The Gaoshan ethnic minority

Customs and Habits

The Gaoshans are monogamous and patriarchal in family system, though the Amei tribe still retains some of the vestiges of the matriarchal practice. Commune heads are elected from among elderly women and families are headed by women, with the eldest daughter inheriting the family property and male children married off into the brides' families. In the Paiwan tribe, either the eldest son or daughter can be heir to the family property. All the Amei young men and some of the Paiwan youths have to live in a communal hall for a certain period of time before they are initiated into manhood at a special ceremony.

Gaoshan clothes are generally made of hemp and cotton. Men's wear includes capes, vests, short jackets and pants, leggings and turbans decorated with laces, shells and stones. In some areas, vests are delicately woven with rattan and coconut bark. Women wear short blouses with or without sleeves, aprons and trousers or skirts with ornaments like bracelets and ankle bracelets. They are skilled in weaving cloths and dyeing them in bright colors and they like to decorate sleeve cuffs, collars and hems of blouses with beautiful embroidery. They also use shells and animal bones as ornaments. In some places, the time-honored tradition of tattooing faces and bodies and denting the teeth has been preserved. Some elderly Gaoshan women, though having lived on the mainland among the Han people for many years, still take pride in their distinctive embroidery.

For transportation in rugged terrain, the Gaoshans have built bamboo and rattan suspension or arch bridges and cableways over steep ravines. They are also highly skilled in handicrafts. Their rattan and bamboo weaving, including baskets, hats and armors, pottery utensils, wooden mortars and pestles and dugout canoes are unique in design and decoration. In the mountains, the Cao and Bunong tribes are experts in tanning hides, while the Taiya tribe makes excellent fishing nets.

Songs and dances are very much a part of Gaoshan life. On holidays, they would gather for singing and dancing. They have many ballads, fairy tales, legends, odes to ancestors, hunting songs, dirges and work songs. Instruments include the mouth organ, nose flute, and bamboo flute. One musical form unique to the Gaoshans is a work song accompanying the pounding of rice.

Gaoshan art includes a great deal of carving and painting of human figures, animals, flowers and geometric designs on wooden lintels, panels, columns and thresholds, musical instruments and household utensils. Hunting and other aspects of life are also depicted, and figures with human heads and snake bodies are a common theme.

The Gaoshans are animists who believe in immortality and ancestor worship. They hold sacrificial rites for all kinds of occasions including hunting and fishing. The dead are buried without coffins in the village graveyard. There are vestiges of the worship of totems -- snakes and animals -- and certain taboos still remain.