Flying Fish: How One Fish Dictates the Calendar, Table, and Taboos of Lanyu

30-Second Overview: Every February and March, Tao men on Lanyu don silver helmets and carry torches to sea, using rituals to summon flying fish that migrate back along the Kuroshio Current. The flying fish festival comprises about eleven rituals, ranging from the Fish-Calling Ceremony to the Final Feast after the Mid-Autumn Festival. During this period, strict taboos govern the catching, cooking, sharing, and storing of flying fish. This fish-centric system of rules has been registered as an Intangible Cultural Asset by the Ministry of the Interior.

In March, torches burn on the black volcanic reef coasts of Lanyu. Tao (Yami) men paddle out to sea in outrigger canoes, the torches reflecting red on the sea surface. This is not a tourist performance, but the most important event of their year: summoning the flying fish that migrate back each spring along the Kuroshio Current ^{1 2}.

One fish dictates when Lanyu people can catch, who can eat, how to cook, and when they must stop eating. The rules for eating a single fish are more numerous than any recipe, and the source of these rules is a dream.

That Dream: A Code Narrated by Fish

In Tao oral tradition, the descendants of the creation ancestor, the "Stone-Born People," lived by the sea. After the tide receded, fish and shells remained on the beach. They threw everything they gathered into the same pot to cook. After eating, they developed a skin condition resembling a strange disease, with unbearable itching. At their wit's end, the Fish God "Hei Chi" (Black Wing) appeared in a dream, teaching him item by item: what kinds of flying fish exist, how to catch each type, how to kill, dry, prepare, eat, what not to do, and which rituals to perform ².

The structure of this myth is far stricter than typical legends—it is not "the god created humans," but "the fish issued rules, and humans who followed them would not fall ill." When the Ministry of the Interior registered the Yami (Tao) flying fish festival as an Intangible Cultural Asset, the reason cited was precisely this:

Catching flying fish is a major event in the middle of the Yami year. The entire center of life revolves around flying fish fishing activities; flying fish are even a manifestation of faith and cosmology. Thus, the relationship between the people and the flying fish is one of coexistence. ²

📝 Curator's Note: In most human cultures, it is "humans eating fish." For the Tao people, it is "the fish sets the contract, and humans keep it." This is one of the few cultures in the world where the prey itself legislates.

Three Types of Flying Fish: Hierarchy on the Table

Flying fish are not a single species. The "flying fish" in the waters around Taiwan are primarily from the genus Cheilopogon. The Tao people classify them into three categories based on legend and practice, with a hierarchy so strict that they cannot be mixed [^3]:

The Blackfin Beardfish is the fish with the heaviest taboos: after being dried into fish jerky, it must absolutely not be grilled, or skin disease will occur ³. For the same fish, the method of consumption varies drastically by type—hierarchy is hidden in ichthyology.

Lanyu people have a logic of gender and age distribution for all fish: fish are divided into "old man fish," "man fish," and "woman fish." "Bad fish" (ra'et a among) with thick skin and fishy meat are eaten first by men, while "good fish" (oyoda among) with delicate flesh and fresh taste are prioritized for women and the elderly ^{4 5}. Beyond flying fish, the table is also a mirror of society.

The Kuroshio: The Clock of the Flying Fish

These taboos function because the flying fish themselves keep time. Flying fish do not actually fly; they use their wing-like pectoral and pelvic fins to leap from the water surface and glide with the airflow. Each glide lasts about a minute, with the longest recorded distance exceeding 400 meters. Leaving the water is not a stunt, but an escape action to avoid underwater predators like wahoo, tuna, and sailfish ⁶. There are 81 species in the family Exocoetidae, with 26 recorded in the waters around Taiwan. The main species caught around Taiwan Island and Lanyu are the blackfin, whitefin, and spotted beardfish. The red-spotted flying fish appears almost exclusively in Lanyu waters, making Lanyu the most complete stage for flying fish culture in all of Taiwan ⁶.

Every spring and summer, flying fish migrate northward for reproduction along the Kuroshio Current, passing through the waters off eastern Taiwan between March and June—for Lanyu people, this is the most important source of protein for the year ^{7 8}. The temperature and timing of the Kuroshio determine the start and end of the fishing season. The Tao people do not have a "spring" on their calendar; their spring is called Rayon, meaning "flying fish season." When laying eggs, flying fish have the habit of attaching eggs to seaweed and floating objects. The long filaments on the egg membrane cause the eggs to clump into buoyant masses—later, fishermen in northeastern Taiwan utilized this habit by laying straw mats on the sea surface to harvest fish eggs, developing another form of flying fish egg fishery ⁹. The Tao taboo system is essentially a precise calibration of this Kuroshio clock: arriving too early or eating too late is a breach of contract.

Eleven Rituals in a Year: The Flying Fish Festival is Not "One Day"

What tourists call the "Flying Fish Festival" is actually a whole season of ritual chains. The traditional Tao calendar, Ahehep no tao (Tao Night Calendar), divides seasons by flying fish fishing activities: Rayon is the flying fish season (months 1–4 of the calendar), Teyteyka is the end of catching flying fish (months 5–8), and Amyan is the season when flying fish will return (months 9–12) ². In the solar calendar, from February to September, from Kapowan to Kalimman, is the season for eating flying fish ².

The entire flying fish season has about eleven rituals, divided into three major stages [^2]:

On the day of the Fish-Calling Ceremony, the village captain catches a chicken. Men dip their index fingers in chicken and pig blood, recite incantations to invite the flying fish, and then smear the chicken blood on black pebbles. After the ritual, elders begin to remind everyone of this year's taboos ⁵. The Tao Fish-Calling Ceremony is held separately by each village: around late February, the southernmost Hongtou village holds it first, followed by other villages in a clockwise direction ⁶. At dawn on the Fish-Calling Ceremony, men wear silver helmets (originally war helmets, now ritual attire), carry torches on outrigger canoes, and summon schools of fish to the sea; the silver helmets shimmer in the firelight. This code issued by the fish is read anew every year by those wearing silver helmets ¹⁰.

