The Qauqaut () were a

Taiwanese aboriginal Taiwanese indigenous peoples (formerly Taiwanese aborigines), also known as Formosan people, Austronesian Taiwanese, Yuanzhumin or Gaoshan people, are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, with the nationally recognized subgroups numbering about ...

people who lived primarily in the town of Su-ao in Yilan County. They spoke the

Basay language Basay was a Formosan language spoken around modern-day Taipei in northern Taiwan by the Basay, Qauqaut, and Trobiawan peoples. Trobiawan, Linaw, and Qauqaut were other dialects (''see East Formosan languages''). Basay data is mostly availa ...

, which is a Kavalanic language. According to Japanese anthropologist Inō Kanori, the Qauqaut people had been assimilated by the

Kavalan people The Kavalan (endonym ; "people living in the plain"; ) or Kuvalan are an indigenous people of Taiwan. Most of them moved to the coastal area of Hualien County and Taitung County in the 19th century due to encroachment by Han settlers. Their la ...

by early 20th century. The Qauqaut people are not recognised by the government of Taiwan. According to oral tradition from various Atayal villages, the Qauqaut originally settled in the middle portion of the Takiri River (Chinese pinyin: ''Liwuhsi''). In the mid-1700s, following pressure from Atayals, they moved to the east coast down the Takiri. Later, some moved north to Langsu in

Nan'ao County Nan'ao or Nanao (), formerly romanized Namoa, is an island and county of the prefecture-level city of Shantou in Guangdong Province, China. The county spans a land area of , and sea area of . As of 2019, the county had a permanent population of ...

. Early modern Chinese documents on the Kavalan territories reported that the Qauqaut were linguistically and culturally distinct from the other Formosan ethnic groups and that they did not intermarry with the other communities. Taiwanese linguist

Paul Jen-kuei Li Paul Li, or Li Jen-kuei (; born 20 September 1936), is a research fellow at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of th ...

hypothesised that, in about 200 BCE, the Qauqaut migrated from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

to the

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...

and the

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and in around 1000 AD arrived on the east coast of Taiwan, based on his linguistic comparison with the nearby Taroko (Seediq) language of Taiwan, which he said varies greatly from the Qauqaut. This contrasts with the rest of the Taiwanese aborigines, who are said to have arrived on the island much earlier. The Qauqaut bury the dead in a sitting position, like those of neighbouring villages in southern Kavalan territory.

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* Taiwanese indigenous peoples Extinct ethnic groups {{Taiwan-ethno-group-stub

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