Mosuo
Chinese minority people
The Mosuo (Chinese: 摩梭; pinyin: Mósuō; also spelled Moso, Mosso or Musuo) or Na, often incorrectly referred to as the Naxi, are an ethnic group living in the Hengduan mountains of China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. They currently have a population of approximately 40,000, many of them living in the Yongning region, around Lugu Lake, in Labai, in Muli, and in Yanyuan.
Although the Mosuo are culturally distinct from the Nashi, the Chinese government claims they are the same as the Nashi people. The Nashi vastly outnumber the Mosuo at around 320,000 people spread throughout different provinces in China. Their culture has been documented by indigenous scholars Lamu Gatusa, Latami Dashi, Yang Lifen, and He Mei.
Introduction
The Mosuo are often referred to as China's "last matrilineal society". The Mosuo themselves may also often use the description matriarchal, which they believe increases interest in their culture and thus attracts tourism. However, the terms matrilineal and matriarchal do not reflect the full complexity of their social organization. In fact, it is not easy to categorize Mosuo culture within traditional anthropological categories. They have aspects of a matriarchal culture: women are often the head of the house, inheritance is through the female line, and women make business decisions.
“Mosuo” enters the record as chinese minority people. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mosuo, Chinese and minority can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Mosuo” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mosuo, Chinese and minority provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1929582.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Mosuo”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Mosuo primary sources, Mosuo archive and Mosuo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Mosuo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.