Pingtung County’s Mudan Township (牡丹) has erected a statue of Paiwan leader Aruqu Kavulungan and his son, who were killed in the Mudan Incident, with the hope of sharing the Paiwan perspective of the incident.
The Mudan Incident occurred in 1871 when Ryukuan sailors were shipwrecked off Hengchun Peninsula.
They were massacred by Paiwan when the sailors ended up in their village of Kuskus which today is Gaoshih Village (高士) in Mudan.
The incident is usually told from the Japanese perspective. It was used by the Japanese as a pretense for the 1874 invasion of Taiwan which at the time was