the grounds remained visible there.
At the same moment the indigenous people rushed down Sakura-dai, their mothers and sisters must have been taken one by one to some safe place.

The aboriginal policeman Hanooka Ichiro had initially participated on the organizers’ side wearing his police uniform, but before anyone noticed, he had stripped it off and donned a hemp indigenous garment resembling a battle surcoat. It was exceedingly rare for him to wear indigenous attire. He must have known about his fellow tribesmen’s plans for unrest in advance. However, Hanooka was straining his voice until it seemed blood might pour forth, trying to stop his fellow tribesmen’s atrocities.

“Wait until evening!”
“Wait until evening!”

Whether it had been done with some calculation or simply on impulse remained unclear, but likely even he himself had held no meaning behind those words.

However, there was no way that hoarse, scream-like shout could reach the ears of the tribesmen, whose primal instincts had already been reawakened by the sight of blood.
They charged forward indiscriminately at any mainland Japanese they saw—women and children alike.

As Chief Inspector Sazuka swung his sword while locked in combat with the tribesmen, the face of Chief Mona Rudao suddenly flashed through his mind like that of a random assailant.
The mastermind behind this horrific atrocity could be none other than him.
Chief Inspector Sazuka rapidly thought.

II

To understand the cause of this horrific tragedy, one must trace its origins back to Meiji 42 (1909).

This story dates back to when the Aiyū Line was still maintained as part of the Aboriginal Management Policy.
The term "Aiyū Line" referred to a containment perimeter encircling unpacified indigenous groups who had yet to submit.
Along this line at various points, they established armed police garrisons to sever all traffic between inside and outside.
When necessary, they strung barbed wire.
To unpacified indigenous groups suffering severed connections with the outside world, they intensified threats and attacks even more fiercely.
When an unpacified indigenous group submitted, they would first be released beyond the Aiyū Line.
It was a method that would eventually contract the line all the way to mountain peaks, finally eliminating any uncivilized lands.

At that time, Mona Rudao was chief of an aboriginal village called Mahebo in Musha. A large-framed man who tended toward taciturnity, he excelled in martial prowess and maintained unwavering honesty, commanding great respect within the tribe. Mona Rudao had a sister named Tewas Rudao. Though similarly large-built like her brother, her eyes possessed a dewy beauty that had earned her renown as a great beauty throughout the region.

Kondo Gisaburo, a mainland Japanese police officer stationed at Musha Police Substation, proposed marriage to this Tewas Rudao. While motivated by personal attraction, this occurred during a period when superiors actively encouraged marriages between mainland Japanese officers and indigenous women under the Aboriginal Management Policy.

When the marriage proposal came, there was no question of refusal for Tewas.
That indigenous women feel admiration for mainland Japanese men has remained unchanged from past to present.
Moreover, in this case, the man was no ordinary one.
If she married, she could become a policeman’s wife.
Tewas was beside herself with joy.

However, Mona felt hesitation regarding his sister’s marriage.
Among ordinary indigenous men—particularly elders who valued tradition—there existed a tendency to disapprove of their community members marrying outside their ethnic group.
Mona was the tribal leader.
As one holding a position responsible for the tribe’s customs and traditions, he could not permit himself to override them and sow seeds of discontent within the community.
Yet witnessing his sister Tewas becoming enthusiastic about the marriage and chattering innocently before his eyes, even he could not help feeling an entirely different emotion well up within him as her brother.
Moreover, if Tewas became Officer Kondo’s wife, he himself could also become a policeman’s brother.
His heart was drawn to such temptations.
Mona Rudao agonized.

However, before long Mona—
"I cannot bear to crush my sister's ecstatic heart."

With this self-rationalization, he ultimately consented to his sister’s marriage.

Despite Mona’s considerable anguish, the marriage proceeded smoothly in every respect.
Given the groom’s standing as a police officer and the bride’s brother’s influence as tribal leader, no one within the community voiced objections to their union.

Tewas was so happy her body went numb.
No longer did she need to sleep sprawled out on bamboo-floored beds barefoot, nor did she have to maintain the habit of eating potatoes with her hands.
She lived on tatami mats in government housing and sat at a dining table to eat "white rice".
Compared to the hearth fire at her brother’s house, how brightly and abundantly the night lamp must have illuminated the depths of her heart.

Discarding both the linen kimono and crimson leggings, Tewas wore a mainland-style yukata.
With clumsy hands, she cooked meals and struggled to learn sewing.
She was wholeheartedly trying to become mainland Japanese and loved her husband Kondo with all her life.
That was a blissful feeling.

Officer Kondo was by no means dissatisfied with his new life.
His new wife possessed animal-like robustness—a body brimming with vitality and features in no way inferior to those of mainland Japanese.
Moreover, having the influential chief as his brother-in-law proved advantageous for managing the local tribespeople.

“You! It’s terrible!
“The tribespeople of Hougo Village are causing an uproar—they’re saying they’ll behead mainland Japanese!”

There was a time when Officer Kondo was working at the police substation and his wife Tewas rushed in pale-faced.
Officer Kondo immediately rushed to Hougo Village with his colleagues.
There, able-bodied men who had long harbored rebellious intentions were secretly maintaining firearms and preparing bamboo spears.
Officer Kondo and his colleagues immediately apprehended them.
The dangerous plan had been prevented in advance.
Through his wife’s secret reports in this manner, Officer Kondo’s achievements were by no means limited to one or two instances.

The mainland and the elderly parents living there were nothing but distant, faded memories to Officer Kondo.
The officer was completely immersed in his devoted wife, the charming view of the mountains, and his contented life.

However, this peaceful and happy life did not last long.
The transfer order that reassigned Officer Kondo to Hualien Port on the eastern coast resulted in this collapse.

When they bid farewell to her brother Mona and the mountains whose peaks were wrapped in scarf-like mist, departing Musha, it was precisely late spring.
What had unwittingly become their honeymoon journey saw them traversing steep mountain paths toward Hualien Port with inexplicable joy.
For the husband—a return to flatland life after ages; for the wife—a town brighter than imagination—both lay spread beyond their outstretched fingertips, awaiting their arrival.
The mere thought made joy surge through their hearts until it overflowed.
They couldn't fathom that misfortune might lie waiting with open arms.

From beneath the deep cliffs of Nenggao Pass, the roar of mountain streams echoed ceaselessly, while on one side’s towering earthen cliff, tall, slender creeping vines sprawled across the surface, bearing small white blossoms.
The husband gently taught the wife that in mainland terms, it was called *Mokuasagao*.

Splitting through the thick, clinging air heavy with deep fog, the clear, piercing cries of small birds would occasionally pass overhead, piercing their very cores.
The wife proudly whispered to him that she had long since memorized the name *uguisu* for that bird.

When they descended into Hualien Port’s town, the two entered a small government residence covered in the deep shadows of croton trees.

From the harbor came the ear-splitting blare of steam whistles every morning without fail.
Gleaming metal-rimmed rickshaws ran through the town's streets.
Before fabric shop entrances hung beautiful mainland-style kimonos she'd never seen before, fluttering in display.
To Tewas, everything felt novel and astonishing.
For Officer Kondo too—he could now eat fresh, firm fish daily.
The town teemed with so many people it made her marvel—could there truly be this many humans in the world?
His workplace had become an imposing concrete police headquarters.
For both of them began an utterly new life—completely different from their mountain existence—filled with stirring emotion.

