Tracing the History of the Gaoshans Gaoshan ethnic group is the oldest nationality in Taiwan, and can also be taken as the aboriginals. According to the researches by archaeologists, anthropologists, and ethnologists, its clan source can be traced back as early as to the ancient mankind moving to Taiwan from the South China of the mainland in the Old Stone Age. Later in the Neolithic Age, more groups of mainland immigrants came to Taiwan, and also become a part of the Gaoshan ancestors, who, thereafter, merged the immigrants from the mainland and Southeast Asia and gradually developed into the national community nowadays with plural cultural characteristic--Gaoshan.
In the period of Three Kingdoms, Sun Quan, emperor of the Wu Kingdom, once dispatched his troops to Taiwan, and accordingly, wrote the book entitled "A Survey of Water and Soil by the Coast," which has the earliest record of Gaoshan. In the book, Taiwan is named as "Yizhou," and Gaoshan ancestors as "Shanyi".
Emperor Yang of the Shui Dynasty also sent troops twice to Taiwan, when the Gaoshan people were named "Liuqiu people".
 Till the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, the mutual exchange and understanding between Taiwan and mainland increase day by day. At that time, while its aboriginal culture survives and develops, there starts the merging of different cultures as the immigrants from the mainland and Southeast Asia came in. On the basis, by the Ming Dynasty when Gaoshan people were called "Dongfan," "Fanyi," "Tufan," or "Tumin," its cultural characteristics had already basically taken shape. However, its social form still stagnated in the period of primitive society, and continuously kept its strong primitive culture characteristics.
After Taiwan was unified to the Qing government, Gaoshan people are referred to as "Fan nationality". They are further divided into many sub-groups, "Eastern Fan", "Western Fan", "Southern Fan", and "Northern Fan" by their different distributing regions, or "High Mountain Fan", and "Pingpu Fan" by the different terrain they are inhabited, or "Ye Fan", "Sheng Fan" and "Shu Fan" by their level of social development or their relations with the Hans. When the Japanese imperialists occupied Taiwan, they called Gaoshan people "Gaoli Nationality," or "Fan Nationality". After Taiwan was recovered, the Taiwan authorities once used the name of "Gaoshan", which later, however, was renamed as "Mountain Region Compatriot," "Mountain Compatriot," "Aboriginal People," etc. Nowadays, there are still no final conclusions in the Taiwan academic circles: the names like "Aboriginal People," "Nine Nationality," "Gaoshan Nationality," and "Clans of South Island Linguistic Family," all have been advocated and used. After winning the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the publication in the mainland began to call the ethnic minorities inhabited inTaiwan for generations "Gaoshan Nationality". In 1953, this name got the affirmation from the central government, and has been used up till today.
Surely in the academic circles, a lot of disputes and difference still remain about its clan source, clan name as well as dividing its clan body. However, after the great cause of Chinese reunification is finally realized, these problems will be tackled progressively through scientific investigation and discerning into the nationality.
Mountain Compatriots--- The Gaoshan Nationality <<
The Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village >>
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