Qatapan

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Scope note
Qatapan used to be the celebratory singing and dancing after satapan (“head hunting”). Over the years its religious significance takes up a festive and performative turn. Qatapan is now regularly put on show in tribes, local chapels, Kavalan societies, campaign gatherings and national concert halls. Upon their return, the head-hunters dressed in straw cape and with a walking stick hang the heads on a long rod, circled by warriors and seniors chanting spaw and toasting. Legend has it that it will rain after the chanting to purge the people. The Japanese rule severely proscribed the Kavalan’s head hunting and the ritual was thus suspended. By the 1970s the nature of Qatapan shifted significantly as the Kavalan people tend to organize harvest festival together with the Amis as their long-established matrimonial kin. Even if the festival bears the same name, the head hunting hymn of spaw is no longer sung. With the campaign for recognition in the 1908s, the revival of the traditional ritual took up the form of circular dancing around a type of tree called Palaquium formosanum, and one of the hymns known as miomio has been adapted with modified lyrics as a precious cultural heritage constituent of the Kavalan identity.
Qatapan
Accepted term: 29-Apr-2024