Mona Rudaw: The Anti-Japanese Hero Engraved on the Twenty-Dollar Coin, and a World Without China or Japan

30-Second Overview: You may have once held a twenty-dollar coin in your wallet, bearing the profile of Mona Rudaw, a Seediq tribal chief. On the morning of October 27, 1930, he led six tribes in an uprising during a sports meet at the Wushe Public School, killing over a hundred Japanese before taking his own life in a remote mountain cave. His remains were not found for three years. That skeleton served as an anthropological specimen for nearly forty years, subsequently rewritten by three regimes as "evidence of barbarism," "anti-Japanese hero of the Chinese nation," and "symbol of Taiwan's local spirit." But what he sought to become was "Seediq Bale" in the Seediq language, meaning "the real person." In the world he defended with his life, there was no China, and there was no Japan.

In July 2001, the Central Bank of Taiwan issued a new twenty-dollar coin. Bi-colored, with a gold outer ring and a silver inner ring, the reverse side featured the拼板舟 (painted boat) of the Tao people, while the obverse bore a profile: Mona Rudaw, leader of the Seediq in the Wushe Incident. This was the first circulating coin in Taiwan to feature an indigenous person as its theme¹.

Yet this coin had an awkward origin. When designers attempted to engrave Mona’s face onto the coin mold, they discovered that no photograph of him existed in any domestic historical or cultural records. They eventually found one in a Japanese magazine, and the designers traced it, stroke by stroke, to create the portrait².

In other words, the face of Taiwan’s most famous anti-Japanese hero, the face by which the entire nation recognized him, was salvaged from a Japanese publication.

The awkwardness deepened. This coin had an extremely low circulation; many people never saw one in their lifetime. Citizens attempting to use it to buy braised food or drinks found shopkeepers rejecting it as counterfeit³. A hero engraved on national currency, intended to "promote ethnic harmony," was itself rejected by the very people who were supposed to use it.

This article explores the three layers of awkwardness beneath this narrative: an anti-Japanese hero engraved on a twenty-dollar coin, and the world he truly resisted—a world without China, and without Japan.

📝 Curator’s Note
We are accustomed to placing Mona Rudaw into a sentence structure: "He led the indigenous people in a heroic resistance against Japan." This statement is not incorrect, but it presupposes a stage where "Japan" and "China" (or "the Chinese nation") stand, with Mona choosing the side opposing Japan. The problem is that this stage was constructed by later generations. When Mona raised his gun in 1930, the world he sought to protect was entirely different from this stage. Understanding what he was protecting is key to understanding why this coin is so ironic.

The Bridge He Wanted to Cross

To understand Mona Rudaw, one must first leave the framework of "anti-Japanese resistance" and enter the Seediq universe.

Mona Rudaw was a chief of the Mehebu tribe within the Tgdaya (Sediq) group of the Seediq people, born around 1880 (according to Chinese and English Wikipedia), though some sources record 1882 (according to the National Academy for Educational Research of Taiwan). He left no household registration records; even his birth year remains disputed⁴. He succeeded as tribal chief in his youth due to his bravery, was the wealthiest man in the tribe, and was skilled in mgaya (headhunting). Regarding his appearance, Wikipedia describes him as "tall and burly, reportedly nearly 190 cm tall." Note the two words: "reportedly." No one ever measured his skeleton; this height is legend, not fact⁵.

In Mona’s world, there existed a system called Gaya. It was the sum of ancestral teachings, laws, social norms, and taboos, said to be established by the Ancestral Spirits (Utux) and unchangeable. Shared sacrifices, shared hunting, shared meals, shared taboos, and shared liability for sins were all collective obligations prescribed by Gaya⁶.

One rule within Gaya later became the most misunderstood key to the Wushe Incident: headhunting (mgaya in Seediq). In the eyes of Han Chinese and Japanese, headhunting was simply barbaric beheading. But within the Seediq context, its meaning was far more complex than violence, involving revenge, divine judgment (resolving disputes through the success or failure of headhunting), praying for harvests, comforting ancestral spirits, and serving as a rite of passage for men⁷.

