Hmong Culture ID

The Hmong culture belongs to the highland peoples of southern China and the mountains of mainland Southeast Asia. Speakers of a Hmong-Mien language, they long maintained their independence in the high country, apart from the lowland states.

Hmong communities practised shifting cultivation on the mountainsides, growing maize, rice, and other crops, and adapted their farming and settlement to the steep, forested terrain of their homeland.

Society was organised around patrilineal clans that bound far-flung communities together, and religious life centred on the veneration of ancestors and the spirits of the natural world, guided by shamans.

Holding to their highland way of life across many borders, the Hmong preserved a strong and distinct identity among the peoples of the region.