A people living in southern China, North Vietnam, northern Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma), and numbering about 4 million (1984). The Yao language may belong to either the Sino-Tibetan or the Thai language family. The Yao incorporate elements of ancestor worship in their animist religion.
The Yao are generally hill-dwelling farmers practising shifting cultivation, growing rice, vegetables, and also opium poppies. Some are nomadic.
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