Guides · Fri 30 Oct 2026
Pasta'ay 2026: the Saisiyat festival that comes every other year
The Saisiyat people's most important rite returns in late November 2026, and this is a grand festival year, the once in a decade edition with the red and white sinaton banner. The dates on our calendar are expected, not confirmed, and most of the rite is not open to visitors at all. What Pasta'ay is, which parts an outsider may respectfully watch, and the rules that are not negotiable.
The short answer: Pasta'ay, often rendered in English as the Dwarf Spirit Festival, is the most important ritual of the Saisiyat people of the Miaoli and Hsinchu hills. It is held around the full moon of the tenth lunar month, after the harvest. Since the Japanese era it has run on a two level cycle, a smaller festival every two years and a grand festival every ten, and 2026 is a grand festival year, following 2016. Our calendar lists the Saisiyat Pasta'ay Festival 2026 across an expected span of Monday 23 to Friday 27 November 2026, and marks it expected in bold terms: clan elders from the north and south groups meet a month or two ahead to fix the exact dates, and no confirmed 2026 dates had been published when this guide was written. Treat the span as a planning window, not a promise, and check the event page again before you travel.
Two grounds, two groups
The Saisiyat are a clan society, and Pasta'ay is kept by two ritual groups. The southern group opens the rite at Xiangtian Lake in Donghe Village, Nanzhuang Township, in Miaoli County. The northern group continues the next day at Da'ai Village in Wufeng Township, Hsinchu County. The Zhu clan presides over the rite in both places, in the south through its senior line and in the north by rotation among its families, according to the Bureau of Cultural Heritage register entry for Pasta'ay, which is the official source our listing is checked against. The register describes a rite attended by the whole people, and that is the first thing a visitor should understand: this is a community carrying out an obligation, not a show staged for an audience.
The story the rite answers
The Saisiyat tradition, as the register records it, holds that the ta'ay, a short statured people, once lived beside the Saisiyat and taught them farming, medicine, song, dance and ritual knowledge. The Saisiyat honoured them as benefactors and feasted them at harvest. The relationship ended in violence: after ta'ay men mistreated Saisiyat women, the Saisiyat killed the ta'ay, and the survivors cursed them. Pasta'ay exists to mourn the ta'ay and appease their spirits, and its songs, said to have been taught by the two ta'ay who survived, carry both accusation and instruction: treat kin and friends well, work hard, be frugal, remember where things come from. Read the story that way and the mood of the rite makes sense. It is solemn, at times mournful, and it runs through the night.
How the rite unfolds
Once the elders set the date, preparations begin. The ritual songs, which may not be sung at any other time, are rehearsed under experienced singers, and silvergrass is tied on people, houses and tools for protection. The rite itself opens at dawn with the first summoning song, raraol, and offerings of pounded glutinous rice cake, wine and fish for the ta'ay spirits. There follow three continuous nights of ceremonial song and dance: welcoming the spirits, entertaining them, expelling them, and finally, at dawn, sending them off, closing with rites that remove the silvergrass knots and break the hazel frames. Dancers wear hip bells, tabaa'sang, whose sound marks the steps. In a grand festival year the ground also carries the sinaton, the tall red and white banner of the rite, which the ta'ay are said to gather around to watch.
What visitors may do, and what they may not
This section matters more than any other in this guide. Only part of Pasta'ay is open to outsiders: the entertaining phase, watched from the designated viewing area at the edge of the ground. The welcoming and sending off rites are not open to visitors, and no amount of planning changes that. The sinaton banner must never be touched by an outsider, and it must stay upright for the whole rite; the community believes a fallen banner invites calamity, so keep well clear of it. Conduct rules bind everyone present: no quarrelling, no mockery, no treating the ground as a festival fairground. Go quietly, dress plainly, follow the stewards' instructions on where to stand and whether photography is allowed at that moment, and leave if you are asked to. If that sounds restrictive, it is meant to. Being present at all is a concession the community makes, and it can be withdrawn.
Planning, honestly
Because the dates are set late and announced through community channels, build flexibility into any trip: hold the late November window, base yourself in Nanzhuang or in the Miaoli and Hsinchu foothills rather than committing to one night in one place, and expect mountain roads to take longer than the map suggests. If the confirmed dates land outside your trip, or if you would rather learn without intruding, the Saisiyat Folklore Museum stands beside Xiangtian Lake, with exhibitions on Saisiyat life and the rite itself, and it is the right place to understand Pasta'ay before deciding whether to attend. Our event listing carries the expected span, the two grounds and the official register source, and we will update it when the elders' dates are published.
More reading on the articles page, or go straight to the events calendar.