Military Capability and the State in Southeast Asia’s Pacific Rimlands, 1500–1700
century, the total number of aboriginals was estimated to be almost
100,000. The economy of the island was, even in the most fertile areas,
largely a matter of self-sufficient subsistence units of swidden agricultur-
ists, fishermen, and hunters.^2
Politically speaking, the Formosans were far from united. The popu-
lation was divided in villages or in shifting alliances, forming at their most
complex federations of villages. On average, these villages were about
200 strong, except for certain parts of the southwest of the island where
the average was higher. On the scale of state formation, the situation in
Formosa might be characterized as a patchwork of village chiefdoms,
save for certain parts of the southwest, more particularly in Lonkjouw,
a conglomerate of 16 villages ruled by a hereditary lord. In the north,
chiefs were called baqui, in the west, ma-achachimit and mario-acho, and,
in the southwest, sometimes honte. Inter-village warfare, often taking the
form of raids, was very much the political reality. Headhunting was a
primary, but probably not the only cause of violent conflicts. Those who
had been successful in taking heads had a say in local decision-making.
Warfare only took place on land, not on the sea, although raiding parties
of ten to 30 people sometimes used small craft to carry themselves to en-
emy territory. In times of a larger conflict, such as fights between several
villages, every adult male was supposed to be a warrior. Firearms were
not in use; the warriors carried swords, spears, shields, bows and arrows.
The fact that gunpowder weapons did not play a role in Formosan war-
fare may come as a surprise in view of the relative nearness of mainland
China, where, according to Lorge, large-scale introduction of such
technology had already taken place as early as the fourteenth century.
Turning to the settlements of the Formosans, these were not encircled
by walls, but often had palisades of bamboo or thorny hedges for their
defense. In an encounter with a reasonable number of well-trained and
well-armed Europeans or Chinese the Formosans would have been no
match. This became clear during the seventeenth century, particularly
from 1624 to 1662 when the Dutch gradually occupied the island and,
- Chiu Hsin-hui, The Colonial ‘Civilizing Process’ in Dutch Formosa, 1624–1662
(Leiden: Brill, 2008): 3-5, 16-18; Tonio Andrade, How Taiwan became Chinese:
Dutch, Spanish and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2008): 25, 29–30.