All of this connected to a bridge. The Seediq believed that after death, a person must cross a Rainbow Bridge (Hakaw Utux), whose other end was the dwelling place of the Ancestral Spirits. A crab-shaped spirit (Utux Kalan) guarded the bridge, checking one’s hands—more precisely, checking one’s facial tattoos (Ptasan). Only men who had hunted heads and women who could weave were qualified to have facial tattoos. Without these tattoos, one could not cross the Rainbow Bridge or reach the Ancestral Spirits⁸.

Mona Rudaw’s bead ankle ornament, now in the collection of the National Taiwan Museum. Photo: Shishi, 2019. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Thus, when the Japanese banned headhunting and facial tattoos, they severed far more than two customs. For the Seediq, this meant severing the qualification to reunite with ancestral spirits after death, the collapse of an entire system of identity and meaning. Taiwanese scholar Leo Ching (Jing Zixin) described the plight of colonial indigenous peoples as a "colonial double-bind": tamed into "half-civilized" beings, yet forever treated as barbarians by the colonizers, rejected by both sides⁹.

There is a word in the Seediq language, Seediq Bale, meaning "the real person"¹⁰. What Mona Rudaw wanted to become was this: a person with facial tattoos, who could cross the Rainbow Bridge after death, and who could uphold Gaya while alive. We later called him a hero, but the position of "hero" was arranged for him by others. Throughout his life, he was guarding the position of "the real person."

Later, the film Seediq Bale depicted Mona’s world in epic grandeur. But lines like "blood sacrifice to the ancestral spirits" were actually invented by the director; there is no corresponding word in the Seediq language. This was publicly pointed out even by the film’s own Seediq cultural advisor¹¹. This reminds us of one thing: even the version we consider "closest to the Seediq" may be spoken for them by others. Mona’s world was difficult for outsiders to articulate accurately from the start.

The Unclean Hand

In the 1930s, Wushe was viewed by the Japanese as a "Model Indigenous Area."

Japan’s rule over Taiwan’s indigenous peoples followed a path from soft to hard. Initially managed by the Bureau of Indigenous Affairs, it was taken over by police in 1906. From 1910 to 1915, the "Five-Year Plan for Indigenous Affairs" was implemented under Governor-General Sasaki Sakuma, with a budget of approximately 16.3 million yen, using military and police forces for suppression. From 1915, indigenous weapons were confiscated, followed by an assimilation phase involving Indigenous Children’s Schools and Public Schools, the promotion of Japanese, and the banning of headhunting, facial tattoos, and tooth extraction¹².

By 1930, Wushe had been developed into a town comparable to Japanese urban centers. Even revisionist historian Paul Barclay acknowledged that about 95% of the indigenous people in the area could communicate in simple Japanese with Japanese police and teachers¹³. But Barclay also warned that beneath this model lay an enclave dominated by outsiders; the locals’ quietness and loyalty were, at best, suspicious¹⁴. Beneath the surface of the model, resentment was accumulating.

This resentment had several sources. One was forced labor. Between 1928 and 1930, the indigenous people of the Wushe area were mobilized nine times for labor. In 1928, during the construction of a shrine, their lunch allowances were deducted, and they were forced to make donations. Wages were unfair: indigenous people earned 20 to 30 cash per day, while Han Chinese earned 60 cash¹⁵.

The second source was the humiliation left by a political marriage. Japanese police officer Kondo Gi-san married Mona’s sister, Tiwas Rudaw. Later, Kondo was transferred to Hualien and disappeared (either transferred or abandoned his wife). Tiwas was left behind, and under Gaya, a woman abandoned by her husband could not return to her natal home¹⁶. Barclay’s Kondo the Barbarian考证 (verifies) that this "Kondo Gi-san" was the younger brother of another key figure in the Indigenous Affairs, Kondo Katsu-san¹⁷. A marriage arranged for "using barbarians to control barbarians" ultimately became a thorn in Mona’s family.

The spark that truly ignited the fuse was a hand.

On October 7, 1930, Mona’s eldest son, Tado Mona, offered a toast to Japanese police officer Yoshimura Katsushi at a wedding banquet. Tado had just slaughtered a pig and had animal blood on his hands. Yoshimura found it "unclean," not only refusing the toast but also striking Tado’s hand with a police baton. The two fought, and Yoshimura was injured¹⁸. Wikipedia’s account reads:

Chief Mona Rudaw’s eldest son, Tado Mona, attempted to toast Yoshimura, but was refused by Yoshimura on the grounds of "disliking that unclean banquet..." and had his hand struck with a police baton, leading to a brawl¹⁹.

