In 2010, Beitou erupted in protest after the government enforced the court order
stemming from a land dispute that resulted in Pao-de Temple’s ( 保德宮) eviction.
Interestingly, that temple’s principal deity, Lord Chi ( 池府王爺), is uniquely referred
to in Beitou as Fan-a Wangye. Why the difference in names? The answer lies in the
circulation and entanglement of spiritual beliefs among different ethnic groups in the
Tamsui-Beitou region and reflects centuries of interactions and frictions between Han
Chinese settlers and the area’s original indigenous residents.
Today, the villages of the Ketagalan people who once inhabited northern Taiwan
no longer exist and can never be fully restored. Yet, through the worship of Fan-a
Wangye, the reconstruction of sacred mountains and ancestral-spirit sites, and the
rearticulation of traditional ancestral beliefs, the epitaph of these and other “Sinicized”
indigenous groups is being rewritten. A renewed relationship between people and
land, along with thoughts of “returning to the tribe,” is emerging through the efforts of
modern-day Ketagalan descendants.