aman's work: 笆札筏的大洪水 The Great Deluge: Oral History from Pacavalj

攝影朱軒志 Photo by Hsuan-Chi Chu

Artwork commissioned by 2024 Taipei Dangdai and the Ministry of Culture (Taiwan).

2024，十字繡於棉布上，12 cm x 1500cm
族語翻譯（羅馬拼音）：張美瑛, 潘世珍
2024, Cross-stitch on cotton cloth, 12 cm x 1500 cm
Paiwan language translation ( Romanization System): Karui Tjuljaviya, Saivi Langalj

遇上大浩劫爾後倖存的人們如何記錄經歷？且沒有文字的原住民族似乎僅能以口傳去延續這段歷史記憶。刺繡的上的羅馬拼音敘事，採自1935年小川尚義、淺井惠倫以萬國發音記號、日語對照的合著《原語による臺灣高砂族傳說集（原語實錄臺灣高砂族傳說集）》，其中一篇採集自Pacavalj（現台東大武鄉大鳥村）的傳說；內容大略是一對兄妹在遭遇大洪水滅村之後努力活下來並以亂倫婚姻來延續後代，從近親生產出殘缺的子孫，慢慢到幾世代後漸漸形成一個正常人類的聚落，也是部落的起源。刺繡卷軸裡使用難以理解的字符，鏡像去呈現這世界不斷重演的歷史。

How would the survivors record their experiences after a great catastrophe? For indigenous peoples without a written language, oral tradition seems to be the only way to pass down this historical memory. The Romanization System narrative in the embroidery is derived from the 1935 collaborative work "A Collection of Formosan Aboriginal Folktales in the Original Language" by Shouichi Ogawa and Keirou Asai, which uses an International Phonetic Alphabet and Japanese control. One of the collected stories is a legend from Pacavalj, which tells of a brother and sister who survived a great flood that destroyed their village. They struggled to survive and continued their lineage through an incestuous marriage, initially producing offspring with defects. Over several generations, these descendants gradually formed a normal human settlement, marking the origin of the tribe. The scroll embroidery uses incomprehensible characters in a mirrored fashion to represent the seemingly endlessly repeating history of this world.