Abstract

In the old times, the primordial materials for color were derived from the root of the plants, which were boiled with the sap extracted of them. For instance, the sap of the Dioscorea matsudae can be used to dye to brown color, the dust sap, the mud or the Manihot esculenta pounded can be used to become black strings, the ocher was derived from the dust sap or the bulb of Manihot esculenta. Moreover, The dye color and plants that Atayal people use are, for instance, red brown from Dioscorea matsudae; black from Dioscorea matsudae, mud, and black mud; black brown from Lagerstroemia subcostata and mud; yellow from Curcuma zedoaria and Gardenia jasminoides; blue from Selaginella uncinata; white from the dust of Trema orientalis, green from the leaves of Pilea plataniflora, Amischotolype hispida, etc; yellow from Calocedrus macrolepis, blue from Clerodendrum trichotomum, red brown from Dioscorea matsudae, etc. From the data collected, we may tentatively conclude that the colors the indigenous people use may somehow be limited by the environment around them. The colors preferably used by the Taiwanese aboriginals are obviously expressed through both of the embroidered and tattooed textures on their traditional costumes: the different expressions of textural colors present the different tribes of their uniqueness. With the fieldwork methodology, the paper attempts to contrast and analyze the colors and the embroidered textures through the costume samples that the researcher collected within the three years. The costume colors from different tribes, despite the diversity the tribes represent, have some colors mutually shared among the tribes, such as the colors they constantly use, red, black, blue and white. These colors have, along with other colors and textures, become their unique visual image.