For a long time, indigenous peoples lived alone in Taiwan according to their own laws. The Dutch and Spanish, the first foreign rulers in Taiwanese history, claimed their sovereignty over Taiwan in accordance with European international law, treated indigenous peoples, called ＂Formosan,＂ as subjects under European-style legal system. The Koxinga regime established by Han Chinese considered indigenous peoples with obedience to be barbarian, rather than civilized subjects, and regarded those indigenous peoples who were not ruled by this regime as non-human beings by setting up a boundary to block off them. The Qing Dynasty followed the attitude toward indigenous peoples mentioned above and thus divided them into ＂plains aborigines＂ (mature barbarian) and ＂mountain aborigines＂ (raw barbarian). The former were ruled by the Qing Empire but lived in a special area to segregate them from the Han Chinese settlers in Taiwan. The latter were not ruled by the Qing administration and resided in ＂outside borders.＂ However, because the Qing government allowed Han Chinese to lease the land of plains aborigines, their land was finally controlled by Han Chinese settlers, and plains aborigines were gradually assimilated by Han Chinese during the period of Qing’s rule in Taiwan. Furthermore, after 1874, the Qing Empire began to manage the land of mountain aborigines, who have suffered the threat from the assimilation of Han Chinese from then to the present days. A modern state began to dominate the people in Taiwan after prewar Japanese Empire acquired the sovereignty of this island. Plains aborigines were merged into the Taiwanese, called ＂islanders＂ in the positive law. Mountain aborigines, generally called ＂aborigines＂ only during the Japanese period, resided in the ＂aboriginal land,＂ where was the land of ＂outside borders＂ in the Qing period. Some aboriginal land was incorporated into ＂ordinary administrative area＂ later, and those mountain aborigines who resided in the ordinary administrative area were called ＂plains mountain aborigines.＂ Furthermore, only a part of aboriginal land was reserved for the use of ＂mountain aborigines in aboriginal land＂ by the Japanese authorities. Apparently, the living space and the number of mountain aborigines decreased under the Japanese rule. Legal affairs of mountain aborigines were managed with by the discretion of special policemen for them with the exception that some of those mountain aborigines who resided in the ordinary administrative area had opportunities to contact the modern law because of their access to the modern court. Ironically, legal traditions of mountain aborigines to a certain extent became active in their daily lives because it was not necessary for the police to govern the legal affairs of mountain aborigines by the law in colonial Taiwan, which had was always modeled on the modern law shaped by the West. In post-war Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime considered mountain aborigines as a special group of peoples who resided in ＂mountain area,＂ namely aboriginal land in the Japanese period, and therefore called them ＂mountain compatriots.＂ Those citizens belonging to mountain compatriots were mostly treated in law the same as those of other citizens. However, some of mountain aborigines did not reside in the so-called mountain area after the Japanese rule in Taiwan. As a consequence, mountain aborigines were divided into ＂mountain-area mountain compatriots＂ and ＂plains mountain compatriots＂ in the positive law in postwar Taiwan. The existence of mountain aborigines has been completely denied in the law. Not surprisingly, the scope and living space of indigenous peoples were reduced again by the KMT regime. Under the policy of assimilation, the legal traditions of indigenous peoples were always neglected by the positive law in postwar Taiwan. Until the 1990s, there was a big change for the legal attitude toward indigenous peoples in Taiwan. The indigenous peoples have become an entity in politics and in the positive law after several amendments of the constitution of Taiwan in the 1990s. Many rights of indigenous peoples have been recognized in statutes of present Taiwan; however, the enforcement of these statutes is still poor. The idea of rule of law is not significant for indigenous peoples unless the legal culture of them has been adopted or respected by the law.