Sakinu welcomed the move but says many indigenous people were left confused.

"Lots of the tribal people, he says maybe even 80 percent of the tribal people, they don't know why the president apologised to the indigenous people. Because they think that the past government they had something good for them, so they don't understand why the president apologised to the indigenous people."

Cultural challenges not different to Māori



The challenge of revitalising cultural knowledge among indigenous Taiwanese is not only faced by the Paiwan people, but all aboriginal peoples across the country.

Further south in the village of Torik, we meet with a young man named Asan of the Amis people - the largest tribe in Taiwan.

Asan says one of the greatest challenges for all indigenous communities is people leaving their villages for urban areas where there is greater employment and opportunities. The result of this is the loss of traditional languages.

"With the loss of language obviously comes the loss of culture. In essence, if you cannot speak your own language you lose a lot because in your language, in our native tongue, there's a lot of knowledge that's locked into the language.

"A lot of our knowledge from before has been lost," he says.

This hits home as Māori have also faced this same challenge, particularly through urbanisation in the 1950s.

Much of the traditional knowledge disappeared during the occupation of Taiwan by the Japanese and Chinese.

"In your own home you cannot be above four people sitting together, they think you're conspiring and stuff. So there were a lot of things like that which made us lose a lot of our history."

Despite the loss of traditional knowledge, the Torik village has managed to keep one vital record of its history through a tier ranking system dating back at least 200 years.

Every four years an age group is clustered together in the village representing a new group. These groups date back to the 1830s.

"They're named after basically what in those four years happened. My group is Laciynsi. Basically my group is when the year 2000 came. That's when we became teens and we became that group.

"If you go back even further you have La dipong which is when the Japanese came. So these names are like a way of recording history," Asan says.

Bringing Taiwanese and Māori together

Efforts are now being made to bring Taiwan's indigenous people and Māori closer together through everything from business partnerships, tourism, publishing and government relationships.

In 2015, a strong lineup of Māori writers and publishers were guests of honour at the Taipei International Book Exhibition. In 2016 a group of Taiwan tribal tourism operators visited New Zealand to promote their ventures and were welcomed by former Māori Affairs Minister Sir Pita Sharples.

Cultural revitalisation through tourism is another shared interest between Māori and indigenous Taiwanese. There are now hundreds of Māori tourism operators around New Zealand.

My own first job was as a Māori cultural performer for tourists at the age of 14, it was part of a Māori tourism business starting from the ground up.

All the while we were learning traditional Māori song and dance from one of New Zealand's leading Māori haka experts, Wetini Mitai-Ngatai.

As the tourist numbers grew, so did the business, and we were making good money as young high school students.

In doing so, we learned about the histories and traditions of our Māori art forms and the job eventually took us on tour around the world.

So the experience of Taiwan's indigenous villages were embarking on the same journey was gratifying.

This report was made possible through the support of the Asia New Zealand Foundation, the Taiwan Council of Indigenous Peoples, and Te Puni Kōkiri.

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