Climate Change, Humility, and Resilience: Analysing a Myth of the Bunun in Taiwan

Abstract

This chapter contributes to the literature on the epistemology of Traditional Ecological Knowledge which encompasses worldviews very different from those dominant in the West since the enlightenment. A direct line can be drawn from indigenous belief systems to their experiential relationships with the natural world as retold via the narrative of their myths. This chapter examines one such myth from the belief system of the Bunun nation of Taiwan, and takes a deep look at how this myth contributes to the formation of a worldview that places the human experience in balance with the ecosystem of which the Bunun themselves are a harmonious part.