For Chinese people, the more the offerings are, the more their respect to the gods and spirits is — However, it’s totally opposite for Tayal people!
漢人拜拜，總是說祭品要越「澎派」，越豐盛，才表示對被祭祀對象的敬意很多
阿美族、排灣族等原住民祭祖或辦收穫祭，會載歌載舞
但是泰雅族人走的可是低調路線喔！
The Ceremony of Ancestral Spirits is one of the most important ceremonies for Tayal, an indigenous people that doesn’t have many ceremonies like the others. And on the day of the ceremony, all the tribal people get up very early before the dawnbreak and gather to prepare the offerings together.
They prick a little bit millet, a little bit rice cake, a little bit pork, and a little bit fruit onto bamboo sticks, and put them all together on a bamboo table to be the offerings to the ancestral spirits.
Compared to Chinese people, Tayal’s offerings are so few; and compared to many other indigenous peoples, Tayal’s ceremony is so quiet.
Why they have so few offerings for their ancestral spirits?
Some say this is because every natural resource used to be difficult for Tayal people which lived in high mountains to acquire, and so they have developed the culture of worship in this way, even a tiny offering could mean a great appreciation to those whom they worship. And some Tayal say this is because in Tayal culture, “small” is “great”, and “big” is “few”, and so they have to prepare every of their offerings in a small quantity!
In my opinion, a sincere attitude to those whom we wanna express our thanks is the most important, and how much our offerings are is the second thing to consider, isn’t it?
In the modern time when so many natural resources have been wasted by human-beings, Tayal’s traditional way of offering is really “modern”!
Photo via <cleverCl@i®ê>（CC Licensed）
每年七、八月的祖靈祭，是族人一年中最重要的祭典之一
泰雅族人的祖靈祭莊重而不喧嘩，氣氛跟其他原住民族群的祭典很不同：
祖靈祭當天的凌晨，天還未白
整個部落的人就會一起集合串祭品，把一點點一點點的榖物、肉塊等等祭品，像這樣串在竹枝上，然後擺在竹桌上，開始祭拜。
祭拜完後，這些祭品都是屬於祖靈和大自然的，族人不帶回家
為何祭品都是少少的、少少的呢？
有人說啊，泰雅族人靠山討生活，以前物資取得不易，因此祭祖謹以少量祭品代表心意。另外，像台中達觀國小的泰雅族校長比令 ‧ 亞布則是說，泰雅族人認為「很大」就代表「很小」，而「很小」就代表「很大」，因此祭品都要準備得「小小的」，這樣才表示很尊敬祖靈！
小編認為，心誠則靈，不管是奉獻多，還是奉獻少，心意足夠最重要。在自然資源不斷被浪費的現今，泰雅族人以最大的誠意，以最少的物質形象，來展現他們對祖靈的敬意，其實是最先進的觀念，不是嗎？
