連載於雜誌《太陽》的〈生蕃探險記〉，可說是日治時代中最早以臺灣原住民為題材的記述之一。日治初期，關於原住民的第一手資料，大多出自於位居山地行政第一線的日本警察官之手。然而警察官的「原住民記述」，多是以進行統治為前提的行政或法律文書，鮮少有以讀者大眾為目標的作品。本稿將以日治初期的山地警察官所寫的〈生蕃探險記〉為例，藉由探究探險記的生產背景與經過，以及探險記中呈現的觀點，一探日治初期對於臺灣原住民的認識。

“SEIBANTANKENKI” (A Description of Taiwanese Savages) were published in the magazine Taiyao (The Sun) as a series of short stories. They were some of the early documents focusing on Taiwanese aborigines in the Japanese colonial period. In the early years of the Japanese colonial governance, most of the first-handed “Works of Taiwanese Aborigines” were written by Japanese police officers residing in the mountains. Most of the police officers’ writings were administrative or legal paper works based on the needs of governance; few of them were written for the general public. This paper will use “SEIBANTANKENKI”, which was written by a police officer in the early Japanese colonial period, as an example to explore the process and background of the writing, in order to understand how people perceive Taiwanese aborigines around that time.