However, before long, this became a turning point, and a life of anguish began for Officer Kondo.

Even when returning from work, he often wore a sullen expression.
With cold, unfocused pupils, he stared fixedly at his wife’s profile.
He let out an unbearably meaningless sigh.
He cradled a melancholy in the depths of his heart that he could not speak of to anyone, and this was vividly apparent on his face.

Unlike the mountains, this town was home to many mainland Japanese.
The fact that he had taken a raw savage woman as his wife began to make him feel self-conscious around them.

The blue tattoos carved in a cross upon her brow and flowing broadly from ears to mouth across both cheeks revealed their primal allure only when viewed against primordial forests, ravines, and rustic aboriginal villages.
Dressed in Japanese clothes and placed beneath the town's midday glare, she became monstrous.
When walking together through the broad streets of the newly built town, Tewas wore a mainland-style yukata, following her husband with light, eager steps.
Passersby would then peer at Tewas' face with blatantly curious expressions.
As if making comparison, they shifted their gaze to Kondo's countenance.
Each time this occurred, Kondo burned with the urge to strike these onlookers.
Yet his wife remained unperturbed; radiating innocent pride, she pressed her robust frame closer still against him.
The peculiar musk unique to tribal bodies struck his nostrils with pungent force.

In colonial territories, it was customary for police officers to frequently visit their superiors’ homes as part of general practice.
During New Year’s and other festival days, it was especially demanding, and they usually had to pay courtesy visits to their superiors’ homes accompanied by their wives.
And this matter had also become one social pleasure in colonial life—scarce in entertainment as it was—but even at such times, Officer Kondo was always alone.
Bringing an indigenous wife along was something he couldn’t help feeling self-conscious about around his colleagues.

At such times, Officer Kondo would appear in the kitchen for some minor errand, his face flushed red from the sake pressed upon him in the tatami room.
Then the colleagues’ wives bustling about noisily there would call out in lieu of a greeting.
“Your wife won’t be coming today… will she?”

Of course, there was no profound meaning behind the question.
It was simply a casual inquiry made without any particular intent.
However, to Kondo, those words resonated with profound meaning.

Kondo gazed vacantly with envy at the faces of mainland women—their festive kimonos that seemed to emit a pungent scent, adorned with alluring sashes, making them look buoyant and beautiful—then, as if suddenly realizing something, muttered to himself.

"Just because I have a savage woman for a wife, I must neglect even my social obligations."

Something like anger surged up from his chest’s depths; the alcohol had long since worn off. At such moments, he found himself envisioning knocking his wife down and fleeing somewhere far away—before he even realized it.

Yet when Kondo saw his pitiful wife—her large frame awkwardly folded on tatami, clumsy hands mending her kimono, or bustling about the kitchen tending unfamiliar cooking—a wholly different emotion welled up within him. The wife he ceaselessly tormented in his mind had grown so pitiable he could no longer endure it. As if retracing memories, he told himself firmly.

“I cannot abandon this pitiable yet kind wife.”

Moreover, divorcing an indigenous woman once married would leave a very detrimental effect on Aboriginal Management Policy.
If any other ordinary mainland Japanese were to commit such misconduct, he was in a position where he would have to personally oversee its enforcement.

He had no desire to continue the marriage as it was, yet equally lacked the courage to abandon his wife. He was becoming lost as to how to handle this.

"If she were hit by a car or contracted a sudden illness and died…"

There were times when outrageous imaginings welled up. However, at such times—being timid—he would immediately panic and reconsider, as if fearing someone might peek into the secrets of his heart, and this had become his constant habit.

"No—no—I can’t let my wife die. She’s done nothing wrong."

The marriage that was filled with nothing but regret now came back to Kondo as if for the first time, and his eyes welled up of their own accord.

“Instead of killing her, I should be the one to die.”

One sunny afternoon, Kondo invited his wife to the coast on the outskirts of town.
He had concluded there was no other way but a lovers' suicide.

When they reached the coast, the sea resounded with an eerie clanking, clanking noise, as if unraveling iron chains.
It was the sound of Hualien Harbor’s famous great waves carrying even pebbles from the seabed and tossing them about.
When they sat down on the shore, Kondo said to his wife through tears.

“Please.
“Die with me.”

However, the concept of lovers’ suicide was something Tewas couldn’t comprehend.
Why must we die? A simple optimist like her could never grasp such a thing.

With eerie strength unimaginable for a woman, she did nothing but try to drag her husband’s body back onto land.

“Let’s go home. Let’s go back home.”

Soon, Kondo muttered, his listless gaze fixed on the distant sea’s surface as though he had given up.

“I’ll stop trying to die. I’ll take a walk around here for a bit and head home soon. You go home first. I’ll—”

He forced the reluctant Tewas onto the path home.

And then, he disappeared without a trace.

When rumors spread through town about Officer Kondo going missing, some suspected he had vanished intentionally.
Yet colleagues familiar with his timid disposition never doubted he'd leapt to his death in the sea.
Once claimed by Hualien Harbor's furious waves, any hope of recovering his corpse had to be abandoned.

Disappearance or suicide—but whichever it was, Officer Kondo never returned to Tewas.
In the suddenly spacious-seeming government housing, Tewas sat alone forlornly waiting endlessly for her husband’s return—all in vain.
In the end, there was no other way but to be led by her brother Mona Rudao—who had come down from the mountains to retrieve her—and cross the treacherous Nenggao once more to return to Musha.

When passing through the narrow, treacherous cliff paths of the high peaks, both the heartbroken sister and her brother walked in silence.
Everything about their circumstances and feelings differed completely from when she had once walked this same path with Kondo—only the white wood morning glories blooming on the cliffs and the bush warblers’ calls passing overhead remained exactly as before.

However, even after returning to Musha, Tewas never doubted for a moment that her husband was still alive.

After settling into her brother’s house, she spoke clearly to her husband’s former colleagues and her fellow tribespeople.

“Kondo will surely come back to me someday.”

On clear days, the villagers often saw Tewas gazing up at Nenggao Mountain’s tall peaks towering in the western sky with an expectant look.

Before anyone noticed, Tewas had taken off her mainland-style kimono, wrapped a blue headcloth around her head once more, and begun wearing crimson leggings on her legs.
The hearth fire in her brother’s house—once so oppressively gloomy it weighed on her spirits—had with time become utterly familiar.
Yet far from her husband Kondo returning, not even any news of him had come.

Before long, Tewas was to remarry a fellow tribesman from the same village.

She had to abandon forever the life of sitting on tatami mats.
Squatting in dirt-floored areas to eat with her hands, sleeping barefoot on wooden floors—she had to sink back once more into that barbaric way of living.
However, since her remarriage, she appeared completely satisfied with her new life with the man.
As for her past with Kondo—the joyful days of their newlywed period, of course, and even the sorrowful memory of their separation—it all seemed as if it had completely vanished from her mind.
With a body that had absorbed the mountain’s vital energy and regained its vigor, she would dash into the woods to chase wild boars resembling pigs, then head joyfully to the fields to sow buckwheat seeds.

Her innocent appearance made her all the more poignantly pitiable to behold, yet the very volatility of her emotional shifts struck even her fellow tribesman brother’s eyes as something wretched.

Ah, is this the sister who was once even called a proper lady?

With emotions complex—partly pity, partly disgust—Rudao gazed at his sister’s figure and let out a gloomy sigh.
And then, in that moment, an unbearable fury toward the mainlanders welled up within him.

