Songs of Pasta’ay

Centred on the SaySiyat people’s paSta'ay ritual, this ethnographic documentary records the 1986 Great Ritual in Wufeng, Hsinchu, held once every ten years. Structured around fifteen ritual songs, it explores belief in legendary beings, generational reflection, ambivalence toward tourism, and tensions between tradition and modernisation.

Hu Tai-li: ‘The full significance of the paSta'ay remains elusive; my work is only an initial exploration. My interpretations may evolve with further research. I sought to capture the SaySiyat people’s emotions and gestures on screen, leaving ample space for both the audience’s imagination and my own.’— Excerpted and translated from Hu Tai-li, ‘The Projection of Ethnographic Films: With a Discussion of Image Experiments in Taiwan’, Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Vol. 71, 1991.

Lee Daw-ming: ‘Actually, before filming Songs of Pasta’ay, I didn’t know much about Taiwan’s Indigenous cultures. I did my homework for this project, but after all Professor Hu Tai-li was the anthropologist. I took part in the discussions, though the structure of the film was largely shaped by her. In the film she asks many questions that sound quite “stupid”. Sometimes she genuinely didn’t know; at other times it was deliberate, because one method in anthropology is to “pretend to know nothing”. By asking seemingly foolish questions, one can check whether one’s understanding truly matches that of the interviewees. Professor Hu researched the paSta'ay songs as we were filming, gradually analysing why the lyrics are repeated in this particular way. Through this “anthropological thesis”, she reinterpreted the paSta'ay songs of the SaySiyat people.’