hooting festival,” is set to be held in Haituan rural township in the southern county of Taitung on Friday and Saturday. Haituan Chief Huang Chun-bau is inviting people from around Taiwan to visit the township this coming weekend to “enjoy a new experience” and get a taste of traditional Bunun culture.
The Bunun are Taiwan’s fourth largest aboriginal tribe, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the country’s indigenous population.
The annual “ear shooting festival,” which has been celebrated by the Bunun for centuries, is a coming of age celebration that focuses on hunting.
The “ear shooting festival,” which is known as Mala-ta-ngia in the Bunun language, gets its name from the ritual in which the male members of the tribe display their archery skills by shooting at the ears of river deer, mountain goats, boars and other wild animals caught in the hunt held prior to the festival.
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