New Life: A Two-Month “Return” of Museum Artifacts to an Austronesian Tribal

"Collaboration" as used in this book refers to projects on public issues between anthropologists and what are called "consultants." Consultants are members of public associations of Taiwan Austronesians. In collaborating, anthropologists and consultants share, exchange, and even contest each other's views. The book of "Collaboration: Remembering a Tribal Exhibition of Old Atayal Objects" documents the collaborative exhibition titled "Memories on Her Side: An Exhibition on Old Atayal Wedding Attire and Everyday Clothing and Associated Objects" by the Museum of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica and the Austronesian public association of the Yetong Handcraft Workroom in Xiangbi Atayal tribal village of Miaoli County from 19 February to 19 April 2017. 

The collaborative exhibition is pioneering in the sense that it was the first attempt by a Taiwan public museum to circulate museum artifacts to tribal villages via an Austronesian public association. Ms. Yuma Daru, the founder of Yetong workroom and the 2016 National Living Treasures/Heritage Preservationists of Taiwan, and her associates address these circulating museum Atayal objects as "returning ancestors."

Dr. Ho Ts'ui-p'ing and Ms. Yuma Daru co-edited the volume, which has seventeen chapters and five appendixes. The chapters are authored chapters or edited transcripts of interviews with anthropologists, museum curators, NPO community workers, craftswomen, and artisans in weaving and dying as well as tribal weavers. The appendices includes a chronicle of exhibition events, a photo series, samples of records on and analyses of the old Atayal weaving pieces that were drawn at the workshops during the exhibition, a list of exhibition items, and QR ("Quick Response") code links to the documentary films made respectively by the Yetong Workroom and the Museum of the Institute of Ethnology.

The book shows the effects of the museum artifacts circulating from the Museum back to the tribal village, including how it raised ethnic consciousness and identity, and how it offered a new vision for individual lives and careers well beyond tribal or ethnic boundaries. The publication of this book also launches what is expected to become a book series for other collaborative exhibitions between the Museum of the Institute of Ethnology and other Taiwan Austronesian public associations and in this respect opens up a whole new dimension of cooperation between anthropologists and Taiwan Austronesians.