The Return of Gods and Ancestors: Paiwan Five Year Ceremony (1985)

Overview

The Return of Gods and Ancestors is the first locally made ethnographic film in Taiwan. The film, captured with a hand-cranked Bell & Howell 16 mm camera, documents the most magnificent five-year ceremony in Paiwan tribe. During the festival, the Paiwan people expect to receive blessings of the gods and ancestors by piercing rattan balls with extended bamboo poles; however, they also try to prevent any harm caused by evil spirits. The Paiwan five year ceremony is not only the reunion of the dead and the living, but a meeting of the old and the new.