Brought up with Moso legends that recount how her people were spawned by the Goddess Kemu's union with the wooden statue of a man, Djema grew up on the shores of Lake Lugu, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in southwestern China.

Today she is thirty years old and, like her mother and grandmother, adheres strictly to Moso traditions.  The notion of father or husband has never existed among the Moso. Sexual encounters are totally free, and the children born of these unions live under the roof of their mother who also has remained with her mother.

In addition to Djema, we come to know her mother Ertchedjema, her brother Sonapitsu, her young son and her sister, through their activities and their narratives. Over the course of time, we will discover the social organisation of this ethnic group with no fathers or formalized couples.

Although tradition is well rooted, conforming to it entails no formal constraints or rigors. On the contrary, it is a huge respect for individual freedom that has been perpetuated here for thousands of years. For instance, Djema's sister lives with her lover, but she has had a house built adjacent to her mother's; little Lame, Djema's protegée, was orphaned by her mother. Her grandmother is too old to care for the child, so she has called on her father as well as one of his daughters from a different union, thus creating a new line of descendants.

Moso mating rites obey very specific rules and taboos: incest is forbidden, as is any vow of faithfulness. Women receive their lovers at night, in secret from their families, and never display their liaison in public. Romantic encounters are finalized in discreet visits when the man slips into the woman's quarters where he will spend part of the night. Djema, who still hopes to have a girl, often has her mother look after her son after nightfall.

The most important figure of the Moso pantheon is Kemu, the mother goddess. And it is to her that Djema will make her plea from the sacred mountaintop in hopes of giving birth to a daughter that will perpetuate her descendance.
The Moso family unit will remain the line of descendants: a mother, her children and her grandchildren bonded for life. The absence of a father has no repercussion on the children's development, on the contrary, they demonstrate a hearty delight in life in a society where flexible rules encourage great freedom for both women and men.