“The sole reason that his sister was a tribesperson—that alone was why Kondo had abandoned her.”

Moreover, regarding his sister’s first marriage, Rudao still bore a unique responsibility as chief. He had ignored the village’s customs and the villagers’ unspoken opposition to marry his sister off to another ethnic group. That very sister had ultimately been abandoned by mainlanders, her marriage having failed, and she had returned to the mountains. As chief, he felt profoundly apologetic toward the village’s customs.

While Tewas was delighting in her remarriage, her thoughtful brother’s heart remained perpetually oppressed.
Toward the contempt the mainlanders had shown them, he felt an inexpressible fury.
This resentment had continued to smolder in the depths of his heart for a truly long time.

III

The story shifted abruptly to Showa 5 (1930). Around this time, events that ignited the smoldering resentment in Mona Rudao’s heart toward mainlanders began occurring in rapid succession.

First of all—around early summer that year, Musha Elementary School was to be rebuilt anew with a budget of six thousand yen.
Compared to Musha Public School—a tile-roofed imposing structure where indigenous people received imperial-subjects education—the elementary school for mainlander children remained nothing more than a crude thatched-roofed shack of a schoolhouse. The official reasoning held that this disparity not only left an unfavorable impression on indigenous people but detrimentally affected mainlander children’s morale.

When construction finally commenced, the Musha Police Substation assigned each household in Mahebo Village one four-sun square two-ken pillar and ordered them to transport these from the mountains to the construction site.
However, the Aboriginal people had already been ordered to perform corvée labor for the new constructions of Puli Martial Hall and nearby Sakura Hot Springs prior to that.
They were dissatisfied with being assigned new corvée labor in succession.
Moreover, their grievances did not end there.

As for the customs of the Aboriginal people in this area, it was common to transport lumber by dragging it along the ground.
However, doing that would damage the lumber.
From the perspective of mainlanders’ common sense, there was no choice but to order them to carry the lumber on their shoulders.
Sazuka Aisuke, Inspector and Chief of the Substation who bore direct responsibility for the construction, had ordered it so.
However, that produced an unexpected, cruel result.
The Aboriginal people’s shoulders had uniformly swollen red and ached from the unfamiliar method.

Inspector Sazuka’s wife was also of indigenous origin.
Therefore, when he first arrived in the area as Substation Chief, the indigenous people wholeheartedly welcomed his appointment.
It was because they had expected him to have a deep understanding of their way of life.
However, when the inspector implemented an unexpected misstep in governance, the indigenous people’s hearts turned away from him.
Precisely because their initial expectations had been so great, the degree of their disappointment was not insignificant.

Though termed corvée labor, a daily wage of 40 sen each was promised as due compensation for the work.
Judging by the indigenous people’s standard of living, this was by no means a small amount.
However, a few disaffected Taiwanese who knew the indigenous people had never been at ease with this corvée labor from the start immediately seized on it as a tool for incitement.

“Forty sen? That’s ridiculous—how could there be such a pitiful wage?”

This incitement resulted in further fueling the grievances of the unsuspecting indigenous people.

From the mountain forests where timber was harvested to the construction site stretched approximately half a ri.
Exactly midway along that route stood Chief Mona Rudao’s dwelling.
It made an ideal resting spot.
The indigenous people would stop at his house coming and going.
Naturally, they would display their red-swollen shoulders and speak of their grievances about the corvée labor.

Mona Rudao had never relinquished his rebellious spirit toward mainlanders since his sister Tewas’ ordeal.
Now hearing renewed complaints from tribespeople of shared blood, that resolve only intensified further.
The taciturn Rudao kept silent through their discussions without response, yet harbored profound intentions within.

That autumn—

Musha experienced a rare bountiful harvest.
A lively millet festival was held.
Drinking parties with homemade millet wine were held several times in each household.
And whenever such drinking parties were held, what the young men were made to hear was the elders’ drunken bravado.

“Back when we were young…”

This was a scene one might often encounter in the rural areas of mainland Japan. However, in this case, such bravado proved dangerous as it inevitably descended into boasts about how many heads they had severed. It wasn't that the elders meant to incite headhunting. Yet the outcome remained unchanged. After hearing these boasts, though the young men kept silent, their minds churned with unspoken thoughts.

If we just decided to do it...

It was Chief Mona Rudao who silently observed the stirrings in those young men’s hearts.
The stirrings of the village people’s hearts seemed to move entirely in his favor of their own accord.
He restrained his eager heart and waited single-mindedly for the opportune moment.

It was a clear autumn afternoon.

Mona Rudao had been summoned to the house of his relative Jiasuabeba in Mahebo Village.
He had long been in a state of discord with Aishudo, who resided in the same village as that household.
That entanglement was finally resolved through a marriage between the two families.
He too had been invited to the celebration brimming with twofold joy.

The sake flowed pleasantly, and Mona’s face turned bright red.
Mona was in high spirits.
To sober up from the alcohol, he soon went outside on unsteady legs.
Just then.
In the bright sunlight outside, Officer Yoshimura of the substation passed by at a hurried pace.

“Good afternoon…”

Mona greeted him with a simple smile.
Officer Yoshimura also responded amiably.

“Oh, you’re in high spirits.”

“Come join us.”

“Not today.”
“I’m in the middle of official duties…”

When the officer tried to pass by as he was, Mona clung after him and urged him again.

“Here, come over.”
“There’s plenty of food here.”

“If today’s no good… I’m on my way to supervise lumber transport…”

Officer Yoshimura turned with a smile and answered.
Up until that moment, Mona had still been in good spirits during their interaction.
However, it was customary among indigenous people that when attempting to offer food and drink out of goodwill, if the other party refused to accept it, one would generally feel wounded and fly into a rage.
When he realized Officer Yoshimura absolutely would not join the drinking, Rudao suddenly felt anger surging within him.
At first, he hadn’t felt that way at all, but as his excitement seethed, even the resentment he usually harbored toward the mainlanders suddenly surged to the surface.
Suddenly, he grabbed the raw pork that lay beside him and, chasing after Officer Yoshimura, tried to forcibly shove it into his mouth.
When Officer Yoshimura realized the true nature of the soft, lukewarm substance thickly plastered to his mouth, he flew into a rage.
Officer Yoshimura, his entire body trembling with excitement, tried to strike the other man.
Rudao dodged it and, letting out a beast-like roar, grappled with the officer.
When they heard the commotion, all the indigenous people who had been drinking inside rushed outside.
And while clamoring noisily, they pulled the two apart and then ganged up to beat Officer Yoshimura.

The crime of insulting a government official was a grave issue under Aboriginal Management. This was something that should have been immediately reported to superiors so that appropriate measures could be taken. However, Officer Yoshimura dragged his throbbing legs and hips back home, then claimed illness and took leave from his official duties that day. He kept the fact of his assault to himself and resolved to shield the indigenous people. Yet this ambiguous leniency ultimately yielded adverse consequences.

When the intoxication from the alcohol had completely worn off, Mona Rudao realized for the first time the grave significance of what he had done.
In the mountains, adults (police officers) held an authority that bordered on absolute.
They had forced raw pork into his mouth and even ganged up to beat him.
Naturally, they could not possibly escape punishment.
Mona Rudao was terrified at the thought of himself and his entire group of comrades being arrested and detained.
However, for some reason, there was no word from the authorities.
The silence was unnervingly complete.
He spent his days in anxiety.
Restless, his fear only grew more intense.
In the end, that persecution complex drove him instead into an aggressive state of mind.

