| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Subject | Saisiyat Facial and Body Tattooing |
| Type | Tradition |
| Era | Early Modern |
| Location | Hsinchu and Miaoli Counties · northern Taiwan |
| Date | 1900 CE |
| Style / Technique | Saisiyat forehead, chin, and chest tattooing performed by contracted Atayal patasan specialists, a case of inter-tribal borrowing of a facial-marking tradition |
| Connected to | Atayal Ptasan, Paiwan Hand-Tap Tattooing, Ainu Sinuye |
Archive Note
The Saisiyat, also written Saisiat, are an Indigenous people of northern and western Taiwan, in present-day Hsinchu and Miaoli Counties. They speak a Formosan language of the Northwest Formosan group, linguistically distinct from the Atayalic family, yet their tattoo tradition is a case of inter-tribal cultural borrowing and technical reliance. Saisiyat oral histories indicate that, unlike the Atayal and Seediq for whom tattooing was an ancient indigenous tradition, the Saisiyat adopted facial tattooing as a defensive measure during periods of inter-tribal conflict, so that individuals would not be mistaken for enemies or for Han Chinese and headhunted by neighboring tribes.
Because the Saisiyat lacked their own specialists, they contracted Atayal patasan practitioners, women who inherited the craft, to perform the tattooing. This contact produced linguistic borrowing: in the Saisiyat language the act of tattooing is patas and a tattooed area is pinataSan, sharing Austronesian roots with the Atayal matas, to write or tattoo, and ptasan, facial tattoo. Placement followed strict gender rules. Both men and women received forehead tattoos on reaching adulthood as a core coming-of-age rite, and Saisiyat women were tattooed exclusively on the forehead, which distinguished them from Atayal women who also received large cheek bands. Men added chin tattoos, and successful warriors received chest tattoos; traditional male vests were cut narrow and worn open so the chest markings stayed visible as symbols of combat achievement. Chest lines were earned by head-taking, the first line applied to the left ribcage after taking two heads and the second to the right after three, with historical records documenting up to twelve lines. As for the Atayal, the facial tattoo functioned as a spiritual passport by which ancestral spirits identified the dead and allowed them to cross the rainbow bridge into the afterlife.
Under Japanese colonial rule the administration pursued an aggressive pacification policy, and because traditional tattooing was linked to headhunting and indigenous resistance the government formally banned Saisiyat tattooing in 1914, one year after the ban targeting the Atayal. Enforcement included confiscation of tattooing tools, denial of school access to children with facial markings, fines, beatings, labor sentences and imprisonment for practitioners and recipients, and forced surgical removal in which colonial police compelled tattooed individuals to have the marked skin scraped or cut away. The history is documented in Taiwanese ethnographic and historical-research records, including Ma Teng-yueh's 2001 Taiwan Panorama account of Saisiyat and Atayal tattooing customs.