泰雅族的「Lmuhuw歌謠」無論音樂或歌詞都屬於古老的形式，「Lmuhuw」在泰雅語中指的是由特定的人在特定的場合所展現的特別形式，在傳統的泰雅族社會是佔有特殊的社會功能與影響力。歌謠中所傳述的內容主要分為兩個部分：有關祖先的起源、遷徙、部落分佈等歷史性的記載與影響著泰雅族倫理規範、道德準則、生命禮俗、禁忌等層面的「祖訓」。

在泰雅族各個社群部落裡，或多或少都流傳著如此類型的歌謠，但因泰雅族分佈廣闊，本文僅以大漢溪流域的泰雅社群為研究範圍，透過各社群所流傳下來的歌謠，來探討各社群的族系、遷徙、部落開拓、以及祖訓與Gaga等問題，藉由音樂的分析希望能尋找出屬於Lmuhuw歌謠的音樂特質，並嘗試由音樂的觀點來檢視此流域社群與族系的親疏關係。

本文在內容上共分七章：第一章緒論說明研究動機與目的、研究範圍、研究方法與文獻探討。第二章說明Lmuhuw歌謠是屬於泰雅族音樂中的哪一類型，並探討其社會功能，與史詩的關係。第三章是從歌謠中所描述的遷徙，來探討整個大漢溪流域的社群與族係之關係。第四章就歌謠中有關部落開拓歷史的傳述，逐一探討此流域的四個社群：馬卡納奇群、馬里光群、合歡群、大嵙崁群各群的部落開拓史及部落分佈情形。第五章針對歌謠中的祖訓，來探討Gaga與歌謠之關係。第六章將歌謠以音樂分析的方式，來討論Lmuhuw歌謠的音樂結構、旋律與歌詞的運行模式及音樂特色。第七章歸納本論文所研究的各個論點提出結論。

The "Lmuhuw" song of Tayal tribe are belonged to an ancient ceremony. "Lmuhuw" means that a designated person performs a ceremony in a particular occasion. The ceremony play an important role in the Tayal society. We can divide the folksong into two parts by their content. First part is about historical records those states ancient's origination, migration and tribe 's distribution. Another part is about the instructions given by a superior, such as an ethical code, a moral code and taboos.
This thesis focused on the Tayal community in Da-Han river basin, and tried to collect the songs from every communities. Through these songs, we have studied several issues, such as pedigree of a clan, migration, tribe pioneers, the instructions given by a superior between different communities. With the technique of musical analysis, we tried to find out the distinguish characteristic of "Lmuhuw" song, and figured out the map of relationship between the basin communities and clans.
This thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter I introduce the motivation and objective of this research, the way of research and papers reading. Chapter II tells us that Lmuhuw song belongs to which style of music of Tayal tribe. Moreover, the relationship studying between society functional and an epic poem can be found in this chapter. Chapter III probes the communities relationship via the migration stated in the song. We discussed four communities, which are Mknaji, Mrqwang, Gogan and Msbtunuxd community, about their tribe developing history and tribe distribution issues in Chapter IV. Chapter V focused on the intructions given by a superior to find out the relation between Gaga and Lmuhuw song. In Chapter VI, we used the technique of musical analysis to state the musical structure of Lmuhuw song. Finally the concluding remarks are included in Chapter VII.