"I must strike down the mainlanders before they get me…"

The plan he had long nurtured deep in his heart—now was the time, he resolved, to put it into action all at once. The secret in his heart—that is to say, the terrifying plan to massacre all mainlanders residing in Musha—Mona Rudao first revealed to his own sons. Neither the eldest nor the second son could possibly object to their father’s plan, but particularly the valiant second son Tadao Mounao was proactive, demonstrating eagerness to take action immediately. The father suppressed their fervor and earnestly admonished them to wait for a while longer, and until then, never to speak of it to others.

The cherry leaves on the plateau had settled, and the surrounding mountains were just beginning to show their autumn colors around that time.

At Mona Rudao’s cultivation hut, several men gathered daily in secret, continuing to plot something.
They were Mona Rudao and three indigenous men living nearby—Hiposatsupo, Hipoa Risu, and Taimopohotsuku—people who either harbored deep rebellious hearts against the mainlanders or had fallen into dead-end lives where they could not change their fate without beheading.

IV

The individuals who had approved Mona Rudao’s terrifying plan and become central to these atrocities must be briefly introduced here.

Near Mahebo Village in the same Musha area stood an aboriginal village called Hougou Village.
Hiposatsupo was a young man who lived there.
In the fourteenth year of Taisho, he went to become an adopted son to a daughter named Rubinaoi in nearby Bandaisha Village.

Musha was naturally included among them, but the Tayal tribe aborigines distributed throughout this area had been known since ancient times for their martial prowess and strict moral discipline. However, it went without saying that there were occasional exceptions, and this Rubinaoi was a woman of inherently amorous nature from birth. From her girlhood, various rumors had never ceased, and her conduct remained unruly even after marriage. There were not a few people who witnessed instances of suspicious men playing mouth harps around her house to call her out or of her disappearing into millet fields with men. Even toward Hiposatsupo, whom she had taken in as an adopted son, Rubinaoi soon grew weary. And in the end, she divorced him.

Though he had been disliked and driven out of the matrimonial household, Hiposatsupo found himself unable to forget her. After returning to his home in Hougou Village, he became so depressed that he couldn’t bring himself to work. He crouched in the dark earthen-floored area and spent his days drinking nothing but alcohol.

When the tribespeople of the same village saw Hiposatsupo—abandoned by a woman and sinking into such indolence—they despised him from the bottom of their hearts.

For them, with their strong martial tendencies and qualities akin to the samurai spirit of old Japan, living in sorrow after a failed romance was nothing but a bitterly distasteful, utterly incomprehensible affair. The tribespeople began to blatantly cast contemptuous sidelong glances at him.

Abandoned by the woman and shunned by the neighboring people, Hiposatsupo found himself with no path left to live. The sake he drank turned bitter in his mouth; when drunkenness came, his chest overflowed with sorrow alone. Though desperate to redirect his fate toward some new course, he remained trapped as if fallen into a storage pit—utterly powerless to act. He was completely broken.

However, one day, he suddenly hit upon a brilliant idea.

That was it.
I should go headhunting.
If I show my bravery by taking heads, I can earn people’s respect, and with luck, maybe even get a woman again.

From ancient times, the raw savages had various reasons for shukubatsu—to cast curses, take revenge on enemy tribes with whom they were in hostile relationships, or due to disputes over hunting grounds.
However, the most common case was when they performed headhunting as a means to boost their morale during times of discouragement—such as being rejected by a woman they fancied or looked down upon by their own tribespeople.
Hiposatsupo, for the same reason, had thought to perform headhunting to demonstrate his martial prowess and greatly restore his honor.

Generally speaking, it was not only his case—headhunting was an absolute rite. If one could but succeed in this, they believed God would approve all of one’s past and future.

However, at the very moment he conceived that plan, Hiposatsupo found himself immediately perplexed.
Now, headhunting had been strictly prohibited by the mainlanders.
To dare defy it would mean one’s own death.
At a time when he was struggling to manage his desperate, restless emotions amid complex anguish, Mona Rudao revealed a critical secret to him.
He had no reason to hesitate.
If the plan succeeded, he would be a hero of the entire mountain.
Even if it were to end in failure, there was only death.
That death was now inescapable even in the case of mere headhunting.

Hipoa Risu, one of the same uprising leaders, lived next door to this Hiposatsupo.

His father had beheaded a mainlander camphor worker (camphor extraction laborer) in Meiji 43 [1910] and fled.
He was immediately pursued by the police force but hid deep within the dark jungle and skillfully evaded arrest.
When it seemed the uproar had soon subsided, he returned once again to his own house.
The police force tried to enter the aboriginal house, but he brandished a machete and kept them at bay.
Reluctantly, the police force surrounded the aboriginal house and prepared for a prolonged standoff.

Hipoa Risu’s father resigned himself.
Breaking through the encirclement and escaping was absolutely impossible.
He set fire to the interior of the aboriginal house himself.
The crude hut made of wood and thatch was quickly engulfed in flames, the entire structure transforming into a single conflagration.
And of course, he himself, along with his wife and children, were tragically burned to death within it.

At that time, Hipoa Risu was only ten years old.
When his father had committed that ferocious suicide, he had been visiting the neighboring house.
Because of that, he had narrowly escaped an unfortunate death.
However, while in the neighboring house, he clearly heard the sound of his own home burning down and the terrifying final screams of his father and mother.
He had also seen with his own eyes the pitiful figures of his brothers and sisters reduced to bones.
That left a profoundly disturbing impression even on a young mind.
The impression remained in his chest like a severe burn that would never fade.
And whenever he, now grown, recalled the eerie memory of that burn-like impression remaining on his chest, he would feel his heart seethe with grief and indignation.

He had no time to consider where responsibility for his father and mother’s deaths lay.
He hated with single-minded intensity only the faces of mainlanders moving through those nightmare-like old childhood memories.
He had always harbored strong feelings of revenge toward the mainlanders.
And he had single-mindedly waited for that opportunity.
Mona Rudao’s invitation was, for him, a rare opportunity not to be found again.

Taipohotsuku also lived in Hougou Village, the same as Hiposatsupo and Hipoa Risu.

He was born with a congenital disability and was lazy.
No one wanted to become a wife.
He lived in despair drinking nothing but alcohol but thought.

“At this point, I have no choice but to take heads and gain both tribe respect and a wife all at once.”

This Taipohotsuku too, alongside Hipoa Risu and Hiposatsupo, conferred with comrades and brought them to Mona Rudao’s cultivation hut.

Generally speaking, when it came to fields in the aboriginal territories, most were narrow, steep lands carved into mountain slopes.
It was common for them to be located half a *ri* or even a full *ri* away from the aboriginal houses.
The aboriginals would erect crude huts there just sufficient to barely shelter them from rain and dew, making it their custom to stay overnight during cultivation periods.
The main residence—that is, the hut called an ordinary aboriginal house—was located within what was termed an aboriginal village, forming the tribe.
However, the cultivation hut stood solitary and alone in a lonely mountain valley, isolated from any other view.
Moreover, in this foggy mountainous region, the small huts were often completely enveloped in the mist.
It was absolutely ideal for devising strategies.

Mona Rudao would gather daily with the aforementioned three at this cultivation hut, where they devised plans in meticulous detail—the timing and sequence of the uprising, methods to acquire firearms, provisions storage, and more.

