A piece looking at #Taiwan's indigenous community's fight to maintain its hunting tradition from @ambermywang and the @AFP team in Taipei: france24.com/en/live-news/2…
"Talum, 62, was one of the hundreds from his Bunun tribe taking part last week in Mala Hodaigian, an annual festival that honours both hunters and wild game. But a shadow hung over this year's festivities because of a landmark court ruling set for Friday."
At stake is both Talum's freedom -- and whether the current hunting limitations placed on Taiwan's Indigenous communities are discriminatory and unconstitutional.
"For Indigenous people, hunting is about survival and it's our culture," he told AFP from his bucolic home in Taiwan's southern Taitung county, where the retired tow truck driver now grows vegetables and looks after his 99-year-old mother.
Talum's legal turmoil started eight years ago when he went to hunt food for his mother, who he said was used to eating wild game.
He was arrested for killing a Reeves's muntjac and a Formosan serow with a modified rifle, and charged with possessing an illegal weapon and hunting protected species.
The prosecution sparked anger among Taiwan's Indigenous communities, who have begun to push back at the modern legal restrictions that have chipped away at their traditions.
As Dahu, a 42-year-old hunter and friend of Talum's, put it: "The court should recognise hunting is our culture and it's not a crime."
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