The Sakizaya settled across Qilai Plain, roughly within what is downtown Hualien City today. Hualien’s old name, Qilai, comes from the nickname “kiray” of Sakiraya, which the Amis called the Sakizaya.
Cultural Features
The Sakizaya rely on fishing and hunting, with millet and upland rice as staple crops. They also have abundant experience cultivating rice in paddies, having learned the technique early on from the Kavalan people.
Festivals
“Rice-feeding from elders” is a blessing ceremony displaying the age hierarchy unique to the Sakizaya. Every four years a new age group is formed, and the thorny bamboo fences that they must build are a sight only seen in the Sakizaya village.