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who are intelligent do not read Confucian (ru) books, but only follow Yao Daoist priests in their studies.”19 
Mention of Yao Daoist priests (simply yaodao), liturgies (keyi), receiving the registers (shoulu), and talismanic water (fushui) all indicate the recognition of Daoist rituals in Yao society during the Qing Dynasty, at least by the local officials who wrote these gazetteers.
Evidence also suggests that Chinese scholars during the decades leading up to “liberation” (i.e., before 1949) were aware of the presence of Daoist practices in Yao societies. As Barend ter Haar describes in his excellent annotated bibliography of Yao religion,20 some very detailed studies by Chinese anthropologists on Yao religion and culture appeared during the Republican period, which recognized the presence of Daoist texts written in Chinese, Daoist deites and practices, as well as various ritual implements also used by Han or orthodox Daoist priests.
There appears to have been an ongoing discussion during the Republican period about whether or not Yao Daoism was the same as real Daoism as practiced in Han communities. Writing in 1943, Liang Zhaotao 
pointed out that most people who had previously investigated Yao religion were aware of conspicuous Daoist influence. Not only did many Yao deities and rituals appear to be Daoist, but Yao also followed the Yin/Yang Five Phase system.21
According to Liang, prior to his going into the mountains to investigate Yao religion he was prepared to witness the Daoized (daojiaohua 
) religion that earlier scholars had described; once in the mountains, however, he soon came to the conclusion that Yao religion was only superficially Daoist. Perhaps Yao worshipped the most important deities in the Daoist pantheon, but these deities lorded over others that were clearly indigenous to Yao society.22 Liang further distinguished Yao religion from its Han counterpart by asserting that Yao merely worship and fear their deities, and perform rituals to them as a means of dispelling evil spirits.23 He also argued that Yao interpret yin / yang and the five phases more simplistically. For instance, he claimed that in the Han and Yao conceptions, the five phases correspond to yin and yang differently.24 For these