. Lạc lords were hereditary aristocrats in something like a feudal system. The status of Lạc lords passed through the family line of one's mother and tribute was obtained from communities of agriculturalists who practiced group responsibility. In Lạc society, access to land was based on communal usage rather than individual ownership and women possessed inheritance rights. While in Chinese society men inherited wealth through their fathers, in Lạc society both men and women inherited wealth through their mothers. Ancient Han Chinese had described the people of Âu Lạc as barbaric in need of civilizing, regarding them as lacking morals and modesty. Chinese chronicles maintain the native people in the
Hong River Delta were deficient in knowledge of agriculture, metallurgy, politics, and their civilization was a by-product of Chinese colonization. They denied
in situ cultural evolution or social complexity, attributing any development to Sinicization, though they were aware of this "stable, structured, productive, populous, and relatively sophisticated" society they encountered. A record from the 220s BCE reported "unorthodox customs" of inhabitants in parts of the region:"To crop the hair, decorate the body, rub pigment into arms and fasten garments on the left side is the way of the
Baiyue. In the country of Xiwu () the habit is to blacken teeth, scar cheeks and wear caps of sheat [catfish] skin stitched crudely with an awl."
Hou Hanshu described the region as thick with dense forests, and full of ponds and lakes, with countless wild animals like elephants, rhinoceros and tigers, while the locals earned their living by hunting and fishing, using bows propelling poisoned arrows, tattooing themselves, and wearing chignon and turbans. They also are said to know how to cast copper implements and pointed arrowheads, chewing betel nuts and blackening their teeth. However, such descriptions of the kingdom bear little resemblance to what we know: not a place of fertile cultivation or habitation on a large scale. Some of the descriptions may apply rather well to the region of present-day
Guangxi and
Guangdong, which remain inhospitable for many years to come, evident in census of the year 2 AD. Women enjoyed high status in Lạc society. Such a society is a matrilocal society, a societal system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents. Thus, the female offspring of a mother remain living in (or near) the mother's house, forming large clan-families couples after marriage would often go to live with the wife's family. It has also been said that Proto-Vietnamese society was
matrilineal. The status of Lạc lords transferred through the mother's lineage while women possessed inheritance rights. In addition, they also practiced
levirate, meaning widows had a right to marry a male relative of her late husband, often his brother, to obtain heirs. This practice provided an heir for the mother, protecting widows' interests and reflecting female authority, although some patriarchal societies used it to keep wealth within the male family bloodline. The economy was characterized by agriculture with wet rice cultivation,
draft animals, metal plowshares, axes and other tools, as well as irrigation complexes. The cultivation of irrigated rice may have started in the beginning of the second millennium BCE, evidenced by findings from palynological sequences, while metal tools were regularly used before any significant Sino-Vietic interaction. Chapuis (1995) also suggested the existence of line fishing and some specialization and division of labor. The region was also a major node or hub of interregional access and exchange, connected to other area through an extensive extraregional trade network, since well before the first millennium BC, thanks to its strategic location, enjoying access to key interaction routes and resources, including proximity to major rivers or the coast and a high distribution of copper, tin, and lead ores. Kim (2015) believed its economic and commercial value, including its location and access to key waterways and exotic tropical goods, would have been main reasons the Chinese conquered the region, giving them unrestricted access to other parts of Southeast Asia. ==Contested ancestors and nationalism==