TAIPEI: Two descendants of Taiwan's indigenous Tsou tribe from a small village in the mainland's Henan province are currently on a roots-tracing visit to Taiwan to learn more about their tribal heritage and their clan.

Chen Chaohu and Chen Chaojie are visiting Taiwan for the first time and are scheduled to travel to the Tsou tribe's homeland around Taiwan's famous Alishan mountain resort later this week to pay tribute to their ancestors.

The Chen clan can trace its ancestry back 13 generations to Alishan in southern Taiwan's Chiayi County, according to media reports.

The Chens are the 12th-generation offspring of Tsou tribesman Yina Silo, who along with his brother joined the army of Cheng Cheng-Kung (Zheng Chenggong, 1624-1662), better known in the West as Koxinga, to expel Dutch colonists.

Afterwards, Yina Silo stayed with Cheng's army while his brother returned to their tribal settlement. Yina Silo became a stablehand of Huang Ting, a general in Cheng's army.

Huang later led a large body of troops, including Yina Silo, that defected to the Qing Dynasty after Cheng died in 1662, and Huang and his subordinates were assigned to garrison the area known today as Nanyang.

Yina Silo married a local Han Chinese woman and took up residence in the village of Shangying. Fearing discrimination by the Han people, he changed his name to Chen Nien, adopting his wife's family name.

The couple had four children, and when Huang was ordered to lead Qing Dynasty troops on a mission to Taiwan, Yina Silo persuaded his superior to take two of his sons - Yuanhsun and Yuanchieh - back to Alishan in the hope that he would be able to organize a family reunion in Taiwan upon his retirement.

However, Yina Silo failed to realize his wish. He never set foot in his homeland again and, after he died, his offspring in Shangying lost contact with the descendants of the two sons who returned to Taiwan.

Following 300 years of cultural assimilation, Yina Silo's descendants on the mainland have settled into the ethnic Han lifestyle, but their aboriginal characteristics, such as a high-bridged nose and prominent cheekbones, remain unchanged.

Some of the Tsou tribal customs, such as singing and dancing at wedding ceremonies and placing a wooden slab beneath coffins, have also been preserved.

Nevertheless, the Chen clan's aboriginal origins did not become widely known until 1982, when the city of Nanyang conducted a census. A local official inadvertently discovered documents showing that the 200-plus-strong Chen clan in Shangying village is of Tsou descent.

The ancestral relationship was further confirmed in 1997 when the Chen clan's genealogical book surfaced, clearly recounting the family's history.

In 2003, Wu Tien-hsi, a Taiwanese businessman in Henan province's Zhengzhou city, volunteered to help the Chen clan search for their relatives back in Taiwan. With help from various local officials, he located the clan's Taiwanese relatives in Alishan's Dana settlement.

Two years later, the Tsou chieftain headed a group of Yina Silo's Taiwanese descendants on a visit to Shangying village, where a Tsou ritual was performed to usher the clan's ancestral spirit back to Taiwan.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 12/01/2009 page2)