17/06/2026
I'm proud to be part of ivatan
Yesterday, a group of people from Lanyu Island—also known as Pongso no Tao, Irala, Orchid Island, Diami, or Y’ami—arrived on Batan Island aboard their traditional large boat, the Chinedkeran, to reconnect with the Ivatans after nearly three centuries of separation.
The people of Lanyu once maintained regular contact with the Ivatans, but these interactions ceased following an incident that is no longer remembered in Batanes. In 1801, the Dominican missionary Fr. Tomás Sánchez recorded what the people of Itbayat Island still recalled about this event. He wrote:
“...on another [island] located toward the Northwest called Diami, which they also see during very clear weather. There are settlements there, and they have the same customs and language as the people of Batanes. In ancient times, they all traded with one another, which ceased because the people of Basay [Batan Island] killed some who had come in a tatala [traditional vessel], and only one person managed to escape with it; he reached Itbayat carried by the currents, and from there he managed to cross over to his own island.
Since this clash, which must have happened ninety years ago, there has been no further communication; yet, even after so much time, they keep it very much in mind, for it must be about ten years ago that some Batanes natives were blown off course [adrift], and they [the inhabitants of Diami] robbed them of everything they were carrying and put one to death.
Those who have passed by there say that there are quite a number of people on that island, that it is smaller than this island of Ibatan [Batan Island], and that not far from it, other inhabited islands can be sighted.”
Source: Fr. Tomas Sanchez, OP. "Carta a Muy Reverendo Padre Procurador General Rafael Serra", August 3, 1801. Documentos de Batanes, Tomo 3, Pp. 188-196
Photo from Tadao Kano and Kokichi Segawa. 1956. “An Illustrated Ethnography of Formosan Aborigines—The Yami”, Tokyo: Maruzen Company, Ltd. p. 344.