Afterward, Mona led his tribe with wine to apologize. Yoshimura refused, threatening to report the incident. Under Japanese law, injuring a police officer was a serious crime. New grievances added to old ones, combined with the fear of retaliation, led Mona to make a decision: rather than waiting to be清算 (settled with/punished), he would rise up.

📝 Curator’s Note
In the Wushe Incident, there were three Japanese police officers, each with distinct roles worth remembering separately: Yoshimura Katsushi was the one who struck Tado in the toast incident; Kondo Gi-san was the one who married Mona’s sister and then abandoned her; later, a Kojima Genji would appear, inciting the Dozebu group in the Second Wushe Incident. The Wushe Incident was never a story of one person against an empire; it was a web woven by many specific individuals and many specific humiliations. That "unclean hand" was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The Morning of the Sports Meet

On the morning of October 27, 1930, the Wushe Public School was holding a joint sports meet, where Japanese military, police, schoolchildren, and families would gather at the stadium. Mona chose this day. In the early morning, about 300 able-bodied men from six tribes attacked 13 police substations in the Wushe area, seizing weapons and ammunition, then rushed toward the stadium²⁰. The six tribes that rose up were Mehebu, Tarokwan, Po’alen, Skuku, Hogu, and Rodfu. The largest tribe, Balan (led by Chief Walis Buni), did not participate. The main instigators were Biho Shabu and Biho Walis of the Hogu tribe²¹.

That day, they killed 134 Japanese, including women and children. They also mistakenly killed two Han Chinese wearing kimonos: a girl named Li Caiyun and a shop owner named Liu Cailiang²². The tribe captured approximately 180 rifles and over 23,000 bullets²³.

News reached Taipei, shocking the Governor-General’s Office. The Japanese dispatched military and police forces, with Major General Kamata Miyo as the frontline commander (Governor Ishizuka Hidezaro was a civilian, handing frontline command to Major General Kamata). They used aircraft for bombing and mountain artillery for shelling. The suppression operation lasted about fifty days, until early December²⁴.

Commanders and staff of the Wushe Incident Pacification Force (1930). Photo: Ebinari Kozo, "Wushe Pacification Photo Album." Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: Chinese/English Wikipedia, Berry *The Musha Incident: A Reader*, Taipei Times

The most difficult and controversial page of the suppression process is the use of poison gas. Many Chinese sources state that the Japanese army used vesicant (Lewis or mustard) gas, even white phosphorus. Tribe members later testified to "skin rotting." The Taiwan People’s Party also telegraphed the League of Nations in early 1931, protesting the Japanese "massacre with poison gas"²⁵. However, this matter remains unresolved in academia. Japanese historian Haruyama Akechika argues that the Japanese army actually used "hundreds of tear gas canisters, plus at least three special gases (containing cyanide and tear gas components)," rather than mustard gas. The Japanese Wikipedia even states "it remains unclear to this day"²⁶.

Therefore, this article will not assert that "the Japanese army massacred with poison gas," as that exceeds the scope of what evidence supports. But one document proves at least one thing: the Japanese knew they were doing something shady. On November 5, 1930, the Adjutant General of the Army Ministry sent a secret telegram to the Chief of Staff of the Taiwan Garrison. The gist was that the use of vesicant ammunition would not be discussed due to foreign relations concerns, and all future matters involving gas shells should be conveyed using code²⁷. This telegram is stored in the archives of the Japanese Ministry of Defense (JACAR, S5-2-26). It did not request the cessation of poison gas, but rather that poison gas not be left on paper; this is irrefutable evidence of deliberate concealment²⁸. Because of this protest, the Taiwan People’s Party was forcibly dissolved in February 1931. Japan would not sign the Geneva Protocol banning poison gas until 1975²⁹.

