The sense of sick and achievement of health by food selection of the Taiwan’s indigenous peoples in Japanese colonial periods.

Abstract

Vernacular languages do not necessarily have the general terms of disease or disorders. They also do not have the words corresponding to “health” which is defined by the modern medical knowledge. It means the condition that peoples or animals do not have disease or disorders in mind and body. On the other hand, peoples achieve ‘health’ through their own ways and have some rules to manage the condition of body and mind. This paper introduces how the Taiwan’s indigenous people recognized the sick and practiced eating habits to keep health or cure the disease through the ethnography written in Japanese colonial periods.