LAUFER] RELATIONS OF CHINESE TO THE PHILIPPINES 255 



word; their national vessel is still the raft. 1 We hear nothing of 

 ships and maritime enterprises, and it is strange indeed that they 

 never visited the neighboring Chinese coast. This is one of the chief 

 reasons which incline me to think that the tribe which, according 

 to the "Sung-shih," made a piratical move toward Fuhkien at the 

 end of the twelfth century, can not well have been of Formosan 

 origin. If we now consider the only possible way which emigration 

 to Formosa could have taken place — that is, from the Philippines — 

 there is no longer any reason for wondering why the Pi-sia-ye 

 should not have come from the same direction. Formosa can have 

 been populated only from that region ; not, however, as the result of 

 a bold seafaring enterprise, but rather, it would seem, through sev- 

 eral accidental adventures. In this connection the following incident 

 may be instructive. In August, 1886, some fishermen in the neigh- 

 borhood of Anping (now Tainan, southwest Formosa) picked up 

 a castaway canoe in which there were three men, two women, and a 

 child in a starving condition. They proved to be natives of an 

 island to the north of Luzon, who had been blown to sea in a 

 typhoon, and had ultimately drifted to the shores of Formosa, hav- 

 ing been thirteen days without food, and dependent on rain water 

 for drink. 2 It seems to me quite conceivable that in times gone by 

 people may have thus drifted repeatedly to Formosa from the Philip- 

 pines, especially from Luzon, making a series of emigrations which 

 finally led to the settlement of the island. Such casual drifting was 

 perhaps the case also with the Pi-sia-ye, who reached Formosa first, 



*C. Imbault-Huart, L'ile Formose (Paris, 1893), p. 273. Some tribes may- 

 have formerly possessed canoes also. 



2 The following case, recorded by Davidson (The Island of Formosa, p. 

 580). also deserves mention in this connection. The Riru tribe of the Kirai 

 district of the northern Ami (in southeast Formosa) state that their fore- 

 fathers originally lived in an island to the east of Formosa. One man, called 

 Tipots, and his family were out at sea in two canoes when a terrific gale 

 arose, sweeping them away from their home-land and wrecking them on the 

 coast of Formosa, where they built houses and gave life to the present Riru 

 tribe. This tribe possesses an old canoe which they claim is the model of the 

 one used by their forefathers. At present the village people once a year put 

 the canoe into the sea and mimic the landing of their ancestors. After this 

 ceremony they worship spirits of their departed ancestors. A more fanciful 

 tradition is to the effect that their ancestors came from over the sea on the 

 back of a large tortoise. "Thus it would appear," concludes Davidson, "that 

 the traditions of the north Ami describe comparatively recent occurrences and 

 are in the main very possible, if not probable." 



