The Paiwan people's slate house construction technique is a unique traditional craft that mainly uses slate or shale from the Dawushan area to build in a stacked manner. The roof and walls of the slate house are made of slate, while wooden rafters serve as the foundation of the roof. The construction process requires rigorous sacrificial rituals, and the preparation of materials begins in winter and is completed in summer.

According to legend, houses used to leak when it rained. After being replaced with stone slabs, the roof was shaped like the scales of a centipede snake, so rainwater would flow along the outer edge of the scales, thus improving the leakage problem.

Picture of a Paiwan house