With the Piyuma--the small east coast tribe living just south of the Ami--the most sacred spot is a bamboo-grove a few miles inland called by themselves “Arapani.” Here, according to Piyuma tradition, was planted the staff of a god, which grew into a bamboo. From different joints of this bamboo sprang the first man and the first woman, ancestors of the Piyuma people. Markings on a stone near Arapani are said to be footprints of this first couple. Hence this stone is considered most sacred. The tradition of being descended from ancestors sprung from a bamboo is held by other tribes than the Piyuma; in fact, it is held by practically all the Formosan tribes; also by the Tagalog tribe of the Philippines. A similar tradition is referred to in the Japanese tale of Taketori-Monogatari--now, I believe, translated into English.[66] [Illustration: FAMILY OF THE AMI TRIBE.] [Illustration: GLORIFIED ANCESTOR OF THE PAIWAN TRIBE CARVED ON A SLATE MONUMENT.] The Paiwan--the tribe south of the Piyuma--and indeed the southernmost of the main island--is the only aboriginal tribe that has anything approaching what missionaries would call “idols”--that is, carved representations of deity. Before the house of the chief of every tribal group among the Paiwan stands an upright block of slate on which is carved a figure supposed to be human, this figure often being surrounded by markings representing serpents.[67] Both human and serpentine figures are carved in the slate by means of sharpened flint, or other stone harder than slate. As the Paiwan also build their houses of slate (by a method to be spoken of more in detail under the head of ARTS AND CRAFTS), representations of human heads and snakes are carved always on the lintel over the doorway of the chief; and often on that over the doorways of successful warriors and huntsmen.[68] Some anthropologists might see in this frequent representation of the snake evidence of snake totemism on the part of the Paiwan. I do not, however, think this is the case. The Paiwan venerate the snake as being the most dangerous of living creatures (in the tropical jungles of Formosa there are naturally many deadly species); but this veneration is more in the nature of theriolatry than totemism. They seem to think that by having constantly before their eyes representations of this the most dreaded of all the creatures of the jungle, they will, through a sort of sympathetic magic, be inspired with the bravery, as they regard it--if not the wisdom--of the serpent.