The Qiandongnan Prefecture Ethnological Museum is the best single introduction to the minority cultures of the region, covering the material life of some twenty ethnic groups through several thousand artefacts. The silver jewellery collection — Miao filigree work, Dong silver ornaments, headdresses and breastplates from festival costumes — is extraordinary in scale and craftsmanship, and puts the decorative traditions you'll encounter in the villages into historical and cultural context.
The textile collection is equally significant: indigo-dyed fabrics, embroidered panels, batik work from the Buyi minority, and examples of the specific decorative vocabularies used by different sub-groups of the Miao — the Long-Horn Miao, the Black Miao, the Hmong subgroups — whose ceremonial dress differs so substantially that they can be identified at a glance. The museum explains the regional distribution and social meaning of these traditions in enough detail to be genuinely useful before a village visit.
The museum is free and open Tuesday through Sunday, 9am–5pm. It is located near the centre of Kaili, reachable by city bus. The English-language captions are inconsistent but the visual content is rich enough to follow without them.