76 WILL TRIBES OF FORMOSA. 
Jf Northern castaways or colonists came in former times to 
Formosa, the Li Chian or Japanese type would appear in some 
shape to the present moment, but all the tribes of the North which 
have come under my observation, resemble the Japanese and Lu 
Chiians in nothing, but their short stature, and dark straight hair ; 
and in their mode of dress, or manner of arranging their hair, there 
are no similarities whatever. Japanese tattoo their bodies, and so 
do savages, to some extent, but, as far as I have been able to judge, 
there is no resemblance even in this point. The knowledge pos- 
sessed by certain tribes of weaving, and of the art of embroidering 
their coats, of carving their pipes. scabbards of their knives, &c., 
would make one believe that the first occupants of this island brought 
with them certain arts, not generally known by uncivilised peoples 
of a low type. If the art of weaving, possessed not only by the 
Peppowhan women, but by the hill squaws, was not introduced by 
the original or subsequent settlers, but was discovered by the abort- 
vines themselves, it goes to prove that, although wild and untamed 
as they are, and to this day without any written language, they 
have at least inventive powers of no mean order. The knowledge 
of weaving may have been acquired first of all from the Dutch or 
Spanish, both nations having had a footing in the island in the 16th 
century, but it is more likely to have been learned from the Duteh, 
who had extensive settlements in the South, about Taiwanfoo, and 
who, it is said, were on very friendly terms with the Peppowhans 
(lit., half-cooked or half-civilised natives), about whom I shall have 
to write separately at some future date. If the knowledge of 
weaying was acquired by the Peppowhans first, it might have been 
imparted to the hill tribes by women taken prisoners in tribal bat- 
tles, which must have been frequent between the plain and hill 
savages in earlier times. 
The loom and shuttle used by the women are of the most pri- 
mitive shape and construction, but the work turned out in the 
shape of bleached hempen cloth, and which I have seen in the pro- 
cess of manufacture, is more finely made and far more durable than 
the Chinese made cloth. Some of the dresses, the mantilla of the 
women especially, are of fine and close texture, of well-bleached 
hemp, and are embroidered with strips of scarlet and blue Long 