Meanwhile, he sought out those who desired headhunting, those who harbored resentment toward mainlanders—those who met the conditions to become his trusted confidants—and meticulously disclosed the plans to them in secret.

At that time in Musha, there existed not only the aforementioned three but countless others in similar circumstances—those who believed their ruin in aboriginal village life inevitable unless they took heads to overturn their fate.
Undoubtedly, Japan’s Aboriginal Management Policy was steadily succeeding, and their simple wildness was finally being forced into submission and decline before what was termed culture.
The ethnic ferocity and primitiveness had already begun their descent from the peak, much like the vitality of a middle-aged woman on the verge of losing her physiological functions as a female.
This village, enveloped by beautiful mountains and frequent fog, exhibited symptoms of a terminal illness—a dead end—throughout its internal body.

And under the same circumstances that drove a woman facing old age—who, out of yearning and attachment to her youth, accumulated physiological anxieties and torments, sometimes resorting to unexpected, transgressive actions—the indigenous people mobilized their residual wildness and ferocity, like remnant candle wax, desperately attempting a final struggle against a way of life unsuited to their nature: that is to say, against civilization itself.

V

Prior to this, in March of the same year.
Governor Yukichi Mizukoshi of Taichū Prefecture at the time visited the aboriginal village with the purpose of inspecting indigenous affairs.

Though Musha may be subtropical, its elevation already exceeded 4,020 shaku above sea level (approximately 1,218 meters), and its climatic warmth was nearly identical to spring in mainland Japan.
Moreover, the surrounding mountains loomed faintly overlapped through spring haze—against their verdant backdrop, cherry trees across the highland now flaunted blossoms in full splendor…… Standing at the platform’s edge gazing far down at Zhuoshui River’s gorge, enveloped in the charming mountain vista, Governor Yukichi Mizukoshi found himself overcome by a nostalgic melancholy.
The worldly sentiments of being hounded by official duties and living hurried days seemed to vanish toward some distant mountain rim.

However, the state of indigenous affairs was by no means as mild as the scenery and climate.
It was profoundly disagreeable.
In the eyes of the indigenous people when they regarded mainlanders, there was something unquiet and perilous—something even passing observers could plainly discern.
Nowhere could be seen any semblance of them pursuing their livelihoods with composure.

To the subordinate police officers assembled in a room of the substation, Governor Mizukoshi had no choice but to deliver a stern admonition.

“Ensure heightened vigilance regarding indigenous affairs.”
“Moreover, when dealing with indigenous people, consistently employ benevolent policies and refrain from needlessly provoking their resentment—”

Upon descending the mountain, the governor immediately ordered his subordinates to replace the police officers at the substation with newly selected elite personnel.
As another measure for aborigine welfare, he solicited clothing donations from households of mainlander government officials and civilians residing in Taichung, loaded them onto trucks, and had them sent.

Despite the governor’s efforts, however, the indigenous situation showed no improvement whatsoever.
Not only had the newly appointed substation chief Sazuka Aisuke instead provoked the indigenous people’s resentment, but their feelings toward mainlanders—or civilization itself—had already reached their breaking point.
They were now confronting the worst possible situation—one that could not be addressed through petty political maneuvers.

When it was decided at Mona Rudao’s cultivation hut to launch the uprising on the day of the upcoming athletic meet, all key indigenous members of the entire community had already reached an implicit understanding of the rebellion plan.
As if manipulated by invisible threads, they secretly yet methodically proceeded with their preparations for battle.

The autumn harvest had already been fully completed, and they had ample confidence that their food supplies could endure a prolonged conflict.
They gathered all firearms and ammunition stored in each household into one location and, along with food provisions, secretly transported them under cover of darkness into a large cavern near Mahebo.
The remaining shortfall would be seized from the substation simultaneously with the uprising.
The planned rifles: one hundred fifty; ammunition: one thousand four hundred rounds—

Since Taiwan had come under Japanese rule up until that time, it was not necessarily only on this occasion that the indigenous people had attempted rebellion.
Throughout the entire island, plans similar to this had been attempted several times.
However, nearly all of these were usually discovered and suppressed before they could come to fruition; with their simple and unsophisticated minds, they were absolutely incapable of keeping secrets as a group.
For someone among them would inevitably carelessly leak the details of the plan.

However, this incident alone was an exception.
They maintained secrecy with astonishing solidarity and meticulous planning, steadily advancing their scheme.
This was partly due to the presence of Mona Rudao—a man of exceptional leadership—and partly because the indigenous people's intelligence had advanced to a startling degree.
After the incident occurred, those mainlanders involved could not help but wear bitter smiles at the ironic outcome born of having given them culture.

The day the incident occurred: October 27, 1930.

Early in the morning, when the surrounding mountains were enveloped in dark gloom.

While Officer Sugiura of the Mahebo Police Substation was sleeping soundly at home, someone suddenly began knocking on the front door.
Rubbing his sleepy eyes, the officer was listening suspiciously with his ear pressed to the pillow when Chieftain Mona Rudao’s voice reached him.

“The athletic meet’s starting.”
“Get up now.”

The officer answered in a sleep-thickened voice.

“Shut up.”
“It’s too damn early!”

“Not early.”
“Late.”
“The meet’s about to start!”

Pestered by the insistent urging, the skeptical officer reluctantly left his futon. Still clad in flannel sleepwear, he opened the front door.

"What's this? Still pitch black out here!"

Muttering complaints under his breath, the officer took one step beyond the threshold—that precise moment when Mona Rudao's massive frame came crashing down like a landslide. Lightning coursed through the policeman's body, shocking him fully awake from his drowsy state. Digging his unsteady legs into the ground, he strained with every muscle to hold low against Mona's assault.

Beneath a star-crowded sky bereft of moonlight, the two men wrestled—twisting apart and clashing together—until their locked bodies went tumbling down a brush-choked slope. They rolled fifteen *chō* from Sugiura's government quarters, coming to rest beside Mona Rudao's dwelling just as the officer found himself pinned beneath the chieftain.

From within the house burst Tadao Mounao—Mona's second son—who swung his tribal blade in a silver arc that severed the policeman's head from its shoulders. Thus perished the first mainlander casualty of this ill-fated dawn.

Before long, black human shadows began gathering one by one before Mona Rudao’s house, slipping forward like stealthy apparitions. They were the young men of Mahebo Village. When all fifty or sixty youths in the village had assembled as agreed, Chieftain Mona Rudao led them quietly along a dark mountain path toward Tarowan Village. Upon reaching Tarowan’s outskirts, they found that settlement’s young men already clustered in waiting. The youths of Mahebo and Tarowan merged into a single force advancing toward Boran Village. True to plan, Boran’s young men promptly joined their ranks. The troop’s numbers had now surged to roughly two hundred fifty.

These 250 men split into two teams and proceeded to attack nearly all major police substations in Higashinengō District—Shinkō, Onoue, Tonbara, Boarun, Rōdofu, Tāutsua, Sakura, and others—one after another. In all police substations lived one to two or three officers and their families. They all fell victim to the savage tribesmen. Only a small number of women and children who had left for Musha the previous night to stay over were barely spared from the calamity. However, since the majority of them ultimately ended up suffering unfortunate attacks later at Musha Public School, to say they were spared from calamity was merely a matter of time...

