What religion are the Mosuo?
Mosuo people are Tibetan Buddhists, but they have their own internally cultivated religion called Daba. The Mosuo religion practices that combine both Tibetan Buddhism and Daba are apparent on a day-to-day basis, as well as their agrarian and bartering lifestyles.
Why do Mosuo practice walking marriage?
Most famous among Mosuo traditions are the practice of a “walking marriage”: Women may choose and change partners as they wish, and because Mosuo children stay with their mothers’ families for life, men only visit their female partners by walking to their houses at night.
What does a Mosuo family look like?
The Mosuo generally live in large extended families with many generations under one roof. Children in a household are taken care of by their mother’s family. Their only male influences are their mother’s brothers. Women who have participated in the coming of age ceremony are allotted a private room.
What do the Mosuo call their type of marriage?
The Mosuo are best known for their tradition of zouhun, or walking marriage, in which youths who have gone through a coming of age ceremony at the age of 13 are permitted to choose their own axia, or relationship.
What are advantages of walking marriages?
This walking marriage system is a pure system, and it is based on the love, without any social rules. Such marriage practice has many positive outcomes. First, it gives both participants equal measures of freedom. It can be initiated at will and ended in the same manner.
What are the typical marriage patterns for the Mosuo people and how do those patterns reflect the concept of a walking marriage?
Instead of a civil marriage, the Mosuo have “walking marriages” (“Zouhun” in Chinese), an ongoing sexual relationship based on mutual affection [3]. Men usually visit their lovers at night in the woman’s house, and return to their own maternal family in the early morning [4].
What is Mosuo culture?
One of the best known aspects of Mosuo culture is its practice of “walking marriage” (走婚 zǒu hūn in Chinese), although this practice remains poorly understood.
Who are China’s Mosuo tribe?
Naju Dorma, 73, and Lacuo Dorma, 66, from the village of Luoshui, don traditional Mosuo clothing. But this ancient tribe with surprisingly “modern” values is in high demand. Tourists visit them in their hundreds, anthropologists flock to examine them, while the Chinese government sees them as little more than a lucrative commodity.
What are Mosuo practices of sexual union like?
Shih (2010) offers the most sophisticated anthropological account of Mosuo practices of sexual union. “All on-going sexual relationships in Mosuo culture are called “walking marriages.”
What is the Mosuo family structure?
The Mosuo family structure depends on the tradition of “walking marriage”: When a couple has children, the father continues to live with his own mother and siblings, “walking” back and forth between his partner and children’s home; and his own. This romantic partnership has not traditionally been bound by law.