“Song of the ‘Cooked’ Aborigines” in Outline Description of Kavalan
Ko Pei-yuan (date of birth and death unknown), aka Fu-tzu was a native of Licheng in Shandong Province, China. A Qing government official, Ko was posted to Kavalan (present-day Yilan) in 1835. He served there just one month, and left the island soon after. Outline Description of Kavalan is a personal narrative of his experience, with a particular focus on the region’s indigenous peoples. The poem featured here describes the plight of the ‘cooked’ (i.e., civilized / Sinicized) natives who were the chronic and unwitting targets of Chinese settler schemes and trickery.
Taipei Bank Press, Taipei, 1961; book; donated by Hsu Ping-ting