依據北部長老教會歷史的紀錄，馬偕在臺傳教29年，共設立60間教堂， 其中最深入內山的教堂為 獅潭底（內獅潭），傳教對象為原住民 南 賽夏族。 1873 為馬偕到北臺灣的第 2 年，便進入獵人頭區域 南賽夏族進行 傳教，當時新港道卡斯族人為簽訂 「墾青山契字」，請馬偕一同前往 傳教。馬偕也意圖翻越大雪山，到東部與生番溝通船難事件。雖然順利於 1873 年 10 月 10 日設立獅潭底教會，但當時獅潭底聚落並不平靜，當地賽 夏族不時與漢人（客家人）、平埔族（道卡斯族人）、原住民（泰雅族人） 發生廝殺爭地的事件。而同年年底馬偕所派出的傳教師也因此遇害，迫使終 止設立 3 個月的教會。 1875 年清政府施行「開山撫番」的政策，全臺灣的族群分佈有了改變。 獅潭山區最著名的兩位拓墾家：黃南球、劉緝光，藉著武力驅逐當地的原住 民，獲取豐富的樟腦資源。使得 1892 年當馬偕再次進入獅潭底傳教時，早 已找不到當年傳教的南賽夏部落，取而代之的為漢人（客家人）、平埔族（道 卡斯族）的移民。

According to the record of the northern Presbyterian church history, Mackay had built 60 churches during his 29-year-long missionary work, among which the most in-to-the-mountain one is called Sai-tham-toe while the target for missionary is the South SaySiyat. Since 1873, the second year after Mackay arrived the northern Taiwan, he entered an area for head hunting, the South SaySiyat tribe, to carry out missionary work. At that time the people of ShinKan “DaoKaShih tribe” invited Mackay to carry out the missionary work with them just to grow strength upon signing the contract of “KenTsingSanChiChih”. Though the Sai-tham-toe church was successfully established on October 10th , 1873, the settlement of Sai-tham-toe was not peaceful at the time. Killing events occurred from time to time as the local SaySiyat tribe fought for lands with the Hans (Hakka), the Plains Aborigines (DaoKaShih), and the native aborigines (TaiYa). At the year-end of the same year, the missionaries sent by Mackay were also killed, because of which the church established for just three months was terminated. In 1875, the Tsing Dynasty deployed a policy called “KaiSanFuFang” which is to develop the mountain area and educate the local savages, since then the distribution of tribes of Taiwan has changed. Two most famous pioneers of Sai-tham-toe mountain area were NanCho Huang and ChiKuang Liu, who used force to expel the aborigines and gained plentiful resource of camphor. This made Mackay unable to locate the South SaySiyat that he once carried out the missionary work to and instead the Hans (Hakka) and the Plain Aborigines (DowKaShih tribe) settled in this area.

馬偕；長老教會；傳教；獅潭；原住民；賽夏族

Mackay；Presbyterian Church；missionary work；Sai-tham-toe；Plain Aborigines；SaySiyat