Hani

The Hani, who call themselves Haqniq, are Lolo-speaking people of the Lolo-Burmese branch of the Sino-Tibetan family, most settled in the Ailao Mountains of southern Yunnan between the Mekong and Red River; related groups in northern Vietnam and Laos are known as the Ho.

Their ancestors are traced to the ancient Qiang of the Qinghai–Tibetan plateau, who drifted south before about 200 CE, and oral lore says they split from the Yi about fifty generations ago. By about 700 CE they were carving terraced rice fields into the high mountain slopes, building an agroecosystem of forest, village, paddy and stream worked ever since.

Their language preserves the memory of an ancient script said to be lost on the migration from Sichuan; Hani religion centred on ancestor spirits and ritual specialists, with some communities later taking up Theravada Buddhism.