Description of the Mosuo Minority

Mosuo Culture

Mosuo Culture has attracted a lot of interest in recent years. There have been books written about them, documentaries produced about them, and scores of anthropologists coming to study them. Yet, for all of this, much of the information that is out there about the Mosuo is misleading at best, and at times damaging. We hope to provide more accurate information here, to help people understand this unique and fascinating culture!

There is not that much known about the history/origins of the Mosuo culture. The Mosuo don't have a written language (but we are working to help them develop one!), so their entire history is an oral history, passed down from generation to generation, mostly through local priests called "Daba". There are occasional references in Chinese written history, but due to the many different names that have been used throughout history, it can often be difficult (or impossible) to demonstrate that these definitely refer to the Mosuo. So much of what is "known" about the Mosuo is a patchwork collection of "most likely" hypotheses.

Of course, this inevitably leads to different/competing theories, and if you do study anthropological writings about the Mosuo, you likely will end up hearing different ideas. Some people trace Mosuo heritage back to Mongolia; others consider the Mosuo to be native to the Yunnan/Sichuan area. In the end, it can be difficult to prove/disprove any of these theories; so this site, for the most part, focuses instead on the situation today, and on those aspects of history that are documented.

Three aspects of the Mosuo culture that tend to attract the most attention are their practice of a system that is similar to matriarchal systems; their practice of "walking marriages", an alternative system whereby women can choose/change partners as they wish, and couples do not live together or get married; and their integration of Tibetan Buddhism and their own religion, "Daba". As each topic is quite complex, we've designated separate sections for each subject. 

The Mosuo are a Chinese ethnic minority group who live high in the Himalayas, in an area straddling Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, close to the Tibetan border. Although officially classified as part of the Naxi minority, they are actually quite a different group, with different language, culture, religion, etc.

Most people who know about the Mosuo tend to identify them with Lugu Lake, however the majority of Mosuo do not live at the lake, but rather in small towns and villages scattered throughout the mountains. Estimates as to their numbers vary, but are most likely around 40,000. 

The Mosuo economy is largely agrarian, and they are capable of producing most of what they need for daily living. In the past, Mosuo men would take trading caravans to other parts of China, to buy/trade products they could not produce locally. Unlike most of China, the staple food is potato, rather than rice.

The average annual income for the majority of Mosuo would be around US$150-200, which is quite low even by Chinese standards. This does not mean that the Mosuo are starving to death; they are quite able to provide for their basic needs. However, it does mean that even relatively small costs for things such as education, travel, etc., can be prohibitively expensive.

There are several other minorities who live in the same area, primarily the Yi, the Naxi, and the Pumi. Each has its own unique culture; and in some cases, some intermixing of cultures has taken place, lending even greater variety to the local culture. So depicting any of these minorities as being "like this" can be rather misleading.

Matriarchal/Matrilineal Culture

The Mosuo culture is most frequently described as a matriarchal culture; in fact, the Mosuo themselves frequently use this description, to attract tourism and interest in their culture.   Sometimes, the Mosuo will be described instead as "matrilineal", which is probably more accurate, but still doesn't reflect the full truth.

The fact is, the Mosuo culture defies categorization within traditional definitions. It is true that they have aspects of a matriarchal culture, in that women are the head of the house, property is passed through the female line, and women tend to make the business decisions. But political power tends to be in the hands of males, which disqualifies them as a true matriarchy.

And it is true that Mosuo families tend to trace their lineage through the female side of the family (they may sometimes not even know who the father of a particular child is, so tracing through the paternal line is impossible). But there is also a practice in which families that don't have a female to take the role of a family's matriarch may "adopt" a woman from another family, and she will take over as head of the house when the current matriarch dies. Yet she, and her offspring, will be included in the "family geneology".

Some anthropologists studying the Mosuo describe it as a culture that focuses not so much on the female lineage, as on the lineage of the house itself. Mosuo usually live in large, extended families, with many generations living together. It is not uncommon for families to "adopt" outsiders into their family. This may be to maintain gender balances; it may be because another family has gotten too small to maintain its numbers; it may be due to orphaning of a child, etc. But the thing is, once adopted, that person is considered a part of the "house", on equal footing with everyone else in the house, and sharing in that house's history/heritage.

There is also a very important historical component which is often unknown to (or ignored by) those studying the Mosuo. Historically, the Mosuo actually had a feudal system in which a small "nobility" controlled a larger "peasant" population. The Mosuo nobility practiced a more "traditional" patriarchal system, which encouraged marriage (usually within the "nobility"), and in which men were the head of the house.  

It has been theorized that the "matriarchal" system of the lower classes may have been enforced (or at least encouraged) by the higher classes as a way of preventing threats to their own power. Since leadership was hereditary, and determined through the male family line, it virtually eliminated potential threats to leadership by having the peasant class trace their lineage through the female line. Therefore, attempts to depict the Mosuo culture as some sort of idealized "matriarchal" culture in which women have all the rights, and where everyone has much more freedom, are often based on lack of knowledge of this history; the truth is that for much of their history, the Mosuo "peasant" class were subjugated and sometimes treated as little better than slaves.  