The savage tribesmen’s actions were utterly swift and silent.
They swept through a vast, dark region like two demonic winds, stripping away lives and gradually swelling their ranks with new comrades—then, by the time the sky paled, they had already returned to Hougou Village.
At 7:00 AM, having regrouped into a single unit at Hougou Village, they immediately visited Chieftain Tadaonoukan.
Tadaonoukan was the elder of that land and a man of influence.
Mona Rudao earnestly entreated the elder to join their uprising.
When Tadaonoukan heard this, he desperately tried to stop their reckless act.

“The Japanese aren’t all concentrated in Musha.”
“Even if we were to win in Musha, the Japanese would just keep attacking us endlessly, like mist rolling in again and again.”
“Even if we resist, in the end we’re doomed to face bitter defeat.”

When Mona Rudao heard that, he responded.

“I heard the same thing from Hanooka Ichiro yesterday.”
“But we’ve stored plenty of millet.”
“And we have a solid plan to obtain plenty of firearms and ammunition.”
“We may not know how numerous the mainlanders are, but as long as we continue to resist down to every last grain of millet and every last bullet, victory will surely visit us.”

When Mona Rudao noticed Tadaonoukan remaining silent without response, he lowered his voice even further so the young men behind him couldn’t hear and spoke.

“As you say, perhaps we have no advantage.”
“But then what should we do?”
“Abandon this plan and return to those suffocating days of hopeless despair?”
“The young men won’t be appeased unless they take drastic action.”
“Victory or defeat isn’t the point.”
“Even if we crush these feelings, this pent-up frustration will erupt in worse forms someday.”

In a manner worn down by Mona Rudao’s fervor, Tadaonoukan in the end had no choice but to join the group.
Due to Tadaonoukan’s agreement to participate, the group’s forces now consisted of six villages—the aforementioned Mahebo, Boran, Roadofu, and Tarowan, along with Hougou and Suuku—reaching a total of approximately 1,200 rebel tribespeople, including 300 able-bodied men.
It goes without saying that the morale of Mona Rudao and everyone under him surged tremendously.

Approximately half of the 300 able-bodied men—150 in total—arrived at Sakura-dai, located fifteen *chō* from Hougou Village, at 7:30 AM. Simultaneous with the flag-raising ceremony, they swarmed en masse toward the Public School grounds.

On the grounds, Chief Inspector Sazuka Aisuke—who had been swinging his sword in combat—along with twenty-two police officers and school staff were immediately struck down by the savage tribesmen’s spear thrusts and indigenous blades.
In addition, seventy women and children fell spewing blood.
To report the emergency to the outside, District Chief Ogasawara Keitaro, guided by School Inspector Yoshikawa, swiftly fled the scene.

Shinbara Shigeshi, Principal of Musha Public School, swiftly evacuated approximately thirty women and children to his government housing nearby. He alone then stood blocking the entrance to confront and fend off the attacking savage tribesmen.
However, his solitary bravery was instantly cut down without resistance.
Even the majority of the women and children who had taken refuge inside subsequently suffered being massacred by the tribesmen who broke in.

Principal Shinbara’s wife buried herself among the corpses, lay face down, and lay drenched in blood; by doing so, she managed to avoid the tribesmen’s notice.
Her life was miraculously saved.
However, even when the child lying beside her moved its legs, causing the child to be dragged out and killed, she could not utter a sound—such was her torment.

The very few women and children who hid in toilets and under eaves narrowly managed to escape calamity.
However, among those who had concealed themselves in bamboo groves outside, while some avoided the tribal onslaught, others perished from tsutsugamushi mite bites.
The total casualties numbered as many as 134 mainlanders and two islanders.

Nearly all the slain mainlanders were pitiable souls dwelling in remote mountain hamlets with scant joy, their hearts pounding with anticipation for the athletic meet’s commencement.

The tragedy unfolding at the public school grounds lasted approximately one hour. During this time, a detachment of fifty savage tribesmen attacked a police substation located about two chō away, seized rifles and ammunition, burned down the buildings, and raised a victory cry.

Meanwhile, School Inspector Yoshikawa, who had escaped the athletic meet grounds, ran down the mountain path with District Chief Ogasawara on his back.
However, because the District Chief was overweight, they couldn’t move quickly.
Having no choice, he set him down in a nearby bamboo grove.

“Please stay hidden here for a while.”
“I’ll go call for reinforcements right away.”

Along a mountain path running beside the stream called Mei River, about half a *ri* down from Musha, lies the Mei River Police Substation.
Stumbling as if falling, School Inspector Yoshikawa finally reached there and immediately telephoned the Puli District Office to report the indigenous uprising.
This transmission marked the first report of the incident reaching external authorities.

Meanwhile, District Chief Ogasawara, who had been hiding in the bamboo grove holding his breath, was discovered by the pursuing savage tribesmen and killed.

At Taichu Prefectural Office, which had received the incident report from Puli District Office, Governor Mizukoshi and all present were stunned by this abnormal, unexpected event.

VI

With the Governor at the helm, countermeasures were immediately deliberated.

As a result, it was decided that Police Director Miwa would assume overall command, organize a police force of 1,200 members, and dispatch them to the site.
Requests for police reinforcements were sent via telegram to the two prefectures of Taihoku and Tainan, as well as Karenkō Prefecture.

Simultaneously, the governor also requested the dispatch of military forces.
The military immediately dispatched forces from each of the Taichu, Karenkō, and Taihoku battalions with the purpose of supporting the police units.
The police force and military intended to cooperate and launch a pincer attack on Musha from three directions: Puli, Nengao, and Biyanan.
Additionally, they dispatched a single plane from Pingtung Airfield to reconnoiter the area.

During this time, the savage tribesmen severed the telephone lines between Musha and Jiseki.
They also attacked the Mei River Police Substation, burned it down, and demonstrated their readiness to advance toward Puli.
The town of Puli, situated at an elevation of approximately 1,500 feet in the center of the Puli Basin, was the location of the Nengao District Office.
With a population of twenty-some thousand, it had become a strategic hub of the region.
Twenty-one mainlanders who had been stranded in Musha had already taken refuge in the town.
Many were wounded and bloodied, but as accounts of the tribal uprising spread from their lips, the people’s morale was thrown into immediate turmoil.
To defend against the savage tribesmen’s attack, mainlanders and islanders cooperated with each other and immediately organized a self-defense militia.
Moreover, mainlanders involved in military service—whether active or reserve—took up arms and established defensive positions along the front lines near Mei River.
They also installed barbed wire at various points along the same line and electrified it through swift actions by the electric power company.
The townspeople trembled as hatred toward the savage tribesmen swirled like a vortex engulfing the entire town.

The military and police contingent that had departed Taichu was able to occupy Musha on the 28th the following day, having encountered almost no significant resistance.
They immediately assumed strict security duties and worked to locate refugees, collecting 86 corpses and 308 injured individuals.
On that same day, the military dispatched a company from Taihoku, followed by several reconnaissance and fighter planes from the Pingtung Air Regiment on the following 29th.

Meanwhile, approximately one hundred members of the savage tribesmen driven out of Musha retreated in disarray toward Nengao but later gathered and went into hiding near Hougou Village to the east under Mona Rudao’s command.
Moreover, while waiting for an opportunity to retake Musha, they frequently launched counterattacks.
Because they skillfully utilized both the steep mountain slopes and the cover of darkness, the garrison were greatly tormented, unable to rely on mere fighting spirit.

