台灣大百科全書

From the 31sd of October, the Taiwan Governor-General's Office moved a large number of police and soldiers into the Wushe area in a punitive expedition against the “Aborigine Rebellion”, forcing the aborigines to retreat and hide within caves high in the mountains. The Japanese attacked the aborigines' hiding places in the remote forests with cannon and aircraft. With the exception of a small number of women and children who surrendered, the aborigines were forced to commit mass suicide. A total of 644 people died (of which 296 people killed themselves). After the incident, more than 561 survivors from the above six villages and a small number of scattered Toda and Truku were forced to move into Sipo and Drodux village shelters.

In the early morning of the 25th of April, 1931, Toda and Truku men, who were hostile towards the Tkdaya people, attacked Sipo and Drodux “ Aborigine Refugee Protection Center (保護蕃收容所)” with the manipulation and tacit consent of Japanese officials and 216 “Protected aborigines ” were killed as they slept. On the 6th of May, more than 278 of the 298 people who had participated in resistance were forcibly relocated to Kawanakajima, Japan (the sick were excepted). On the 15th of October, 106 survivors of those held in Kawanakajima took part in an allegiance- pledging ceremony. 38 of those in attendance were imprisoned for having “been involved in the Wushe uprising (霧社蜂起事件, Wushe Incident)”. Eventually, the Japanese officials announced that they had all “died of illness in prison”.

After the incident, the Japanese colonial rulers examined the causes of the aboriginal resistance, including the development of a large quantity of forest and mountain resources, which reduced aboriginal hunting grounds, and logging in aboriginal ancestral sacred areas, which constituted a kind of invasion; additionally, Japanese police, penetrating deep into the community, overrode tribal leaders, disrupting aboriginal social balance. Aside from this, the Governor-General's Office had requisitioned aborigines for all kinds of labor, the periods of which clashed with the times when aborigines cultivated rice or hunted. The wages they were paid for their labor were also very low. All of these factors, taken together, incited aboriginal hatred of the Japanese.

Today, the “Wushe Incident Memorial Park” has been built in Renai Village (仁愛鄉), and a Mona Rudao (莫那魯道) memorial stele has been erected. In 2001, the Bank of Taiwan issued a commemorative 20-yuan (元, dollar) coin, with a portrait of Mona Rudao.