Dedicated Pots, Whole Fish: Seven Commandments for Eating Fish

Once the flying fish enters the pot, the taboos continue. Comparing the Ministry of Agriculture's food and agriculture education materials with WikiSource reveals a highly rigorous set of dietary rules ³ [^6]:

The first flying fish caught must be boiled and eaten on the same day. Before the Small Boat Day Fishing Ceremony (April–May), flying fish can only be boiled, not grilled or fried—legend says eating grilled flying fish causes sores all over the body ³. Fish is seasoned with sea salt only. Flying fish cannot be cooked with other foods; doing so causes illness, so dedicated pots and bowls must be prepared for separate serving. In traditional Tao society, there were no refrigerators; this rule was also a sanitary wisdom to prevent contamination ³. When handling the fish body, make three cuts along the side to divide it into three pieces; legend says eating raw fish eyes prevents the fish from "escaping" and never returning to Lanyu waters. If fish is hung upside down to dry, even if straightened later, it cannot be eaten ¹¹.

Drying fish is itself a craft: removing internal organs and eyes, washing, salting for preservation and insect prevention, then hanging on bamboo poles to dry in the sun ³. The hanging methods of each village hide directionality—Langdao, Dongqing, and Yeyin villages hang them vertically from the eye, with the belly facing the house and the back facing the sea. Hongtou, Yuren, and Yeyou villages use ropes to tie the belly, making the fish appear to fly, with the head facing the house and the tail facing the sea ³.

The list of taboos is longer than imagined. Oral rules also include: do not eat fish caught by other villages; fish you catch can only be exchanged within the village, not given to other villages; do not wash fish by the stream or coast before eating; do not start eating flying fish before finishing other fish in the house, or you will suffer misfortune; during the fishing period, the whole family must not eat snails, ginger, beans, or citrus ⁸. The red-spotted beardfish is a slightly smaller species with two barbels on the lower jaw, feeding on copepods and other plankton—it is the most accessible entry-level fish on the table, suitable for both drying and boiling ⁸. The spotted flying fish takes another route: it is usually not dried into jerky; after scaling, it is cooked and eaten directly ⁶. Different species follow different processing routes, even the decision of "whether to dry" is pre-determined.

The life history of stored flying fish jerky is part of Tao architecture: the eaves of underground and semi-underground houses, and the firewood racks beside houses, serve as racks for flying fish jerky. After the flying fish season ends, leftover jerky is hung in these places, waiting for pigs and dogs to eat, or kept as a comparison object for the following spring ^{1 10}.

Stopping Eating Requires More Ritual Than Starting

The end of the flying fish season is more particular than the beginning. The Storage Ceremony (Mamoka) is held at the end of the last month of the fishing season: flying fish jerky is cooked with taro for the whole family to eat; before eating, family members sing blessings for the health and immortality of each fish. Afterward, the fins and tails are removed from the jerky, and it is stored in pottery jars ⁵. Around the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Final Feast Ceremony (Manoyotoyon) is held, which is the last time to eat flying fish in the year ⁵.

After the Final Feast Ceremony, no one may eat flying fish. Leftover dried flying fish cannot be thrown away casually—it must be hung on the firewood rack beside the house, left for pigs and dogs to eat ¹. The ban is lifted only after the Fish-Calling Ceremony next spring. The "term of office" of a flying fish is precisely drawn by rituals; out-of-season flying fish jerky is an expired contract.

📝 Curator's Note: "Stopping consumption" is designed as a ceremony. This is an ancient version of resource management—in Tao culture, flying fish are not an ingredient, but a guest that reports in every year.

From Lanyu to Hualien, and Transformations Under Tourism Impact

Flying fish culture is not exclusive to the Tao people. Every April to June, the Amis people along the coasts of Hualien and Taitung also catch flying fish: they split the fish body, remove internal organs, soak in salt water for several hours, and then smoke over charcoal fire for four to eight hours, adding flavor with Alpinia formosana stalks ³. In Lanyu, tourism is changing the boundaries of this system—after the Lanyu Flying Fish Culture Museum was established in 2005, night fishing with torches became an activity on the tourist schedule ¹¹. The Ministry of the Interior's Marine National Park Management Office commissioned an interview documentation project in 2014, interviewing 37 villagers village by village, precisely because villagers feared core knowledge existed only in the mouths of elders ¹².

Scholar Shiman Lanpoan wrote this world into the schools of fish in Cold Water Mountain—in his writing, the relationship between Lanyu people and flying fish has never been "fishing," but a two-way gaze lasting over 700 nights ¹³.

One fish gave an island its own calendar. When tourists' torches light up the coast of Lanyu, the truly important question is: can the rules that began with a dream and were narrated by fish continue to take effect in the hands of the next generation?

Further Reading

• Lanyu Tribal Culture Foundation: Tao cultural records and ritual explanations
• Council of Indigenous Peoples: Yami (Tao) People: Ethnic culture and ritual introduction
• Ministry of the Interior National Religious Information Network, Yami (Tao) Flying Fish Festival: Intangible Cultural Asset registration data
• Upstream/Downstream News, Flying Fish Cruise Along the Kuroshio in Taiwan: Flying fish ichthyology and migration habits
• Council of Agriculture Fisheries and Aquaculture Bureau, Fishery Q&A: Flying fish egg laying and straw mat fishing methods

References