During this time, Prosecutor Takei from Taichu Court rushed to Puli and arrested islander suspects one after another, accused of instigating the savage tribesmen.
Furthermore, the punitive force worked to appease the nearby aboriginal villages, suppress their unrest, and actively recruit them to join their own forces.
Their efforts steadily succeeded.

On the morning of the 30th, the Musha garrison advanced while coordinating with the punitive forces crossing Nengao Pass and Biyanan Pass to drive the savage tribesmen deep into the hinterlands of Mahebo and Boarun.

Meanwhile, the savage tribesmen who had gathered at Mahebo Village and Boarun Village formulated strategies centered around Mona Rudao and Tadao Noukan.
The council swiftly resolved to meet the punitive force in decisive battle.
Old men and young men alike bore looks of grim resolve between their brows; some polished rifles, others drew swords.

When they heard this tragic resolve, the indigenous women also consulted among themselves about how to handle their own fates.
The outcome was that they all strung themselves up in a nearby mountain forest to encourage their husbands, brothers, or beloved children on their departure.
All the indigenous women of Mahebo Village and a portion of those from Boarun Village participated in this.

The fact that the indigenous women had collectively committed suicide became known to the punitive force through a report brought by allied tribesmen from Tautsa Village who had gone on a reconnaissance mission into enemy territory. The punitive force were moved as they envisioned the harrowing scene and through it came to understand the enemy’s resolve was no ordinary matter.

The day arrived—October 31st—when they would finally launch their all-out attack, positioning infantry units at the front lines with support from the police force.

From dawn on this day, sleet fell steadily, and the distant peaks had completely vanished into black, heavy mountain clouds.
Only the nearby mountains dimly revealed their forms within the mist-like water vapor.
At 8:45 a.m., the mountain artillery bombardment began.
Moreover, a part of the infantry unit severed the wire suspension bridge (girder bridge) to block their retreat.
The roar of artillery pierced through the autumn rain, resounding across the entire mountainous region, and aboriginal villages such as Roadfu, Hougou, Suuku, Mahebo, Taizan, and Kautuku caught fire one after another, filling the highland area with an atmosphere of desolation.
That afternoon, the Commander of the Taiwan Army and Governor Mizukoshi of Taichu Prefecture met in Puli and held discussions aimed at bringing about a swift conclusion to the incident.

Meanwhile, on the side of the savage tribesmen—threatened by bombs and artillery shells, pursued by the advance of infantry and police units—they finally realized they could no longer hold the aboriginal village.
Leader Mona Rudao gathered his remaining force of approximately sixty able-bodied warriors and retreated into a large rock cavern in the mountainous forests near Mahebo.
Meanwhile, the surviving indigenous women and children of Boarun Village took as much of the autumn harvest and loot from Musha as they could carry and fled into the nearby mountain forests.

The cavern that had become the new fortress of the savage tribesmen formed a natural stronghold.
Moreover, in preparation for battle, they had secretly stockpiled weapons, ammunition, food, and other supplies for over a month beforehand.
The punitive force’s assault was no easy task either.
The battle inevitably turned into a protracted conflict.

The mountainous region rapidly grew colder, and frostbite cases began proliferating among the punitive force.
The surrounding peaks were crowned with white snow, and the calendar had turned to December.

Amidst howling storms across icy peaks, small yet ferocious close combats repeated endlessly—whenever the punitive force captured a high ground, the savage tribesmen would immediately scale sheer cliffs and counterattack, brandishing their machetes in both hands.
Whenever the punitive force dispatched small units for reconnaissance or communication, bullets from the savage tribesmen would inevitably come flying from nowhere.
The punitive force’s total casualties were not insignificant, but the enemy tribesmen’s dead and wounded had already reached 150.
Moreover, by the time the mountain forests were colored with beautiful autumn foliage, ammunition and food had gradually begun running out.
The continuation of the war was steadily growing more difficult.

Mahebo, in fact, means "land of the ancestors".
The savage tribesmen found it difficult to leave that land and initially intended to defend both the Mahebo and Tarowan valleys to the death.
However, as the difficulties of the war increased, they too finally retreated, realizing they would have to establish their base even deeper into the hinterlands.
Soon, they resolved to choose Banda Valley as their final ground.
However, their escape became hopeless when their retreat was intercepted by troops approaching from behind.
Already, ten days had passed since December began.

7

When this unexpected incident first occurred, the mainland Japanese side struggled to grasp its true cause.
Moreover, they could not comprehend what manner of organization had carried out that fearsome atrocity.
To such an extent was the incident both abnormal and abrupt.

Regarding all aspects of the incident, various conjectures and speculations ran rampant, and the same was true concerning its mastermind.
At first, people thought that the leader of the savage tribesmen must be Hanooka Ichiro.

Ichiro had graduated from Taichu Normal School.
However, because he was an indigenous person, he was not granted instructor qualifications and was made to teach under the title of police officer.
He was tormented by this.
From his past and the fact that he excelled in intellect and martial prowess, people concluded that there was no one but him who could lead this organized action.
Immediately after the incident, when he went missing, newspapers across Taiwan and even the mainland reviled him as an enemy hero.
A baseless theory that he had harbored certain ideologies incompatible with the national polity was even circulated and believed by some to such an extent.

Due to having left his duties and taken arbitrary actions, his position as a police officer had already been unilaterally revoked.

However, all such rumors were grossly mistaken.
He was tormented, caught between tribal love for those who shared his blood and obligation toward the mainland Japanese who had shown him kindness.

On the day before the incident, when Mona Rudao revealed the plan to him, he desperately tried to stop it.
However, this was not heeded.
Moreover, to secretly inform his superiors of the plan was impermissible for someone in his position as an indigenous person.
Tormented by anguish that left him unable to stand with either his tribespeople or the mainland Japanese, on the eve of the athletic meet, he attended the school festival and played the organ.

Ichiro had a younger brother called Hanooka Jirou.
Like his brother, he had been doted on by mainlanders since early childhood and, unusually for an indigenous person, had even completed higher elementary school.
Due to his aspiration to become a government official, he was at that time preparing for the regular civil service examination.

On the day of the athletic meet, Hanooka Ichiro—who had tried but failed to stop his tribesmen’s violent acts—persuaded his younger brother Jirou and abandoned the blood-soaked Musha Public School while still clad in indigenous attire.
They drifted toward Hougou Village.
Those who followed behind included Ichiro and Jirou’s wives and children, along with approximately twenty-odd clan members.
However, even in Hougou Village, they could never settle into peaceful thoughts.
They had to witness their fellow tribesmen retreating with machetes still wet with blood clinging to their hands, and they had to hear the sounds of artillery shells echoing through the mountains, shaking the standing trees.
To Hanooka Ichiro, who fully understood the mainlanders’ capabilities, the fate of his fellow tribesmen challenging them appeared bleak and sorrowful.
Moreover, when he thought of the benevolent mainlanders who had become sacrifices to his fellow tribesmen, there was something unbearable about the heartache.
As for himself, he was undoubtedly viewed as an enemy by both sides.

Ichiro turned his face etched with anguish toward his younger brother and said.

"I think there's no path left but death."

Jirou nodded.

“I’d been thinking the same thing.”

November 1.

