Leaving Mother Lake

Yang Erche Namu · first published 2003 · ISBN 9780316124713

Yang Erche Namu recounts her childhood within the Mosuo ethnic group in Yunnan province, China, a society organized around maternal lineages rather than nuclear families. Co-authored with anthropologist Christine Mathieu, the memoir explores kinship patterns and gender relationships largely unfamiliar to Western readers. The book provides an autobiographical window into a culture where romantic bonds operate outside marriage and inheritance follows the female line.