The truth is, as in most situations, both more complicated, and more fascinating. There is a very viable argument to be made that the "matriarchal" system of the Mosuo was actually enforced to keep them in servitude to the ruling Mosuo class. Yet, practically speaking, this system has led to significant cultural differences from which many other cultures could learn. Mosuo families have an incredible internal cohesiveness and stability; and certainly, Mosuo women do not (within their culture) face many of the struggles and barriers that women in many other cultures do.

Walking Marriages

Probably the most famous - and most misunderstood - aspect of Mosuo culture is their practice of "walking marriages" (or "zou hun" in Chinese), so called because the men will walk to the house of their "partner" at night, but return to their own home in the morning.

The Mosuo generally live in large extended families, with many generations (great grandparents, grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc.) all living together within the same house. For the most part, everyone lives within communal quarters, without private bedrooms or living areas. However, women between certain ages (see the section on "coming of age" below) can have their own private bedrooms.

Traditionally, a Mosuo woman who is interested in a particular man will invite him to come and spend the night with her in her room. Such pairings are generally conducted secretly, so the man will walk to her house after dark (thus the description of "walking marriage"), spend the night with her, and return home early the next morning.

While it is possible for a Mosuo woman to change partners as often as she likes - and in fact, having only one sexual partner would be neither expected nor common - the majority of such couplings will actually be more long term. And few Mosuo women will have more than one partner at a time. More than one anthropologist has described this system as "serial monogamy"; and, in fact, many such pairings may last for a lifetime.

Even when a pairing may be long term, however, the man will never go to live with the woman's family, or vice versa. He will continue to live with and be responsible to his family; she will continue to live with and be responsible to her family. There will be no sharing of property.

Most significantly, when children are born, the father may have little or no responsibility for his offspring (in fact, some children may not even know who their father is). If a father does want to be involved with the upbringing of his children, he will bring gifts to the mother's family, and state his intention to do so. This gives him a kind of official status within that family, but does not actually make him part of the family. Regardless of whether the father is involved or not, the child will be raised in the mother's family, and take on her family name.

This does not mean, however, that the men get of scot-free, with no responsibilities for children. Quite the opposite, in fact. Every man will share responsibilities in caring for all children born to women within their own family, be they a sister, niece, aunt, etc. In fact, children will grow up with many "aunts" and "uncles", as all members of the extended family share in the duties of supporting and raising the children.

The result - as different as it may be from other systems - is a family structure which is, in fact, extremely stable. Think about it. Divorce is a non-issue ... there are no questions over child custody (the child belongs to the mother's family), splitting of property (property is never shared), etc. If a parent dies, there is still a large extended family to provide care.  

One particularly important result is the lack of preference for a particular gender. For example, in most cultures, the female will join the male's family when she gets married. The result is that if a couple has a lot of female children, they will lose them after marriage, and have no one to care for them in old age; but if they have male children, their sons (and their sons' wives) will care for them. So, in poorer populations in particular, there will be a strong preference for male children.

However, among the Mosuo, since neither male nor female children will ever leave home, there is no particular preference for one gender over the other. The focus instead tends to be on maintaining some degree of gender balance, having roughly the same proportion of male to female within a household. In situations where this becomes unbalanced, it is not uncommon for Mosuo to adopt children of the appropriate gender (or even for two households to "swap" male/female children).

Religion

The Mosuo actually practice two different religions. They have their own religion, called Daba, which has been a part of their culture for thousands of years, and which is more of an animistic/ancestor worship religion. And they also practice Tibetan Buddhism, which only became part of their culture in more recent history, but today plays a far larger role in their daily life.

If you visit a Mosuo community, you will see the impact of Tibetan Buddhism everywhere.   Prayer flags hanging from houses and trees. Women walking around spinning prayer wheels. Tibetan monks walking the streets, or inhabiting monasteries. It certainly would be considered the predominant religion among the Mosuo.

The Mosuo even have their own "living Buddha", a man said to be a reincarnation of one the great Tibetan spiritual leaders. He usually lives in Lijiang, but returns to the main Tibetan temple in Yongning for important spiritual holidays. Many Mosuo families will send at least one male to be trained as a monk, and in recent years, the number of such monks has increased quite significantly.

If you visit a Mosuo home, you will almost always see a statue of some Buddhist god above the cooking fire; and they will usually put a small portion of whatever they are cooking in the fire, as an offering to their god. Tibetan Buddhist holidays and festivals are participated in by the entire Mosuo community.

