Millet wine brings good luck and wards off evil spirit.
Millet wine is the oldest wine in Taiwan and a traditional beverage of Taiwanese aborigines.
Millet wine is at any important milestone in someone's life, including festivals, the birth of a new baby, or weddings. It is a cultural symbol, a key part of aboriginal rituals. Tribal chiefs would always be present to offer these offerings, and to bless the people. These were happy occasions and dancing often would follow.
Millet wine tastes like Japanese sake but warmer, sweeter and stickier.
The Atayal Are Known As
The first Atayal ancestors appeared when a stone, Pinspkan, cracked apart. The meaning of Atayal is "genuine person" or "brave man".
The Atayal are good weavers. Symbolic patterns and design, mainly geometric, can be found on Atayal traditional dresses. Most of the designs are argyles and horizontal lines. In Atayal culture, the horizontal lines represent the rainbow bridge which leads the dead to where the ancestors' spirits live. Argyles, on the other hand, represent ancestors' eyes protecting the Atayal. The favorite color of this culture is red because it represents blood and power.
A girl would learn to weave when she was about ten or twelve, and she had to master the skill in order to earn her tattoo. Only those with tattoos could marry, and, after death, only those with tattoos could cross the hongu utux, the rainbow bridge to the hereafter.
For the female, tattooing is done on the cheek, typically from the ears across both cheeks to the lips forming a V shape. A female tattoo may take ten hours to make.
Male tattooing is relatively simple, with just two bands down the forehead and chin. Once a male has come of age he will have his forehead tattooed. As soon as he fathers a child, his bottom chin is tattooed.
Rhombuses are the symbol of the eyes of ancestral spirits.
It is contained, cultural, and spiritual.
There are 14 recognized tribes in Taiwan and each of them are unique while still share similar features in different cultural aspects. Atayal is the one Pakalimu focused on, although the same concept can apply to many other tribes.
The logotype came from the geometric patterns that appear in many tribes' clothing. The rhombuses symbolize the eyes of Atayal's ancestral spirits. The A represents the mountains most aboriginals live in. The tag line is made from rhombus shapes and resemble the weaving patterns.
Millet wine is totally homemade and each one is unique.
No two ever taste exactly the same.
Millet wine is made from millet, brewer’s yeast and water. In traditional production, tools such as sieves, steamers, pots, pans and jars are used. The common proportion is about 400 cc per pound of millet.
1. Soak the millet in water.
2. Steam in a wooden steamer.
3. Let it cool to room temperature then put in cold water.
4. Mix the millet with a rice yeast.
5. Left to stand for four or five days.
6. Wash with care so as not to squeeze it.
7. Put it in a fine mesh sieve and the alcohol drains off from the rice into a pot or other vessel.
8. Left to ferment in a cool place about one month.