Simultaneously with the suppression, an event occurred that was repeatedly written about and romanticized: the collective suicide by hanging of women and children. The number of victims varies: Chinese sources cite about 296, English Wikipedia about 290³⁰. They hanged themselves under a giant tree to avoid burdening the men still fighting, allowing the able-bodied men to fight without rear-guard worries. The film depicted this scene as a heroic sacrifice. But the descendants of the Qingliu tribe understood it as a desperate situation with "no choice" under Gaya: starving and freezing in the cave, the path to survival had already been blocked³¹.

📝 Curator’s Note
The difference between these two readings ultimately comes down to "who has the right to assign meaning to the dead." "Heroic sacrifice" is a word chosen for them by people in the audience; "no choice" is what descendants understood in the context of the cave. This article chooses to stand with the latter, and chooses not to reconstruct the details of that morning one by one, not to write methods, not to enlarge the remains, but only to record time, place, and what a people did when backed into a corner. This is a matter of Gaya, not a spectacle.

As for Mona Rudaw himself, his date of death is a structural mystery. Because his remains were not found until 1933, the date of death is essentially an estimate, with various versions ranging from November 5, mid-November, November 28, to December 1. This article adopts "late November 1930," noting that this date is uncertain³². What is certain is: he took his own life with a Type 38 rifle in a cave on the right bank of the Mehebu Stream.

In the film, there is a scene where Mona personally shoots his wife. But this is an adaptation. A 1936 Japanese publication claimed Mona killed his wife and children, but tribe members who experienced the event later confirmed that Mona’s wife actually hanged herself, because killing one’s wife and children itself violated the Seediq Gaya³³. Wikipedia recorded this correction:

Because killing one’s wife and children violated the Seediq Gaya, it was later confirmed by tribe members who experienced the event that Mona Rudaw’s wife actually hanged herself³⁴.

Regarding the number of deaths, different sources contradict each other. Instead of silently choosing one, here the divergence is laid out: Chinese Wikipedia breaks down the six tribes' deaths into 85 by sword/bullet, 137 by bombing, 34 by artillery, 87 by headhunting, and 296 by hanging, totaling 639, with 265 captives and about 500 surrendering, totaling 1,236 insurgents. English Wikipedia records about 1,200 insurgents, 644 dead, and 290 by hanging³⁵. The numbers do not add up, but the direction is consistent: the six tribes had over a thousand people, and nearly half died in this uprising.

The Half Not Taught in Textbooks

If the story ended here, it would be a clean tragedy: a nation united to resist tyranny, sacrificing heroically. But the true second half of the Wushe Incident is barely taught in textbooks, because it is not clean at all. On April 25, 1931, the "Second Wushe Incident" occurred. After the surviving members of the six uprising tribes surrendered, they were detained in "Protection Barbarian" shelters in Xibao and Rodfu. Japanese police officer Kojima Genji (the same name mentioned earlier) incited the pro-Japanese Dozebu group to form an "Allied Barbarian Attack Force" of about 200 people, who attacked the shelters by night. A total of 216 people were killed or committed suicide (sources record 214, 216, or 218), and 101 heads were severed, a number supported by photos in the collection of the National Museum of Taiwan History (Accession No. 2017.025.0192.0019)³⁶. The Japanese also offered a bounty: 200 yen for a chief’s head, 100 yen for an able-bodied man, 30 yen for a woman, and 20 yen for a child. Afterward, the Dozebu group was allocated the land of the six uprising tribes³⁷.

Source: National Museum of Taiwan History Collection 2017.025.0192.0019, Chinese Wikipedia, China Times

In other words, the ones who killed the last batch of Wushe insurgents were another group of indigenous people. Indigenous people killing indigenous people.

"Allied Barbarian" (pro-Japanese indigenous) troops mobilized by the Japanese (1931). Photo: Ebinari Kozo, "Wushe Pacification Photo Album." Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The leader was Tiemu Walis (c. 1898 – November 11, 1930), the chief of the Dozebu group. He was almost a mirror image of Mona. There was a tribal hunting ground feud between the Dozebu group and the Tgdaya group; the Japanese had long fanned these flames, and Kojima Genji exploited this old grudge³⁸. Mona’s wife had once tried to recruit Tiemu to join the uprising, but he refused, instead hiding Kojima. Finally, Tiemu led the attack force in pursuit of the insurgents, who were ambushed and headhunted by the Tgdaya group in the Haben Valley, dying in battle alongside over a dozen of his men³⁹.

