by Xinhua writers Fu Shuangqi, Wu Jihai
HUALIEN, July 20 (Xinhua) -- When his son came home from school one day complaining of bullying, Kimi Sibal realized it was time to understand his heritage.
A member of the Atayal tribe, one of Taiwan's 14 native ethnic groups, knew his son was a victim of racial intolerance.
"My son had a big fight with a classmate at the high school. His classmate called him 'son of gangsters' because our ancestors had tattoos just like gangsters," he says.
"I realized that I knew so little about facial tattoos, which I had seen on the faces of my grandparents."
The machinist at a cement factory in Hualien, on Taiwan's east coast, began to travel the island's rugged hinterland on his days off, photographing the last suriviving members of his tribe to bear the distinctive markings.
The Atayal tribe, who used to hunt and farm in the mountains of central and east Taiwan, had a custom of facial tattoos as rites of passage, identification, female beauty and pride for hundreds of years. Mostly the tattoos were on the forehead and cheeks.
