Day Tour to Rongjiang Basha Miao Last Gunmen Tribe

The only people in China still legally allowed to carry guns. The Basha Miao village (Basha Miao Zhai) sits on a forested hilltop above Congjiang and Rongjiang in southeast Guizhou. It is one of the most extraordinary minority communities left in China: about 2,000 Miao people who never accepted the firearms confiscation that swept rural China in the mid-twentieth century, and who today are formally permitted to keep traditional hunting rifles — a unique cultural-exception status. The men wear their hair in a topknot — the hugun — shaved bald around the sides, tied at the crown with a long indigo cloth strip. Coming of age is marked by having the head shaved with a sickle in a public ceremony. Funerals plant a fir sapling in place of a tombstone, so an ancestor's grave grows into a tree.

This private day tour from Rongjiang (or Congjiang — both are within easy reach) takes you up into Basha for a half-day of cultural visits and a staged performance of the hunting rituals and coming-of-age sickle-shave. Your English-speaking guide unpacks the deeper picture: the historical reasons the Basha resisted assimilation, the role hunting plays in Basha cosmology, and what is being preserved vs. performed today.

Day 1 itinerary:

• 08:30 — Pickup from your Rongjiang or Congjiang hotel
• 09:30 — Arrive Basha village; walking tour of the wooden stilt houses, drum towers, and the ancestral tree forest
• 10:30 — Visit a Basha family home; meet a topknot elder and learn about hunting-rifle culture
• 11:30 — Watch the staged sickle-shave coming-of-age ritual and a hunting-musket salute (loud — bring earplugs for children)
• 12:30 — Local Basha lunch in a village courtyard (smoked pork, glutinous rice, mountain vegetables)
• 14:00 — Optional second walking loop: the indigo dye yard, the forest trail above the village, hilltop views over the Du Liu River valley
• 16:00 — Depart Basha
• 17:00 — Drop-off at your Rongjiang or Congjiang hotel, or Congjiang HSR station

Who this is for: Cultural travelers who want a minority community most foreign visitors have never heard of, photographers, anyone routing between Zhaoxing and Kaili who wants to stop somewhere genuinely strange. Suitable for ages 6 and up. The musket salute is loud — sensitive children should stand back. Pairs naturally with the Zhaoxing Dong Village 2-day on a longer Qiandongnan loop.

Logistics: Private air-conditioned vehicle. Licensed English-speaking guide. Basha entrance ticket included. Sickle-shave ceremony and musket-salute performance included (staged for visitors, runs most days; weather-dependent on outdoor segments). Local lunch included. Easy walking on uneven village lanes; some stone steps.

Local Roads. Global Eyes. We're a Beijing-licensed inbound operator with Miao-speaking local guides in Qiandongnan. Questions before you book? .

The only ethnic group in China still permitted to carry rifles. Basha Miao topknot men, hunting traditions, coming-of-age sickle ceremony. Private day tour from Rongjiang.