The film portrayed Mona and Tiemu as mortal enemies, but this was fiction. Seediq translator Iwan Pering pointed out that, according to Gaya, Mona could not have invaded another group’s hunting grounds; the two may even have had kinship ties⁴⁰. Tiemu was not a villain; he was another chief following the same Gaya logic, just on the opposite side. Stigmatizing him as a "pro-Japanese traitor" was a convenience of later generations. Seediq cultural advisor Guo Mingzheng (Dakis Pawan) refused to view the Dozebu group this way. He said that if a Seediq promises something, they must see it through; this is also the spirit of Seediq Bale⁴¹.

Source: Chinese Wikipedia "Tiemu Walis", Seediq translator Iwan Pering verification

Between these two extremes of Mona and Tiemu stood a third type of person: Hua Gang Yi-lang and Hua Gang Er-lang.

These two were not blood relatives, both from the Hogu tribe, and were "Model Barbarians" cultivated by the Japanese: elites who received Japanese education and became Seediq police. Scholar Nakao Eki Pacidal called them "inbetweeners"⁴². When the incident broke, they made the most painful choice. Hua Gang Yi-lang (Seediq name Dakis Nobing) had attended Taichung Normal School; he first dealt with his family, then stabbed himself in the abdomen with a tribal knife (not seppuku in the Japanese samurai style). Hua Gang Er-lang (Dakis Nawi) led his tribe members to hang themselves⁴³. They left a Japanese suicide note, beginning with:

We must leave this world / The barbarian uprising occurred because there were too many labor duties⁴⁴.

Hua Gang Er-lang’s wife, Gao Shan Chu-zi (Seediq name Ebin Tada’ou), survived. She later became the most crucial witness for writer Deng Xiang-yang’s research on the Wushe Incident⁴⁵. Her posthumous son, Gao Guanghua (Awi Dakis, 1930–2001), later became the magistrate of Ren’ai Township, and was indeed the person who welcomed Mona’s remains back in 1973⁴⁶. The Japanese did not trust them; the Seediq did not necessarily accept them. The Hua Gang brothers died in the crack between two worlds, and even their final words to posterity were written in Japanese.

After the incident concluded, the survivors paid the final price. On May 6, 1931, the approximately 298 survivors of the six uprising tribes (Japanese sources say 278) were forcibly relocated to "Chuanzhongdao" (River Island). Despite the name containing "island," it was actually a terrace surrounded by the Beigang Stream, Meiyuan Stream, and Abisi Stream. They were forbidden from returning home; four who tried to return were executed. Dysentery and malaria spread in the shelter⁴⁷. The Japanese officialdom also faced accountability: Governor Ishizuka Hidezaro and Director of General Affairs Jin Jianci resigned on January 16, 1931; Police Chief Shi Jingbao and Taichung Prefectural Governor Shui Yue Xingyi also stepped down⁴⁸.

📝 Curator’s Note
Why do textbooks only teach the first half and not the second? Because the first half can be placed into the clean framework of "the Chinese nation resisting Japan heroically," but the second half cannot. The Second Wushe Incident, the Dozebu group, indigenous people killing indigenous people—once these are laid out, the myth of "one nation united against tyranny" is broken. Revisionist historian Barclay punctured this cleanliness: the Dozebu and Truku groups had cooperated with the Japanese to hunt insurgents; the fuse of the Wushe Incident was immediate humiliation and labor, not a systematic plan of genocide⁴⁹. But Barclay simultaneously emphasized that he was not whitewashing colonialism; the Japanese response to the insurgents was indeed a "genocidal fury." What he punctured was the clean coat of nationalism put on this uprising, not the legitimacy of the uprising itself.

A Specimen That Walked for Forty Years

Mona Rudaw died, but his story was not over. Because his remains would embark on a strange journey lasting nearly forty years. On July 6, 1933, hunters from the Po’alen tribe found a skeleton in a cave on the right bank of the Mehebu Stream. Mona’s daughter, Ma Hong Mona, identified it by the clothing, silver bracelets, and tribal knife, confirming it was her father⁵⁰.

