Wutai Township Rukai

Culture Museum

The Rukai Culture Museum (entry fee) is toward the bottom of the settlement. It stands at the rear of a large round-shaped terrace plaza that is this community’s public-gathering heart. This is one of just two large, open flat areas – the other is the sports ground of the elementary school, just uphill. The plaza is the one spot where you’re likely to sit down amidst townsfolk; Taiwan’s indigenous peoples tend to be retiring with strangers, and the locals hang out here enjoying the big shade trees and unobstructed breezes. There’s a small drinks/snacks cabin with picnic tables.

The plaza, laid with slate slabs, looks off into the vast space of the mountain valley beyond, other Rukai villages seen on the steep slopes in the distance opposite. A giant traditional-style swing is in the center, used in iconic Rukai boy-girl romancing and wedding rituals. Large statues of Rukai males and females in varied traditional attire are lined up at the plaza’s edge.

The large three-story building that the museum is housed in has a façade of flat slate stones intricately pieced together and is ornately bedecked with Rukai totems, among them the hundred-pacer viper. Traditional Rukai belief is that they are descended from this snake and that it is a guardian spirit. Inside is a treasure-house of relics and explanatory information (Chinese; audio narration also provided). Perhaps the most visually entertaining display explains the techniques used in building slate homes and other structures, with a wonderful section of miniature mockups of individual Wutai Township buildings, showing the surprising stylistic variation (each Rukai building is given an identifying name). Another display explains the deep symbolism of traditional tribal beadwork, for which the Rukai/Paiwan are also renowned. And another intriguing exhibit shows how traditional fish and hunting traps were created and used.