About Smangus

The Tayal believe that 400 years ago, a great chief Mangus led a group of Tayal from Jen-ai Township in Nantou County northward across Tapachien Mountain, the holy mountain of the Tayal, and settled along the crest line at the northern end of Syue Mountain. Centuries later, his descendants named the village Smangus in memory of Mangus.

Smangus Village is located at an elevation of 1,500 meters in Chian-shih Township in Hsinchu County. The village was once known as the Village of Darkness because access road to the outside was completed only in 1995, and it was the last village in Taiwan to have electricity. Things improved in 1991 after tribal elders and local residents found a cypress forest east of their village. Discovery of the cypress forest expedited the building of access roads and provided opportunities for eco-tourism in the area.

It is a village where community is everything – the only place in Taiwan that practices common ownership of land and property. About one hundred village residents from 28 households share their money, and jointly managing the forest and land of their ancestors in an arrangement called tnunan. In Tayal, the phrase literally means to firmly interlace the sets of yearns during the weaving process to form finely crafted fabric or cloth. Each and every member of the tribe believes in unity, in sustainable development and sharing. They earn their keep as guardians of the ancient, world-renowned cypress forests that attract thousands from all over Taiwan and overseas.