Traditional Education and Its Significance in Taiwan Aborigines: A Case Study of Hunting Education as Carried Out by the Pasikau Tribe, Part of the Bunun People

With the dawn of the modern age, native people’s traditional cultures have been influenced by mainstream culture, losing some of their original features, and impacting negatively on traditional cultural education. Determining how to pass on native people’s traditional ecological knowledge using their own traditional methods of education could be the solution to this problem; consequently, understanding native people’s traditional systems of education has become an important issue. This paper focuses on the Pasikau tribe, who are part of the Bunun people residing in Taitung County, Taiwan. Using the techniques of participant observation and in-depth interviews, it discusses the process of Bunun hunter education in order to describe the shape and inherent strategies behind the Bunun’s education of its hunters; it also aims to outline a framework for such education. The research shows that Bunun education consists of three layers: family education, tribal education, and nature and ecological education. These areas can be further subcategorized into four parts: the study of rites and ceremonies, physical education, ethics education, as well as hunting and participating in the Telling of Heroic Deeds ceremony, which is used as a platform to demonstrate the knowledge acquired by the student. Bunun hunting education requires specific environmental conditions in order to be successful; therefore, it is necessary to determine how to protect native people’s traditional culture through the medium of their own unique education system.