Scene photos from the Wushe Incident left in the "Wushe Pacification Photo Album" (1930). Turning conquest into an exhibit is the same impulse as turning Mona’s skeleton into a specimen. Photo: Ebinari Kozo, "Wushe Pacification Photo Album." Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

What happened next remains stinging to read today. On June 13, 1934, the Nenggao County Office was completed, and Mona’s skeleton was displayed publicly as an exhibit, attracting nearly 10,000 viewers. On July 1 of the same year, it was placed in a glass case at a police exhibition in the Botanical Garden. Records indicate that the exhibit most interested in viewers was precisely Mona’s skeleton⁵¹. On the 28th of that month, the remains were sent to Taiwan Imperial University, received by Iwakawa Michizoro of the Chair of Ethnology, and subsequently subjected to "large foot" research by anatomist Kim Seki. From then on, Mona Rudaw became a numbered anthropological specimen, sitting in a cabinet for about forty years⁵².

The one who saved Mona from the specimen cabinet was an anthropologist. On September 17, 1934, Li Yiyuan, Acting Chair of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at National Taiwan University, wrote to President Yan Zhenxing, suggesting the return of the remains. On December 24 of the same year, Mona Rudaw left NTU⁵³.

Here is a bitter closed loop: the one who made him a specimen "for research" was anthropology; the one who finally released him from the cabinet was also anthropology. A man who rose up to avoid being treated as "evidence of a primitive people" died and served as exactly that evidence for forty years, which was precisely what the colonizers used to "prove" at the start: how "primitive" and how "barbaric" the indigenous people were⁵⁴.

And the way he went home was still not in his own way. The burial ceremony was presided over by Xie Dongmin, Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Government, using a full set of Han rituals: a spirit hall, wreaths, mournful music, a hearse, and a Chinese-style white archway in front of the grave, inscribed with "Heroic Spirit of Green Blood" and "Righteous Courage and Loyal Liver"⁵⁵. Even going home, he did not cross his own Rainbow Bridge.

Another view of the same bead ankle ornament, now in the collection of the National Taiwan Museum. A man who guarded Gaya for a lifetime, finally had both his body and his artifacts become exhibits in a window. Photo: Shishi, 2019. [CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:賽德克族馬赫坡社貝珠踝飾(2)._

📝 Curator’s Note
From 1934 to 1973, the same skeleton was defined alternately by three forces. The Japanese treated him as "evidence of barbarism," making him a specimen for exhibition; the Nationalist Government treated him as an "anti-Japanese hero of the Chinese nation," erecting steles, enshrining him in the Martyrs' Shrine, and issuing commendation orders; and after localization, he became a symbol of "Taiwanese local consciousness." Michael Berry’s edited volume The Musha Incident: A Reader (Columbia University Press, 2022) clarifies this process: three regimes, three uses, each driving the Seediq people out of the subject position of the narrative. Mona being engraved on the twenty-dollar coin was actually the third appropriation.

Berry summarized these three uses in the book (translated below):

The Japanese used it to prove the "barbarism" of indigenous people; the Nationalist Government cited this uprising as evidence that Taiwanese were heroic and united with the Chinese in resisting Japan; groups advocating independence used it as an example of "authentic" cultural tradition⁵⁶.

This line of appropriation extends to the present day. In 1969, Mona Rudaw was enshrined in the Martyrs' Shrine, recorded as the first indigenous person to be enshrined. In 1970, the Executive Yuan issued a commendation order, signed by Minister of the Interior Xu Qingzhong⁵⁷. The Wushe memorial stele was changed repeatedly: in 1950, Gao Yongqing first demolished the shrine and erected a "Survivors Memorial Stele." In 1953, a "Heroic Spirit of Green Blood" archway and a Martyrs Memorial Stele were erected, signed by Taiwan Provincial Governor Wu Guozhen. After Wu Guozhen was involved in a political scandal, the inscription was changed to "Wushe Mountain Barbarian Anti-Japanese Uprising Memorial Stele," signed by Huang Jie⁵⁸. Historian Gu Hengzhan pointed out in the article "Flowing Memory" that with each regime change, the signatory changed, and the inscription was re-carved; the state thus carved politics of memory into the same stone⁵⁹.

