What is millet?

Millet, which is an agriculture mainly from Southeast Asia. For the Southeast Asians, who also very much rely on it. In the traditional culture of the Millet Harvest Festival from Paiwan, we could also see such food from Paiwan. Such as the food of quavai.

The improvement of the traditional culture:

As the appearance of Japanese authority invades Taiwan, the new generation of agricultural methods suddenly continuously appears. As a result, it also makes Paiwan agriculture have big progress, including breeding, seeding, bird repellent, and deinsectization.

The traditional food of Paiwan:

Paiwan traditional food can be divided into millet, upland rice, sweet potato, and taro. For those diverse foods from Paiwan that also have different meanings, such as boiled taro, betel nut and quavai.  For example, betel nut can represent the ceremony of social, ritual offering and wedding. For another example, the leaf of quavia also can represent having good fortune. 

Government monopoly:

In the period of Japanese government monopoly, the authorities controlled the native aboriginal land and agriculture. Which also caused the claim of government monopoly. Under the government monopoly, in order to revive the economy, they also forced the aborigines to change the millet into paddy rice. Furthermore, the Japanese government also bans the right to winemaking without permission. However, paddy rice harms the aboriginal land by creating an inappropriate natural environment and also causes those who own millet to represent the high status of aborigines. This phenomenon eventually triggered the appearance of capitalism and triggered the concept of alcohol tied with aborigines tightly in modern-day life. 

Extension problem:

In the text of 《原住民族九時祭典》by 廖炳惠, it also cites the alcoholism problem from the text of 《久久酒一次》by 孫大川. And in 孫大川's text, why we always associate the alcohol with aborigines is because of the ethnicity of sadness. Therefore, it also causes biases like unemployment, unhealthy behavior, and self-destruction nowadays. As a result, this stereotype lives in people's minds eternally.

The stereotype in modern society:

When this stereotype gets worse in people's minds, it may even lead the news to enlarge the stereotype of aborigines. For example, the news of getting poisoned by adding snails in quavai. For those unconscious people who may think, "Oh, God! Aborigines like to eat mindlessly." However, for the aborigines, it is a sort of normal phenomenon to add the snail in quavai. But there are still lots of mysteries in those news without confirmation, so it also makes the stereotype born in our mind.