In the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, the children leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind them on their journey, hoping to use them to find their way home. In Taiwan, the Bunun indigenous woman Takbanuaz Ishahavut Pune and the other members of the Gaia Nahuy Workshop have followed shell ginger back to their home ground to reconnect with their cultural roots and pioneer ways for young people to return to or remain in the communities where they grew up.
There are more than 230 known species of shell ginger (genus Alpinia, also called shell flowers) in the world, of which at least 18 are found in Taiwan and its offshore islands, including 16 endemic species. Traveling across Taiwan, one can often encounter shell ginger plants in lower-elevation mountains and along roadsides. Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival (the fifth day of the fifth lunar month), you can see strings of buds, white with a touch of pink, on these plants. Perhaps when visiting indigenous communities you have seen small containers woven from shell ginger, or even eaten zongzi (filled rice dumplings) wrapped in shell ginger leaves. In addition, the Japanese medicine Jintan, which many of us used when small as a cure for motion sickness or as a breath freshener, includes shell ginger as one of its ingredients.
Shell ginger in indigenous communities
In Taiwan, shell ginger grows from the flatlands to the high mountains, and it has long provided natural materials commonly used by indigenous peoples in their daily lives. Each of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples uses shell ginger in its own customary ways, and it has different names in each tribe: The Bunun call it sizu, the Rukai call it sali, the Atayal know it as bsyaw, and the Tsou refer to it as tappa. Moreover, each tribe has its own memories and taboos related to shell ginger.
The Naro indigenous community in Hsinchu County’s Jianshi Township is mainly inhabited by Atayal people. Today it has the largest area planted with shell ginger of any place in Taiwan. Tomi Yang, general manager of the Nashan Shell Ginger Agricultural Transport and Marketing Collective (NSGATMC), says, “The entire shell ginger plant is a treasure.” In days gone by indigenous people used shell ginger leaf sheaths for weaving, or gathered the tuberous underground rhizomes and cooked them with pork to make spare rib soup, an excellent tonic food.
Yang recalls that when she was small her elders often gave the tender hearts of shell ginger stems to children as treats, but they also were effective against roundworms. When tribe members were injured, the tuberous root of shell ginger would be pounded into a paste and applied to the wound; it reduced inflammation and swelling, and killed germs. Indeed, indigenous people discovered the medicinal properties of shell ginger long ago.
Following a fragrance back home
The mountain community of Naro is famous throughout Taiwan for its herbs, and in the past residents mainly cultivated species introduced from outside, such as pot marigold and rosemary. Seven years ago Qiu Xinfa, a retired teacher who is today chairman of the board of the NSGATMC, was looking for ways to develop business opportunities for the community. He heard from a friend that the shell ginger industry in Okinawa, Japan, was flourishing, and that the shell ginger variety grown in Japan was originally introduced there from Taiwan. He figured, “If they can do it in Okinawa, there’s no reason we can’t do it in Taiwan.” Indeed, he thought that Taiwan could do even better by using local plants. Therefore he brought together a group of farmers and they planted seven hectares of land with shell ginger and then distilled the flowers and leaves to produce essential oil and hydrosol, mainly targeting the skincare products market.
The shell ginger plant has to mature for two or three years before it can be used, with essential oil being distilled from its flowers and leaves. Back then, although there was one person in the community with more than 20 years of distilling experience, it was not easy to extract oil from shell ginger, and when they first started they were unable to get even a drop of essential oil. It was only after experimenting for a good half a year that they were able to distill out the first drop of essential oil. “On top of that, we were only getting 20–25 milliliters of essential oil for every 40 kilograms of leaves and 60–80 milliliters for every 80 kilos of flowers.”
But hard work has its rewards, and by the third year the Gaia Nahuy Workshop (affiliated to the NSGATMC) was turning a profit. The 15 farmer-stockholders who invested at the beginning took their first dividend, and more farmers joined in by growing shell ginger under contract. In 2024 the NSGATMC received a subsidy from the Agency of Rural Development and Soil and Water Conservation of the Ministry of Agriculture to build a shell ginger trail, along which they have planted all 18 of the scientifically named shell ginger species found in Taiwan, so that visitors can personally see and come in contact with these plants. Meanwhile, the workshop not only uses its essential oil and hydrosol in skincare products made under its own brand name, they also supply them to various domestic cosmetics manufacturers as raw materials. In recent years, the workshop has even been approached by Japanese companies looking to source raw materials, so that its products are now going international.
Step by step, this group of people has written a moving story based on shell ginger. They have also provided young indigenous people from the community with a way to stay in their hometown and make a good living. As they have firmly believed from the start, “Shell ginger is a good product with great potential for development.”
Weaving a road back home
It was written in the stars that Takbanuaz Ishahavut Pune, a Bunun woman who used to wear high heels all the time and made a living in the fashion industry, would take up shell ginger weaving.
