Papak-Waqa
Atayal · numen · Atayal traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Papak-Waqa, the sheer twin-horned crag known in Chinese as Mount Dabajian, is the most sacred mountain of the northern Atayal and their Saisiyat neighbours. In one great strand of tradition it is the place of origin itself, the crag from which the ancestors came into being, and in the widely told deluge myth it is the peak that stands above the rising waters, the refuge where the remnant of humankind survives until the flood withdraws. Sources differ on whether the ancestors first sprang from Papak-Waqa or from the rock Pinsbkan, and the two traditions belong to different clusters of Atayal groups. The mountain remains a focus of reverence and is approached with restraint.
Domains
- sacred geography
Powers
- shelters the ancestors above the flood
Sources
- The northern and eastern Atayal (and the neighbouring Saisiyat) hold the crag Papak-Waqa, Mount Dabajian, to be the place of origin of their ancestors and the refuge above the great flood.: Tian Zhe-yi / Masegeseg Z. Gadu (田哲益), Atayal Myths and Legends (泰雅族神話與傳說), Morningstar, 2003 (secondary); Ferrell, Raleigh, Taiwan Aboriginal Groups, Academia Sinica Monograph 17, 1969 — Atayal and Saisiyat origin traditions at Dabajian (secondary)