“Blood and Thread” by Devin Lee
Like many Taiwanese people, my family does not know the specifics of our heritage. Beginning in the 1600s, the island was colonized by the Dutch, then the Spanish, then the Chinese, then the Japanese, and then the Chinese again, until the island became a democracy in the 1990s and began identifying as an independent nation. Each of these imperial regimes brought new policies aimed at erasing the island’s culture and history. The languages of aboriginal Taiwanese tribes were outlawed. Soldiers went door to door inspecting and intimidating families looking for signs of treason. Taiwanese community leaders were dragged from their homes and never seen again. As a result of this history, many Taiwanese people have blurry notions of their familial origins on the island. Those who came from China after the communist revolution can definitively trace their roots back to the mainland, and the Chinese government continues to peddle the myth that all Taiwanese people are ethnically Chinese. My grandparents cannot tell you exactly how their ancestors came to the island. But if you ask them where they were born, they will say Taiwan. If you ask them where their parents were born, they will say Taiwan. If you ask them where their grandparents were born, they will say Taiwan. If you ask them where their great-grandparents were born, they will say Taiwan. And so on and so forth as far back as anyone can remember.
One thing I do know is that my grandfather’s family is (at least partly) descended from the Tayal (or “Atayal”) tribe of Taiwan’s northern plains. He often tells the story of his great-grandmother, whose picture sat on their family shrine throughout his childhood, looking down on him and his siblings while they prayed. Traditional Tayal tattoos were etched across her cheeks, forming a V shape that stretched from ear to ear, meeting at a sharp point around her mouth. The practice of facial tattooing was banned by the Japanese in 1930, and after the outbreak of WWII Japan began to crack down more heavily on the Taiwanese to maintain their colony. In preparation for an inspection by Japanese military police, my grandfather watched his parents destroy the photo so that their ancestry and their political allegiance would not be questioned. Eventually, the Japanese would lose the war and their control of Taiwan, ushering in a violent new era of military rule by the Chinese Nationalists. This period, known as the White Terror, resulted in the executions of at least 20,000 Taiwanese people, with thousands more missing. In the 1960s my grandparents and my young father emigrated to the United States, building a new life on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
This tapestry was made using family photos printed on canvas, incorporating beading and embroidery inspired by traditional Tayal textiles. In Tayal weaving, argyles are used to represent the eyes of the ancestors looking down on us, and horizontal lines are meant to represent the bridge between the living world and the afterlife. Taking inspiration from historical Tayal garments and facial tattooing, this piece physically stitches the history of my family and their ancestors together.
