Literature Review

From the elderly people’s mouths, there are endless stories deriving from old place names, an old story or an old saying related to Dung Gua Shan Zhenzhu Agricultural Leisure Area. For two hundred years, these stories were passed down by word of mouth. Therefore, to know the history of Zhenzhu Agricultural Leisure Area, we are supposed to start from the “war” between Kavalan people and the Hans as well as the “fusion” of these two ethnic groups. Three or four thousand years ago, our ancestors created settlements here. Then, Kavalan people (mature barbarian) and Atayal people (raw barbarian) settled in the area one after the other. Ka-val means plain and Kavalan refers to the people living on the plain. Kavalans were strong and good at making large or small canoes. They would select a good time to “cut grass” (head-hunting) by paddling a large canoe “Bangka”, which could hold thirty people, to the sea.

In 1786, lin shuang-wen, a Han person from Dali township, Taichung county, led a revolt against the Qing Dynasty but brought a negative impact on the Yilan area. Because the Hans and Wu Sha, the leader of settlers, assisted the officials to arrest a wanted man, they got the privilege of developing the Yilan area. Since then, many Han people started to settle in Yilan and fought with the Kavalans for land.

In 1797, a smallpox epidemic broke out in the tribe and Wu Sha saved many aborigines by giving out medicine, which led to a peace talk between the head of Pingpus and the Han people. After that, the Han settlers were allowed to develop parts of the area. However, the Kavalan people lost more and more land and their population also declined. There is a saying, “There were Tangshan men, no Tangshan women,” which indicates that most of the earlier settlers were “single young men,” who chose to marry indigenous women later. This contributes to ethnic fusion, special place names, lifestyles, and customs in the Zhenzhu Agricultural Leisure Area.