Daba, on a day-to-day basis, plays a far smaller role in the lives of the Mosuo. You might compare their practice of Daba to the practice of Christianity in many western homes, where people basically go to church for weddings, funerals, baptisms, Christmas, and Easter. The Daba priest (or shaman) is also called "daba", and is mostly called on to perform traditional ceremonies at key events, such as naming a child, a child's coming of age ceremony, a funeral, or special events such as the Spring Festival. They will also be called on to perform specific rites if someone is sick.

Thus, both religions are integral to Mosuo culture; but Tibetan Buddism plays a far greater role in the daily life of the Mosuo than does Daba.

This does not mean, however, that Daba is unimportant or irrelevant; quite the opposite. The Daba religion is actually the repository of most of the Mosuo culture and history. Since the Mosuo have no written language, their history/traditions are passed on orally from generation to generation; and it is primarily the responsibility of the Daba priest to memorize this, and keep it for future generations.

This has resulted in something of a cultural crisis; due to past policies, which made being a Daba priest illegal (this policy has now ceased), there are very few remaining dabas; and the few that remain are mostly old men. Without a written record of their oral histories, and without a younger generation of dabas to pass their oral history on to, there is a great danger that most of the Mosuo history/heritage will be lost forever when these men die.

This is one of the reasons for the work of the Lugu Lake Cultural Development Association to develop a written form of the Mosuo language; so that we can then transcribe this tremendous oral heritage and preserve it for posterity, before these men die, and it is lost forever.

Mosuo & Naxi

The Mosuo are officially classified as part of the Naxi minority. This often causes a great deal of confusion, because the two cultures get mixed up.

The Mosuo culture is distinctly different from Naxi culture. They have a different language, practice a different religion, and have a completely different culture. However, due to some historical confusions (at various times in history, the Chinese term "Mosuo" was actually used to describe different ethnic groups, including the Naxi), and lack of real knowledge about the Mosuo, they ended up being grouped with the Naxi.

Coming of Age

The coming of age ceremony, usually at around 12-14 years of age, is one of the most important events in a Mosuo child's life. Before this ceremony, Mosuo children will dress the same, and are restricted from certain aspects of Mosuo life. But once they come of age, girls are given their skirts, and men are given their pants (thus, it is called the "skirt ceremony" for girls, and the "pants ceremony" for boys).

Before coming of age, children are forbidden from participating in certain activities, particularly those that involve religious ceremonies. Also, a child who dies before having this ceremony will not receive the traditional funeral.

After coming of age, Mosuo females can get their own private bedroom; and, once past puberty, can begin to invite partners for "walking marriages".

Daily Life

The Mosuo are primarily an agrarian culture, and their daily life reflects this. Most work centers on raising crops (grains, potatoes, etc.), and caring for livestock (yaks, water buffalos, sheep, goats, poultry, etc.). So far as dietary needs go, the Mosuo are largely self-sufficient, able to raise everything they need for day-to-day life. Meat is a significant part of the Mosuo diet, but lacking refrigeration, most meat tends to be salted/smoked, to be preserved for future use. In fact, the Mosuo are somewhat famous for their preserved pork, which is really a large slab of a pig's carcass that is preserved and can be kept for 10 years or more, used when needed.

Local economies tend to be more of a barter economy, with people simply trading for what they need with each other; however, as interaction with the outside world becomes more common, there is also greater use of a cash-based system of trade. As average incomes are quite low (as low as $US 150-200 in some areas), there are severe financial restrictions when cash is necessary (such as for education, travel, etc.).

The Mosuo also have their own local alcohol, called Sulima, which is kind of like a strong wine. It is drunk quite regularly, and almost always offered to guests. It will also be drunk at all important ceremonies and festivals.

Mosuo homes are generally designed as four rectangular structures, built in a square, with an open central courtyard. Animals and humans will live together in this home, with much of the first floor dedicated to housing for the livestock (water buffalos, horses, geese, poultry, etc.). It is, in fact, not uncommon to have animals wandering in and out of the house all day. The first floor will also have the main cooking area, and the main eating/visiting area. The second floor is used most commonly for storage, and for the private rooms for Mosuo women (the rest of the family will sleep in communal quarters).

Electricity has only recently been introduced to Mosuo communities; in fact, many villages still have no electricity. And running water is almost non-existent, tending to rely more on local wells or streams. So living in a Mosuo village can be quite an experience for those more used to "modern luxuries". But, on the other hand, things are changing very quickly, and it is not that uncommon to find at least one or two homes in a village that will have a satellite dish in their courtyard, and a karaoke machine hooked up to their TV.

As would be expected, change is very rapid, and has a significant impact on Mosuo culture and daily life. Many younger people seek to leave home to work in larger cities; and many younger people are forgetting their language/culture in the face of "modern" development. On the other hand, many Mosuo are very proud of their culture, and still practice many of their traditional beliefs. This mixture of modern and traditional is very interesting to see, and an experience not to be missed!

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