This work analyses the indigenous literature of Taiwan. In the first part, the diverse historical-linguistic backgrounds and their consequences for the status of the languages and cultural memory are presented. The study focuses on the relationship between culture, tradition and literary forms: communities worship millet, the most important rituals are those associated with sowing and harvesting, and the symbolic system is structured by motifs such as the hundred-pacer viper and taboos (e.g. gaga, utux). The second part provides an overview of Taiwanese Indigenous oral literature, which mainly includes myths, stories and legends (creation of the world/animals, the once sky, subterranean peoples), and written literature, which focuses on various genres and forms as well as characteristic motifs and themes. The last part contains an analysis of selected works of indigenous Taiwanese literature: ten animal stories of the Bunun people from oral literature and three poems and a short story from written literature: Duckweed (fuping 浮萍) and Youth of Wushe (wusheqingnian 霧社青年) by Walis Nokan, The Hundred-Pacer Snake is Dead (baibushesile 百步蛇死了) by Monaneng, and the short story The Ritual of Birth (shengzhiji 生之祭) by Husluman Vava. The analysis of existing literature and selected works has shown that indigenous literature transcends its purely aesthetic function and establishes itself as an important medium of cultural survival, social criticism and political visibility, while maintaining a high degree of literary and aesthetic sophistication.
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