As for that twenty-dollar coin, the Central Bank’s official reason for issuance was "to respect the history and culture of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples and promote ethnic harmony"⁶⁰. The words sound good. But when you know that face was salvaged from a Japanese magazine, that no one dared to accept the coin, and that the skeleton served as a specimen for forty years, those six words "promote ethnic harmony" take on a different weight.

Whose Hero

In 2011, director Wei Te-sheng’s Seediq Bale was released, divided into Part 1 The Flag of the Sun and Part 2 The Rainbow Bridge, with total Taiwan box office revenue of approximately 880 million NTD. It was nominated for the main competition at the Venice Film Festival, won the Golden Horse Award for Best Feature Film, and entered the top nine for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars⁶¹. For Taiwanese born after 1985, Mona Rudaw’s face has since been the face of Lin Qing-tai, the Atayal pastor who played the adult Mona.

Official theater trailer by ARS Film. For the generation born after 1985, the face in this trailer has since become Mona Rudaw’s face.

The film made Mona remembered by an entire generation; this is its merit. But it is also the version most questioned by scholars for "romanticizing."

The harshest criticism came from the film’s own cultural advisor, Qingliu tribe descendant and author of Truth · Bale, Guo Mingzheng (Dakis Pawan). He pointed out that terms like "blood sacrifice to the ancestral spirits" and "pride" were invented by Wei Te-sheng, with no corresponding words in Seediq; Mona shooting his wife violated Gaya, and he had warned Wei Te-sheng, but Wei shot it anyway; headhunting was beautified as an individual male achievement⁶². Indigenous writer Walis Daban criticized the film’s individual heroism as violating the tradition of collective decision-making: traditional tribal leadership followed collective decisions, and no single person could act on their own⁶³. Scholar Lin Chin-ju systematized these cultural distortions in a 2018 paper in CLCWeb⁶⁴.

If Seediq Bale was a spectacle, then Tang Hsiang-chu’s 2014 documentary Survivors — Seediq Bale was its counterpoint. This film was nominated for the 50th Golden Horse Awards for Best Documentary and Best Sound (ultimately not winning). It followed the descendants of survivors to trace the ancestral spirit source Pusu Qhuni (Mudan Rock), responding to the heroism on screen with the perspective of those who survived⁶⁵. The climax of resisting tyranny is easy to write, but "how to live after surviving" is rarely written. Novelist Wu He’s Survivors also followed this path; he interviewed survivor descendants, criticized Lee Teng-hui’s stele and Chen Shui-bian’s coin for politicizing Mona rather than truly mourning him; survivors actually lived in a shameful silence⁶⁶.

Official trailer for "Survivors" (2014, Tang Hsiang-chu) released by ARS Film. Compared to the spectacle of "Seediq Bale," it hands the lens to those who survived.

The contemporary puzzle continues. On April 23, 2008, the Seediq separated from the Atayal, officially becoming the 14th indigenous people of Taiwan, divided into three dialect groups: Tgdaya, Dozebu, and Truku⁶⁷. On August 1, 2016, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, President Tsai Ing-wen apologized on behalf of the government:

For four hundred years, every regime that has come to Taiwan has strongly infringed upon the existing rights of indigenous peoples through military conquest and land plunder⁶⁸.

She simultaneously established the Council of Indigenous Peoples’ Historical Justice and Transitional Justice, with Seediq law doctor Cai Zhiwei (Awi Mona, Taiwan’s first indigenous law doctor) serving as the convener of the Land Committee⁶⁹. But justice was not completed there. The 2017 Traditional Land Designation Measures excluded private land, shrinking the designatable area from 1.8 million hectares to about 800,000 hectares, triggering years of protests on凯道 (Chongqing South Road, site of major protests)⁷⁰.

And the sharpest question was left for the contemporary era. In 2025, Seediq Bale was re-released in China under the name "80th Anniversary of Liberation." A Seediq descendant, Walis Pawan, responded in an interview (translated from an English report):

This is a matter between China and Japan. They use a movie about us to speak for our feelings, but China has never come to ask us⁷¹.

This sentence can serve almost as the key to the entire article. Mona Rudaw was claimed by three parties: Han/Taiwanese nationalism, the Chinese nation narrative, and the silence of the Allied Barbarian descendants. Three parties, three incompatible relationships toward the same person. And the person who was repeatedly appropriated was never asked⁷².

