Giving Your Life for Others
Less than 150 years ago the island nation of Formosa was known as a nation of headhunters. One man was largely responsible for changing that.
Today we call this island nation, “Taiwan.” The words “Formosa” and “Taiwan” both come from the Portuguese language. About 500 years ago the nation of Portugal made an unsuccessful attempt to make the island a colony. For most of the 500 years after Portugal’s failure, both China and Japan attempted to make the island a colony. Sometimes they even fought wars over the island. Today China and Japan are at peace with each other, but they have often seen each other as enemies.
As for Taiwan, today it is an independent nation, but from time to time there are still international disagreements over its status.
All of this brings us to the story of Goho.
Taiwan is full of rugged mountains, and even though the people who lived near the sea had given up headhunting, there were still many fierce tribespeople living in the rugged mountains who wouldn’t hesitate to cut the head off an enemy or a stranger if they had a chance. Among the mountain people of old Formosa, a man’s status in his village was determined by the number of skulls he had collected. In addition to this, the mountain people believed that their gods wanted offerings of skulls.
Headhunting was serious business. Young mountain boys were given two toys: a small bow and arrow, and a wooden knife. When these boys played with each other, they would practice shooting arrows to kill and then cutting the heads off of their victims.
Goho was a Chinese official who was sent into the mountain region as a governor for the Chinese government. He was very good at what he did, and the mountain people respected him. He tried to convince the people that headhunting was not a good thing to do, and he tried to convince them that their gods would be just as happy with the heads of oxen or water buffalo, so the people didn’t need to collect human heads for the offerings.
Goho lived with the mountain people for many years, and for many years they stopped hunting human heads. Some people say that for forty years they didn’t hunt human heads.
But it is difficult to get people to give up traditions, no matter how bad the traditions might be. The old men still told stories of headhunting, and the young men wanted to try it, thinking that headhunting would bring them glory.
Finally, after many years, a drought came to the mountains and the crops began to fail. The people were worried that they might starve to death. They prayed to their gods for rain, and the made offerings of ox heads and buffalo heads, but the rain didn’t come, and the old men said that the gods wouldn’t give rain until they were offered a human head. The young men would have to revive the old tradition of headhunting.
Goho, the Chinese governor, tried to convince them that the gods didn’t want human heads, but they wouldn’t listen. Finally Goho offered a solution.
Goho told the villagers that there was one person they would be allowed to kill. He told them that on a certain day at a certain time they would see a man dressed entirely in red clothing walking near the temple. If, at that time, they were able to kill this man, they could cut his head off and use it as an offering.
The young men were excited as they prepared to ambush this man in red. They placed bets with each other as to who would shoot the fatal arrow. They contested with each other for the honor of cutting off his head.
When the day came, the young men were ready for the ambush. At the exact time Goho had given them, they saw a man dressed in red walking as if in prayer. His hat was pulled down over his face.
The arrows flew, the man fell, and the honored young man ran up, cut off his head, and held it up for the others to see. When they looked, they saw that it was Goho himself. He had given his own life to prevent others from being ambushed and killed.
The people were shocked, and they learned the lesson. They remembered what Goho had taught them, and they realized that he was teaching them the same lesson by his personal sacrifice.
The people gave up headhunting after that.
Remember that Goho was a Chinese governor. Several years later, the Japanese took control of Formosa, and on Goho’s grave they placed a plaque with a special “haiku” poem. A special poem was the highest honor they could give Goho, and they were honoring the sacrifice of someone who might have been called an “enemy.”
An English version of the Japanese language poem might be something like this:
Light from a candle.
Truth is seen by the people.
Candle is consumed.
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Notes:
Sources for the story of Goho:
“Formosa:
Discussion” by Dr.
Hogarth; Owen
Rutter; E.
H. de Bunsen,
Bays, Alice Anderson. Worship Programs and Stories for Young People. New York: Abingdon Press, 1938, pp. 225-226. Citation to Moon, Alan. The Epworth League Meeting. Whitmore and Smith. (nd)
In Japanese, the word “goho” means “fate” or “karma.” According to Buddhist tradition, a monk named Goho was one of the early followers of Buddha.
The following web site has a large number of writings by 19th Century travelers to Formosa. Several of them tell about the headhunting culture:
http://academic.reed.edu/formosa/texts/texts.htm
Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry using three lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables. A haiku can be about anything; however, each haiku should, traditionally, evoke a sense of place, time of day, or season. Of course, haiku cannot be translated as poetry from one language to another, because words in another language will not have the same number of syllables. Richard Davies wrote the version of the Goho story we have here, and he wrote the haiku poem at the end of the story to reflect the translation given by Owen Rutter: “A candle by consuming itself gives light to others.”
--Meditation by Richard E. Davies (copyright ©2007).