The mystery of the meefucu: English
follows.
Ehonanva no Cou鄒族傳說常提到meefucu，小黑人。Meefucu很會搗蛋，做很多壞事，也很喜歡偷小孩子。所以，小孩不乖，大人恐嚇：「Ta’u sia tamo voecʉvcʉ ci coca, tasi ko’ko yaa no meefucu」: 把你放在黑暗的外面，讓meefucu把你帶走！Apu’u Peongsi/汪朝麗傳「‘oyo voecʉvcʉ ci
emucu躲在黑暗中的手」，說有meefucu躲在暗角偷獵人的肉。總而言之，meefucu最大的本事就是buekeematmohʉ：搗蛋。
問鄒人，meefucu是誰？只有籠統回答，大概是排灣族吧。問題是，鄒與排灣中間隔布農、Kanakanavu，排灣怎會跑到Psoseongana去偷獵人的肉？
眾所周知，鄒族本來在Ca'hamʉ臺南靠海討生活。而且眾所周知，荷蘭人曾想經營臺南為他們的殖民地，幸虧鄭成功把他們趕走。但是文獻紀載荷蘭人從非洲帶了黑奴做粗活；荷蘭人離開時，一部分的黑奴被遺棄在臺灣，在臺南市北郊結社定居下來了。但是他們人數不多，死的死，通婚的通婚，人口凋零，慢慢消失，慢慢被遺忘。他們從遙遠的非洲漂泊到臺灣，他們的足跡寥寥無幾；到現在，臺南有「烏鬼井」，應該就是他們村落的位置。忘了是哪一家古廟的壁飾很明顯可以看出是黑人，就是荷蘭人留下的黑奴。
也許鄒族傳說中的meefucu，就是指這群被遺棄的黑人。或許他們不孰悉的生態，偶而偷獵人的肉，也許他們眼睜睜地看著村落的人口越來越少，就去偷鄒人的孩童來當自己的孩子來養。而這些生活點滴，只有ehonanva no Cou鄒族傳說捕風捉影留下片段的紀錄。
Stories of the Tsou (Cou) tribe in the
mountains of central Taiwan tell of the meefucu, who are said to be little
black people. They were tricky and did all sorts of bad things, and they even
stole people’s children. So if a child was misbehaving, parents would threaten
them, “I’ll put you outside in the dark and the meefucu will take you away!”
Apu’u Peongsi / Esther Wang has passed down
the story of “the hand in the dark,” about a meefucu who hid in dark places and
stole hunters’ meat. In short, the meefucu were nothing but trouble.
But if you ask the Tsou, who were the meefucu?
Their answers are vague: maybe the Paiwan tribe? The problem is, the Paiwan don’t
live close to the Tsou; in between are Bunung and Kanakanavu, so why would the
Paiwan go to all that trouble to steal some meat?
Centuries ago, Tsou territory stretched to
the sea near what is now Tainan. In the 16th century, the Dutch
tried to colonize Taiwan, starting from Tainan, but fortunately Koxinga chased
them out. This is well known. What is not so well known is that the Dutch brought
slaves from Africa to do their hard work for them, and when the Dutch left,
some slaves were abandoned. They established a village in northern Tainan, but
eventually died out. Almost nothing remains of their presence. The Black Demon
Well in Tainan is probably the site of their old village. I recall that in an
old temple, I forget just which one, the decorations on the wall clearly show Black
African people.
Perhaps the meefucu of the Tsou tales
records their encounters with these abandoned Africans, stranded far from home.
It’s possible that they were not familiar enough with the environment of Taiwan
so they had to steal meat from hunters. Maybe their village was dying out, so
they resorted to stealing children from the Tsou to boost their numbers. Perhaps
the only record of those Africans’ days in Taiwan is the glimpses and
recollections recorded in the Tsou stories.
