Due to cultural and economic exchanges with the Han, more and more Yi people learn to use the Han language and characters in daily life. Most Yi people engage in agriculture and a small percentage of them raise livestock. People living in the plains take rice, maize, wheat and yams as their staple food while those in the frigid mountainous areas mostly depend on maize, buckwheat and yams. Complements to their main food source include vegetable, legume, fruits, pork, mutton and beef. Fierce warriors, the Yi evolved an aristocratic society. Even their slaves had slaves. They based their religion on the reading of sacred writings.
The Yi are found mainly in the Yunnan Province and also in Sichuan, Guizhou Provinces and the Guangxi Autonomous Region. The Yi people in southern Yunnan live in two-story adobe houses. The kitchen and cattle shed are usually on the first floor, and the living room is on the second. The flat roof is used as a veranda. They are part of the Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman ethno linguistic group.
