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Formosan, Hoan, Ban, Takasago-zoku…

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The term " Indigenous Peoples in Taiwan" indicates the Austronesian peoples living on the island of Formosa. They are not of one single ethnic group. Although the Indigenous communities and groups named themselves respectively, they had been successively given different names by foreign regimes on the island. They had once been called "Hoan" (meaning "savages") by Han Chinese, "Formosan" by Dutch, and "Ban" (also meaning "savages") by Japanese. Since neither the Crown Prince Hirohito (later the Emperor Shōwa) nor the Indigenous Peoples themselves considered the word "Ban" appropriate, the latter was renamed as "Takasago" meaning "Taiwanese aboriginals living in mountain areas.”

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