Drawing upon both written sources and personal interviews with Hmong informants, this thesis seeks to understand Hmong worldview and ethics through an analysis and interpretation of Hmong proverbs. Moreover, the author aims to situate these Hmong proverbs in the broader context of historical events and social practices. The study found that the Hmong worldview is dualistic in its structure, being comprised of a realm of the tangible (humans, animals, etc.) and a realm of the intangible (spirits). The Hmong apply this dualism to human existence, and they hold that a human being is comprised of a corporeal body and a spirit (khwan). At the time of death, the spirit splits into three parts, with one part occupying the burial site, one part occupying the spirit realm of the ancestors, and one part re-entering the cycle of death and rebirth. Natural phenomena (trees, rocks) and built landscapes (houses) also possess a spirit, and the spirit realm is hierarchically ordered. Dualism also structures the Hmong perspective of social relationships and natural phenomena, which is exemplified by the Hmong tendency to classify in pairs (i.e. mother and father, land and earth, body and spirit). The author argues that this dualistic ordering of reality distinguishes Hmong philosophy from those monistic philosophies which presuppose a singular “origin.” As for ethical codes of social interaction, the Hmong social system also reflects the dualistic worldview of the human-spirit realm. For instance, this dualism is expressed in the social sanctions that forbid sex before marriage, on the grounds that such actions transgress the laws of the ancestors who dwell in the spirit realm. Transgressions of these laws require the appeasement of the spirits.