Ichiro, Jirou, and their families discarded their indigenous attire and donned their sole set of formal Japanese clothing.
When they married, they had held a Shinto wedding ceremony at Musha’s Kiri Hill Shrine under colonial authorities’ attendance.
These were the formal clothes they had received from the mainland Japanese at that time.
When preparations were complete, the clan took their group and quietly entered the forest about ten chō southeast of Hougou Village.
Among the group, only Jirou’s wife was nowhere to be seen.
She had been arrested the previous day by Officer Ishikawa, who had infiltrated enemy territory while she was clad in indigenous attire.

At last, just before committing suicide, Jirou asked them to wait a brief moment.
Picking up a wooden fragment lying nearby, he wrote largely on it with a prepared brush.

We too must depart from this world.
It’s regrettable that forcing indigenous people to carry timber led to this.

Hanooka Jirou

Jirou tied the suicide note to the trunk of a large tree nearby. Ichiro silently watched this.

Wearing an unlined gasen-meisen kimono and a white hachimaki headband, Ichiro first severed the child’s neck with a Japanese sword measuring one shaku five sun in blade length. Next, he committed seppuku and perished. The wife—who had also donned Japanese formal attire to adorn her final journey—placed their child between herself and her husband, laid them down, and then, following her husband’s example, pierced her throat with precision to end her life.

Jirou—wearing a plum-blossom-crested haori—and the rest of the clan all hanged themselves from nearby tree branches.
Jirou’s sole regret was that his wife’s figure was absent among his companions in death.

These corpses were discovered on November 8 by Aboriginal Territory Police Officers during their search of the area. Jirou’s wife was immediately taken to the scene. The wife stepped into the forest and immediately covered her eyes, wailing. It was confirmed that these were indeed the corpses of Ichiro and Jirou.

The expeditionary force stood before their corpses and muttered with darkened expressions.

“Even though we doted on them so much… In the end, they were just indigenous people. They refused to join our cause.”

However, the others answered as if cutting it short.

"But the fact that Ichiro committed seppuku—isn’t that ultimately the fruits of education?"

When it came to indigenous people’s suicides, all had previously been deaths by hanging. In the Aboriginal territory, Hanooka Ichiro was the first to take the form of seppuku.

The rebel tribes who infiltrated the large rock cavern near Mahebo would occasionally breach the security line and engage in skirmishes with the expeditionary force.
They troubled the expeditionary force not infrequently, but their own casualties were even greater.
The combatants were gradually decreasing in number.
Moreover, due to continuous attacks, even the formidable rock cavern began to crumble.
All hope of turning the tide of battle completely vanished.

On November 16, when winter had already set in the mountain region, Chief Mona Rudao gathered the young men near his knees. Tadao Noukan—who had commanded one flank as a leader—along with Hiposatsupo, Hipoa Risu, Taimopohotsuku, and others had all already either fallen to bullets or been arrested, leaving only a countable number of young men remaining in the group. Mona Rudao said in a grave tone.

“As you all know, we’ve no bullets or provisions left—not even enough to last through tomorrow.”
“I believe you’re resolved, but the time has come for you to make your final resolve.”

No one in the gathering answered.
However, before long, they spontaneously gathered in unison and entered the nearby mountain forest.
As if by prior agreement, they proceeded to hang themselves.

After witnessing the young men under his command commit suicide, Mona Rudao led his clan of sixteen members back to his farming hut.
Within the family, the only ones not present were his second son Tadao Mounao and his daughter Hon Mounao.

“Tadao’s a spirited fellow—he’ll surely be fine if left alone. But Hon... being a woman...”

With a face haggard from the prolonged struggle now showing even deeper anguish, Rudao muttered repeatedly.
Upon reaching the farming hut, Rudao entered accompanied only by his wife and fourteen-year-old daughter.
Subsequently, he set fire to the hut and burned the two corpses.

When the hut had completely burned down, Rudao gave his final farewell to the other fourteen members.

“I want you all to resolve your own affairs as you’ve prepared yourselves.”
“I will leave here and go to die in a place unknown to indigenous people, mainlanders, or Han islanders.”

Every member of the clan wordlessly watched their chief’s resolutely departing figure until it disappeared into the mountain shadows. At that moment, they began preparations for hanging themselves nearby, as if by unspoken agreement.

Chief Mona Rudao’s whereabouts subsequently became unknown, but three years after the incident concluded, his mummified corpse was finally discovered in a nearby mountain forest.

Tadao Mounao, Mona Rudao’s second son, continued leading a small band of loyal fighters to appear along the security line and harass the expeditionary force even after the rock cavern had fallen.
They would materialize abruptly only to vanish instantly; the expeditionary force found it impossible to capture them.
This same pattern persisted throughout November.

However, prior to this, the expeditionary force had managed to arrest his sister Hon Mounao.
The expeditionary force decided to appease her and have her search for her brother.
On December 7, Hon Mounao was finally able to meet her brother in the forest near Mahebo.
Tadao's face lit up with joy when he spotted his sister, but upon hearing she was in captivity, he merely fell silent and nodded.
And then, in a quiet, calm tone, he said.

“Tomorrow, have the expeditionary force get us rice and wine…”

When Hon Mounao delivered her brother’s message, the expeditionary force buzzed with agitation.
They eagerly began preparing for an immediate attack.

The leadership restrained them and said.

“For Aborigines, requesting provisions from the enemy customarily signifies surrender.”
“For now, calmly observe their actions—”

The next day, Hon Mounao went to her brother with the sake and rice handed over by the expeditionary force.
Upon receiving it, Tadao Mounao gave an enigmatic last testament and sent his sister away from the scene.

“I’m giving you all my land and cattle.
“I will go from the lower village to the upper village.”
“May you live long and prosperously on this land… Now hurry back to the mainlanders.”

When his sister’s figure vanished into the shadow of a large tree adorned with autumn foliage, Tadao Mounao had his retainers slaughter the chickens he kept in the forest. Then under the thick trunk of a camphor tree casting its shadow, he formed a circle and sat on the soft weeds together with his six retainers. There the group exchanged drinks with chicken and rice as accompaniment. The final banquet before death continued for over two hours. Finally Tadao Mounao stepped forward into the center of the circle, called out the names of his wife and eldest son who had died before him, recited an improvised poem in a resounding voice, and performed a dance.

Beloved wife Waris Papan,
Prepare sake and wait for me.
Soon I too shall go to thee.
Beloved son Waris Tadao,
Pour sake and wait for me.
Soon I too shall go to thee.

Pour sake and wait for me.

Soon I too shall go to thee.

Two days later, on the tenth, the expeditionary force again dispatched his sister into the mountainous forest to check on her brother’s condition.
By that time, Tadao Mounao had already hanged himself together with his attendants.

With Tadao Mounao’s suicide as the final act, the Aborigines’ uprising was provisionally quelled.
The expeditionary force searched throughout the entire area—caves, forests, and all—and on December 10th, in the depths of winter, they finally managed to descend from the mountains.

To inspect the aftermath of battle, Governor Koichi Mizukoshi also took the lead of the expeditionary force and searched the entire mountain, but when he gazed upon the hanged corpses of Aborigine women and children in the deep forest, he was struck by a profound sorrowful emotion.

Most of them wore mainlander garments to adorn themselves for their journey to death, but these were precisely the clothes Governor Mizukoshi himself had loaded onto trucks and sent earlier that spring for their nurturing.

The mummified corpse of Mona Rudao was afterwards stored in a corner of the Faculty of Literature and Politics’s Department of Ethnology at Taihoku Imperial University. In a crude wooden coffin, his massive body was laid out, yet public viewing remained easily accessible.