Rukai

Rukai communities inhabited the southern reaches of Taiwan's Central Mountain Range. Their societies recognised hereditary chiefs, nobles and commoners, with land and ceremonial privileges reflecting differences in status. In western Rukai villages, houses were built of slate, with timber beams and columns; the chief's larger house and the standing stone before it marked a place for assemblies. Carvings of the hundred-pace viper were associated with ancestral traditions and chiefly privilege, while weaving was carried out in workshops beside the family houses.