新聞稿（英文）

Academia Sinica Press Release

Institute of Ethnology Web Archive Portal and Digital Ceremonial Song and Dance Archive Launched

To celebrate the completion of the second stage of the Institute of Ethnology’s Digital Archive Project on August 18, 2009, the Institute of Ethnology will hold the 2009 Academia Sinica Institute of Ethnology Digital Archive Exhibition. Members of the media are welcome to attend.

The exhibition is being jointly organized by the Institute’s “Formosan Aborigines Digital Archive Project” and “Taiwan Ethnography Video and Audio Archive”, both of which are part of the Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program.

The main goal of this stage of the “Formosan Aborigines Digital Archive Project” was to complete a web portal for the Institute of Ethnology’s digital archive (http://ianthro.tw). This web portal, designed based on the Web 2.0 concept, not only displays the Institute’s collection of artifacts and photographs, but is also especially designed to facilitate discussion and other interaction by visitors to the site. The intention of the portal is to create a knowledge platform in cyberspace for Taiwanese anthropological knowledge and the ethnology research community.

The website currently displays more than 6,000 cultural relics from the Formosan Aborigines and the Han people of Taiwan, as well as more than 18,000 valuable black and white photographs, and more than 7,000 books, articles and papers related to Aboriginal research. Users can directly access and download files that are in the public domain, and apply online for their use in publications and so on. The director of the project is Dr. Huang Shu-ming, Distinguished Research Fellow and Director of the Institute of Ethnology, and the assistant director is Assistant Research Specialist Chang Yi-Hong.

In addition to the web portal, an important part of the Taiwan Ethnography Video and Audio Archive’s digitalization project, the Formosan Aboriginal Ceremonial Song and Dance Project will also be presented at the exhibition. This video and audio digitalization project, due to be completed this year, is comprised of 327 video and audio recordings which can be browsed on the internet. After digitalization is completed, the research report for this project will also be made available to read or download.

The video and audio recordings for the Formosan Aboriginal Ceremonial Song and Dance Project (http://www.ethno.sinica.edu.tw) were collected under the direction of Institute of Ethnology Research Fellow Hu Tai-li, and include video recordings made between 1986 and 1989 of seven groups of Aboriginal peoples, the Amis, Rukai, Saisiat, Puyuma, Paiwan, Bunun, and Tsou,. Each recording is shot in three-quarter inch video format,the highest picture quality available at the time of recording. This set of video recordings is the earliest and most systematically produced group of recordings of Formosan Aboriginal ceremonial songs and dances. The most notable is a set of seven edited live recording of Formosan Aboriginal ceremonial songs and dances, including recording from the Amis harvest festival in Iwan, the Rukai millet harvest festival in Haocha, the Saisiat Pasta'ay festival in Xiangtian, the Puyuma hunting festival (Maygayau) in Nanwang, the Bunun Malaqtainga festival in Wulu, the Tsou war festival (Mayasvi) in Tefuye, the Paiwan five year festival (Maruvok) in Tuban and a Paiwan wedding in Dashe. This digitalization project is being directed by Institute of Ethnology Research Fellow Hu Tai-li. When completed the project will allow the public be able to browse the recordings for free on the Internet and also view Formosan Aborigine exhibitions from Academia Sinica Institute of Ethnology Museum.

The Institute of Ethnology hopes to take the opportunity provided by this launch to solicit opinions from organizations that collect and preserve cultural relics, and to help the public appreciate the richness of Taiwan’s multiethnic culture.

Media Contacts

Mr. Chang Ching, Formosan Aborigines Digital Archive Project, [email protected] (O) +886-2-2652-3483

Ms. Mei-Hui Lin, Public Relations Office, Central Office of Administration, Academia Sinica, [email protected] (O) +886-2-2789-8821, (Fax) +886-2-2782-1551, (M) 0921-845-234