華南地區的壯侗語族各族群的移動性主要表現在河流上下通船，次要的移動方式在組織馬幫從一個河谷翻山到另一個河谷以運貨或移民。歷史上的移動性不但包括個體商販的來往和兵丁的出征，也包括集體的全村或一部分村民的移動。
本論文擬以貴州布依魔公所唱的「祖源歌」為例，討論廣西貴州兩省壯、布依、侗、水等台族群在傳統社會裏面對領土和移動性的文化建構。這些古歌一方面會給研究民族史的學者提供有關史前移民事實的信息，另一方面對族群本身能起到類似家譜的作用，做地域認同的象徵物和土地權的旁證。與此同時能做祖宗足跡的地圖，這樣與新年慶賀的請神儀式過程，喪事中給亡靈開路的途徑有很多相同之處。
本文以「祖源歌」具體內容為主要出發點，評價「祖源歌」所提供的訊息。之後，要跟廣西壯族早期的家譜互相對比，以便對台族傳統社會移動性達到稍微更全面的了解。

Mobility up-river and down-river by boat has been the dominant pattern in movements of village populations among the Tai, with travel by land between river systems playing a supplementary role. Historically, mobility has been a characteristic of villages as well as individuals, traders and soldiers.
This paper will examine cultural constructions of territory and mobility as exemplified in the “Songs of Migration” current in the traditional societies of the Zhuang 壯, Bouyei 布依, Kam 侗, Sui 水, and other Tai-speaking peoples of Guangxi 廣西 and Guizhou 貴州. Such songs provide scholars with important evidence about prehistoric migrations, but for pre-modern communities they formed an indigenous non-Han counterpart to lineage or family registers as tokens of local identity and evidence of territorial claims. They also form part of a “map” of ancestral places, and as such can be correlated with evocations of
ancestral spirits and funeral practices in which the dead are escorted back to the land of the ancestors.
This paper will focus on a number of actual song texts, and will evaluate the information they provide. Comparison will be made with evidence for mobility in pre-modern times provided in the Chinese-style lineage registers of prominent Zhuang families.