The Real Person

Return to the Qingliu Tribe.

The descendants of the survivors forcibly relocated to Chuanzhongdao still live here today, in a place called Gluban, administratively part of Ren’ai Township, Nantou County. Here, they grow a rice called "Chuanzhong Rice" (Tainan 9), which was once offered to the Emperor during the Japanese colonial period. Media often say this is the "indigenous tribe with the highest education level and most dense civil servants," though this claim lacks official statistical support and is merely a common saying⁷³. The village has a Survivors Memorial Stele and a Memorial Hall. Golden rice fields ripen and are harvested year after year. In the end of Tang Hsiang-chu’s Survivors, the descendants are still searching in the mountains for that ancestral spirit source called Pusu Qhuni⁷⁴.

The bronze statue of Mona Rudaw in Wushe and the Anti-Japanese Uprising Memorial Stele. Photo: Fanglan (fanglan), 2012. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

We need heroes. We need a clean story for textbooks, a coin we can hold in our hands, a face we can hang on the wall. So we engraved Mona on the twenty-dollar, wrote him into "the Chinese nation resisting Japan," and filmed him as a heroic epic.

But what Mona Rudaw wanted to become was never a hero. He wanted to become Seediq Bale—the real person. A person with facial tattoos, who could uphold Gaya, and who could cross the Rainbow Bridge after death. In that world, there was no China, and there was no Japan, only ancestral spirits, hunting grounds, that bridge, and the crab spirit at the bridgehead checking your hands.

The face on that coin was salvaged from a Japanese magazine. That skeleton served as a specimen for about forty years, finally buried with Han rituals, and even going home, he did not cross his own Rainbow Bridge. We gave him everything, except one thing—treating him as a person, not a monument.

Perhaps the first step to truly knowing Mona Rudaw is not remembering how many Japanese he killed, but understanding the world he defended with his life, which originally did not need us to choose sides for it.

Further Reading:

• Wei Te-sheng — Director of Seediq Bale who brought Mona Rudaw to the screen, and the other side of "how movies reshape memory" in this article
• History and Legitimation Movement of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples — How the Seediq separated from the Atayal in 2008 to become Taiwan’s 14th tribe
• Japanese Colonial Period — Indigenous pacification policies and the fifty years of Taiwan’s colonization, the background of the Wushe Incident
• Indigenous Land Justice and Traditional Territories in Taiwan — The hunting grounds Mona guarded, extending to today’s disputes over traditional land designation

Image and Video Sources

This article uses 7 public domain / CC-licensed images, all cached in public/article-images/people/ to avoid hotlinking; plus two embedded official ARS Film videos (fair use editorial commentary):

• Photo of Mona Rudaw with Seediq Tribal Chiefs (First Image) — From Ebinari Kozo’s Wushe Pacification Photo Album (Gongjin Commercial, 1931), Public Domain (PD-Japan-oldphoto). The original image was vertical; this article cropped it to square for the first image.
• Mona Rudaw’s Bead Ankle Ornament (2019) — National Taiwan Museum collection, Photo: Shishi, CC BY-SA 4.0.
• Wushe Incident Scene Photo (1930) — From the Japanese Wushe Pacification Photo Album, Public Domain (PD-Japan-oldphoto).
• Wushe Incident Pacification Force Commanders and Staff (1930) — From the Japanese Wushe Pacification Photo Album, Public Domain (PD-Japan-oldphoto).
• Allied Barbarian Troops (1931) — From the Japanese Wushe Pacification Photo Album, Public Domain (PD-Japan-oldphoto).
• Mona Rudaw’s Bead Ankle Ornament (Another View) (2019) — National Taiwan Museum collection, Photo: Shishi, CC BY-SA 4.0.
• Bronze Statue of Mona Rudaw and Wushe Anti-Japanese Uprising Memorial Stele (2012) — Photo: Fanglan (fanglan), CC BY 2.0.
• Video: Seediq Bale Theater Trailer HD — Official channel of ARS Film.
• Video: Survivors – Seediq Bale Trailer — Official channel of ARS Film, Tang Hsiang-chu 2014 documentary.

References