Amis Museum in Hualien City

Amis or Amei-zu  ( 阿美族 ) is one of the officially recognized aboriginal people of Taiwan which commonly applied in reference to the indigenous people of Taiwan. There are 14 recognized tribes and 11 unrecognized tribes of aboriginal people in Taiwan.

A pre-WW11 post card
Photo Credit: Amis People

About Amis People

According to Taiwanese Aboriginal History Amis people are classified into groups.

• Northern Group (located in Chihlai / Hualien Plain)
• Middle Group (located to the West Coastal Mountains)
• Coastal Group(located to the East Coastal Mountains)
• Falangaw Group(located bet. Chengkong and The Taitung Plain)
• Hengchun Group(located on the Hengchun Peninsula)

*Classification is just based on the geographical distribution and tribal migration and it does not observed differences in culture, language and physique.

Since I was in Hualien County in Taiwan , Amis people here are the northern group of Amis. Hualien is where the most numbers of Amis people. They are living in Ji'an Township according to the grandma that I interviewed because she is also an Amis person.

Amis in wall paint

I got interested with their culture because it has similarities with Igorot tribe in my country not only their costumes but also the way of living and even with the language. But in the history Falangaw group is most likely the same with Filipinos.

I dropped by one of the Amis museum featuring their handy crafts and paintings which represent their way of living.

Amis Museum

Paintings :

Handy crafts:

Visiting in museum places are good because it is where you can experience going back to the first generation of people.

You can visit this museum just beside of Hualien County Sculpture Museum with this adress # 8 Wenfu St., Hualien City, Hualien County, Taiwan R.O.C

Info Credit : Wikipedia Amis people