Some houses, including the roof, are built entirely of stone slabs. Rukai women are good cloth and basket weavers, and Rukai men are good wood carvers. Master wood carvers are highly respected in the tribe. The Ami are divided into five groups based on geography, custom, and language. The Ami began to use oxen in cultivating paddies relatively early.
Fishing is an important part of their economy, but hunting is now solely recreational.
In Ami society, kinship is matrilineal, but men's clubs are well organized. Ami villages are relatively large, each with a population of between 200 and more than 1,000. The Ami are the only aboriginal tribe on the island of Taiwan to practice the art of pottery making. The Ami harvest festivals have evolved from warrior training. Nowadays sports, symbolic fishing in the open seas, and singing and dancing are observed throughout the villages in a series of celebrations in July and August.