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Thousands of years ago, navigators braved the open ocean to travel from Taiwan to the Philippines. This summer, a group of Indigenous Taiwanese people decided to follow in their wake. Jan Camenzind Broomby reports from Lanyu Island.
MARAOS: (Singing) Oh.
JAN CAMENZIND BROOMBY: When he was young, Lanyu local Maraos was warned against singing the island's traditional songs.
MARAOS: (Singing in non-English language).
BROOMBY: Don't sing. Your ancestors will be summoned back to Earth, he was told. But today, as he and others from the village prepare for a dangerous sea voyage, he wants the ancestors by his side.
MARAOS: (Through interpreter) In our traditional customs, we believe our ancestors are blessing and protecting this boat. We hope our seafaring culture can continue to develop.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing in non-English language spoken).
BROOMBY: We're on Lanyu Island, some 40 miles off the southeast of Taiwan, home to the Tao, an Indigenous group with only 5,000 or so members that belongs to the broader Austronesian language family. Today, we've come with Maraos, chairperson of Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation, who goes by only one name, to watch as Tao villagers prepare an enormous 39-foot rowing boat for a treacherous journey.
MARAOS: (Through interpreter) This boat has its own spirit. We hope that this blessing and protection will continue to stay with us.
(CROSSTALK)
BROOMBY: They'll need the protection. That's because this ceremony is preparing villagers to row more than 100 miles to the Batanes islands of the northern Philippines.
(SOUNDBITE OF GRUNTING)
BROOMBY: And with that noise, they're trying to pick up the boat and take it over to the water, all of them together at once.
(SOUNDBITE OF GRUNTING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
BROOMBY: The challenge they're undertaking is more than just a test of strength. They'll also be following in the footsteps of their Austronesian ancestors because from the Maori of New Zealand to the Malagasy of Madagascar, peoples from the Austronesian language family can trace their roots back to Taiwan.
PETER BELLWOOD: They spread out mainly from Taiwan and the Philippines, and then they began to move into Indonesia, to Sulawesi, into the Pacific. So this migration took 4- or 5,000 years, purposeful, deliberate and quite amazing in the distance it went.
BROOMBY: This is Peter Bellwood, emeritus professor of archaeology at the Australian National University.
BELLWOOD: Taiwan was a place of formation of what later became the Austronesian-speaking peoples.
BROOMBY: And those Austronesian languages themselves tell a story. Lanyu still shares much of its language with the Indigenous Austronesian Ivatan tribes of the Batanes, evidence that only a few hundred years ago, both sides were in frequent contact.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
BROOMBY: Back in the port, Lanyu's villagers take to the water. In the back of their minds, the islands spoke history that tells stories of expeditions, just like this one. For rower Zhang Shi-Kai (ph), the voyage is a chance to turn legend into real life.
ZHANG SHI-KAI: (Through interpreter) This boat's journey is about demonstrating that our ancestors had these practices in the past and letting the next generation see it firsthand so that they can recognize our oral history is real.
BROOMBY: After more than a day at sea, they arrive in the Philippines, where they're greeted by Ivatan tribespeople. It's the first time a boat of this kind has crossed these waters in some 300 years.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
BROOMBY: And it hasn't been easy. Rough seas threatened the voyage. But as Shi-Kai reminds us, the expedition had to go on because for Lanyu's people, each boat has its own spirit. You can't keep standing still, he says. Once a boat is made, it must be paddled.
For NPR News, I'm Jan Camenzind Broomby on Lanyu Island. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{310:function(e,n,o){o.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([o.e(1),o.e(2),o.e(3),o.e(4),o.e(80)]).then((e=>{o(15),o(769),o(155),o(176),o(93),o(447),o(254),o(128),o(130),o(754),o(175),o(755),o(255),o(78),o(773)}).bind(null,o)).catch(o.oe)},782:function(e,n,o){e.exports=o(310)}},[[782,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();