Wings for Takasago Giyutai

In Wewak, Papua New Guinea, descendants of Takasago Giyutai and Amis artist Siki Sufin erect the Wings for Takasago Giyutai monument. Honouring Taiwanese Indigenous youth mobilised by the Japanese military from 1943–1945 during the Pacific War, it revives silenced histories and evokes the Amis belief that fallen souls return home on bird wings.

Futuru C. L. Tsai: ' "Please bring me a pair of wings so I may return home, my friend." This line comes from an Amis song, echoing a myth in which the soul returns home on wings.

Wings for Takasago Giyutai is a project by Siki Sufin, Chang Yeh-hai Hsia Man, Yavaus Giling, and myself. We returned to a former battlefield to craft wings, so that the souls of our people could ride back to their villages and become ancestral spirits. We also invited local communities to transform memory into art, which we carried back to Taiwan.

Both a search for historical memory and a cross-disciplinary exchange, this journey bridges a rupture of nearly seventy years, as departed souls travel on wings from beneath the Southern Cross back to Formosa.’

— Excerpted, adapted, and translated from 'Wings for Takasago Giyutai', Indigenous Education World, Issue 65, October 2015