The term ‘Puyuma’ came into usage only at the end of the 19th century with Ino’s (1898) classification of the Formosan ethnic groups/languages into seven groups: Atayal, Bunun, Tsou, Supaiwan [Paiwan], Tsarisen [Rukai], Puyuma and Ami. Since the early 20th century, outsiders have tried to impose – with varied degrees of success – other ethnonyms to the Puyuma. This paper shows that the word puyuma actually comes from pu-uma and was actually conferred to this group to refer to a drastic social change, i.e., the entrance into the modern world, the coming to an end of male (practitioners)/hunting practices and their being thrown into the feminine world of farming/agriculture.