Also first named by Inō Kanori I think. He and his contemporaries lumped Seediq in with Atayal based on some linguistic similarities. The Seediq Truku split is more political than linguistic though.
This isn’t meant to be a super-informed take. But this Korean influencer’s perspective is interesting. I used auto-translate (don’t want to pretend my Korean is that good).
He said that traditionally, Taiwan has hit with a lot of power, because of Taiwanese aborigines. Taiwan’s baseball has improved over the last ten years. Taiwanese have “southern blood,” (whatever that means) and are like Samoans (wow that’s a stretch). He said that if you look at them, they definitely look different than people from mainland China. He pointed to the “person with lots of hair” (Giljegeljaw). “They have a similar feel to Samoans.”
Maybe we can recruit Polynesians and naturalize them.
They are the largest Indigenous group in Taiwan (aka Amis). They do seem to be quite good at this sort of thing, as well as other high-profile sports such as Olympic weightlifting.
Pangcah was also the earliest group of native Formosans to play baseball at a level that rivaled the Japanese. See my post about Hualien based Noko Baseball Team, their barnstorming tour in Japan, and how 3 of them became the first Taiwanese to play in Japan’s professional baseball.
Many of Nokos’ players had grandchildren and relatives that became Taiwan’s professional players.
I was in Hualien this past weekend. My wife’s hometown (she’s Amis), like all places in the countryside of Taiwan, is a bit run down. But I have noticed now several times that the baseball field, which is used mostly by kids in elementary school, is very well kept (almost immaculate). I know that this particular neighborhood has produced a good number of pro baseball players over the years.
And it’s obvious looking at China, Japan, and Korea that it’s not genetic, but purely cultural. If family and government priorities change, this would be enough to produce more sports greatness among the Han population. I know several non-aboriginal Taiwanese who ended up excelling in sports in their late 30s and early to mid 40s, but they did this using their own time and money, and well after the pressures of school were gone. Who knows what they could have done if they pursued sports starting at a much younger age.