After living in Northern Taiwan for many years, Pune returned home to Haiduan Township in Taitung County to look after her aging father. Well versed in the culture of the area’s indigenous communities, she had always been interested in shell ginger weaving. One time she went into the mountains with some young indigenous hunters and discovered that they confused shell ginger (genus Alpinia) with true ginger (genus Zingiber). “Shell ginger was once integral to the daily customs and traditional culture of indigenous communities, but if even indigenous people are unable to clearly recognize shell ginger, how can we identify with our own culture?” Moreover, a number of craftspeople in Taitung were already handweaving shell ginger. This caused Pune to decide to blaze a new trail, and she dedicated herself to shell ginger culture and education. Starting in 2002 she began gathering different shell ginger species and varieties from across Taiwan, and used shell ginger that was readily available along roadsides to practice weaving techniques.
In 2010, Pune founded Maslinagan Shell Ginger Ecological Park, where she cultivates shell ginger varieties that she has collected over time. Pune and Xie Jianfei, a partner with whom she has worked for many years, together introduce us to the species of shell ginger in the park. At first glance the plants all appear to be similarly green and look as alike as twins, but when Pune asks us to feel the texture of the front and back of the leaves, we find that some have a velvety texture while others are thick and deep. On looking more closely, some plants have broad leaves and others narrow ones. Japanese shell ginger is the smallest in size, while those from Lanyu (Orchid Island) and Lüdao (Green Island) have not only web-shaped leaf veins, but also veins that run in parallel, which serve to store water. When we rub and smell the leaves, we notice that different species have their own unique aromas. When they introduce us to shell ginger from Alishan, on rubbing and sniffing it we immediately frown as our noses are struck by a pungent odor like smelly socks. This multisensory experience is very memorable.
According to the botanical literature, there are 18 recognized species of shell ginger in Taiwan, but the Shell Ginger Ecological Park is already up to number 31 in its enumeration. Pune explains that it takes at least four years for the academic community to define and name a new species. “But I have been collecting shell ginger for a long time, and when I look at the plants and observe their posture, the shapes of their inflorescences and their leaves, and their shades of green, I know when I am looking at something new.” Scientific names are a medium of communication, but in the park, the varieties of shell ginger that have no formal names are identified by informal names given by the park itself, such as “thumb shell ginger,” which is only as big as a thumb, and “coin shell ginger.” She concludes: “If you visit us here you will learn plenty of knowledge that you can’t find on Google.”
Preserving Bunun knowledge
In 2017 Pune held a solo exhibition on the theme of shell ginger weaving, named “Using Shell Ginger to Weave a Path Back Home,” at the Bunun Cultural Museum in Taitung’s Haiduan Township. The organizers borrowed a Bunun shell-ginger mat, some two centuries old, from the collection of the National Taiwan Museum. When Pune saw it she was astonished, for the item was marked with the name of one of her ancestors, and it included a weaving technique that was used exclusively by her clan. “Among the Bunun people, every clan has its own unique weaving techniques. It might be difficult for outsiders to understand, but they are like ‘family signatures.’”
Pune relates that when she first encountered this mat, “I told myself right then that I was fated to follow the path of shell ginger weaving.”
Pune was not satisfied with traditional shell ginger weaving techniques, which did not require a high level of skill, so she began making advancements towards making this into a high-level craft. During our visit she brings out a work in progress, the inside layer of which is a basket made using traditional leaf sheath weaving, while the outside layer is decorated with a weblike knotwork pattern using string made from twisted shell ginger. The string has a rough, hard texture, and one can tell at a glance that making it is a skill. She says that she began learning by practicing twisting jute into twine, and only completed her first shell ginger work after six years of effort. She admits that this was a “show-off” item to let everybody know how adept she is at using shell ginger. Many of her pieces have been collected by museums of modern art both in Taiwan and overseas. She hopes to continue to elevate shell ginger weaving to a high-level craft and that her work with shell ginger will be remembered for this progress.
Pune aims not merely to uphold the tradition of shell ginger weaving, but the rich foundation of Bunun culture that underlies it. The Bunun processing of materials for shell ginger weaving is more time-consuming and thorough than that done by other indigenous peoples who practice this craft. The other peoples merely sun-dry the leaf sheaths, but Bunun elders teach that they must be hung up and allowed to become mildewed and spotty, and finally turn slightly soft before they can be used for weaving.
“The elders didn’t explain to us the reasons for doing this, but we continually confirmed the correctness of this step, which can be called ‘setting aside to mildew.’” How long does it take for the material to dry out? Pune responds: “You won’t know this, but shell ginger can speak. I always want to make sure what the shell ginger is saying before I gather it in.” She leads us to a wall which is hung full of rolled leaf sheaths, and as she squeezes the rolls with her hands, some produce a clear, crisp rustling sound, while others sound heavy and dull. In this way she identifies the ones in which the moisture has not yet completely disappeared from the fibers, and which therefore need more time.
She confesses that she is lucky to live in this era and to be inheriting more than 300 years of Bunun wisdom from her forebears. When you also consider her many years of field research among her tribespeople, she is the very embodiment of culture passed down from previous generations.
Starting from the knowhow received from her Bunun elders, she has added her own long years of practical experience, and by constantly comparing and contrasting the two, she has refined shell ginger knowledge. Pune, as a Bunun woman, has used shell ginger to weave herself a path back home—and it has been a very unique path indeed.
