Abstract
Puyuma Rituality (Taiwan) by Josiane Cauquelin The Puyuma, an austronesian speaking group, live in the south-east of Taiwan. Theu number about 6 000 squattered on ten villages, but only the one called Puyuma, with 1 300 personns, is being studied in this paper. This village presents a duale structure of two ritual moities, the mountain side and the sea side (or the upper and lower side). The ritual life is part of this system and allow the understanding of the territorial unity thanks to the complementary roles of men and women in time and space. Women holds the inner and domestic life, they toil the soil; they are shamans and deal with the daily problems. They settle the horizontal relations of the present time, their offers are ponctual. Men move outside and protect the territory, they hunt; they are priests and assume the socio-cosmic unity. They are in charge of the vertical relations with the mythical ancestors and use the extraordinary time given by the big festival mangayaw to put the society back into order.
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