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Paiwan Craftsman | Drangadnag (Lin Shin-yi)

  • Date:2018-11-28
Paiwan Craftsman | Drangadnag (Lin Shin-yi)

  • Paiwan Name: 拉阿浪 (林新義)
  • Born: 1953
  • Place of Birth: Taitung County (Eastern Taiwan)
  • Did You Know That …?
  • Taitung County's Daren Township faces the ocean and is surrounded by mountains on the remaining three sides. This isolation makes it feel like another world. It is here that Paiwan craftsman Drangadnag was born, and it is to here that he returned to pursue his craft after 20 years working away from home.

 

 

The remote settlement in Taitung County that Drangadnag calls home has just 500 residents. In its early days, over half of its people grew sisal and citronella, engaged in logging, and farmed millet, taro, and rice. Their lives were entirely self-sufficient. As a youth, Drangadnag played with wood and bamboo, and would often use his knife to carve images on them or to draw stories in the mud. He became an able craftsman with a thorough knowledge of the old-growth forests, and carving and drawing became his main source of entertainment.

  

In 1972, he headed to Taipei's National Taiwan Craft Research Institute to study sculpture art. His teacher there was Hong Shao-yun (洪紹云), a specialist in Buddha sculptures. After graduating first in his class, Drangadnag wanted to continue building his skills, and so he sought out pò͘-tē-hì (Taiwanese puppetry) master Hsu Hsien-chang (許獻章) to learn how to carve realistic human faces. So impressed was Hsu with Drangadnag’s diligence and loyalty that the puppet master betrothed his daughter to him.

  

Drangadnag spent 10 years working under his father-in-law until the old man was finally no longer able to carve because of his advancing years. Fortunately for Drangadnag, this coincided with the establishment of the Sanyi Wood Sculpture Museum, and he made the move from professional to artisan. After two years of exploration, he found that the majority of indigenous sculptors worked in a fairly rough-hewn style, and so he decided to go against the current, challenging himself to produce fine, realistic works that made him a pioneer in Taiwanese aboriginal carving today.

  

Drangadnag's carvings depict indigenous cultures and history, including Paiwan legends like those of the "Descendants of the Hundred-pace Viper" and "The Boar King." In addition, having spent several years in Miaoli, he is familiar with elements of other aboriginal tribal cultures, such as the Pasta'ay Festival of the Saisiyat, the facial tattooing of the Atayal, and the balangay canoes of the Tao, all of which can be found among his works.

 

Of note is that the Paiwan are an egalitarian society, and as such Drangadnag deliberately works to depict women positively, with exquisite expressions and warm eyes, but also with a spirit of tenacity and strength, to bring together the duality of womanhood.

  

One of his works, "Tattooed Angels," presents the five different kinds of Atayal facial tattooing both male and female against a carved replica of a traditional Atayal woven cloak. At the top is an elder with the full range of tattoos on the forehead, cheeks, and jaw. Next is a woman who also has her forehead, cheeks, and jaw tattooed, followed by two men, one with a single vertical line on both forehead and chin, and the next with a similar forehead tattoo and a V-shape that reaches down across the cheekbones and upper lip, down to the chin.

 

The most remarkable, though, is the face of the woman at the bottom, a cross tattooed on her forehead and a similar temple-to-chin V-shaped mark. Her solemn facial expression seeming to mourn the disappearance of her people's tattooing culture. Drangadnag does not deny that the arrangement is a deliberate one, built around the image of an angel's wings to portray the imminent loss of this precious part of Taiwan's culture.

  

"Historically, we aboriginal peoples had no written language, so our culture was only passed down orally. But now, our children grow up and leave town to study and work. After a while, this culture will gradually start to fade. It's a real shame!" Thus Drangadnag has committed himself to doing his part to pass that culture down through his carvings of indigenous life in Taiwan.