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The Religious
Presentation of Social Relationships:
Hmong World View and Social Structure
(From: Lao Studies Review,
No.2, 1994-95, pp. 44- 60. Reproduced here with kind permission of
the Lao Studies Society, PO Box 44, Bonnyrigg, NSW, Australia)
Contents
1
Acknowledgement
2
Gender roles and their ritual contexts
3
The family and household
4
Lineage
network
5
Clan and sub clan division
6
Conclusion
7
References
Acknowledgment:
The research
from which this paper originated was made possible by a grant from
the Werner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New York,
USA. I have also greatly benefited from original comments by Prof.
W.R. Geddes, formerly of the University of Sydney, Australia. This
revised version has been enhanced by suggestions from Dr. Marjorie
Muecke, School of Nursing, Department of Anthropology, University of
California at Santa Cruz, USA. Financial assistance from the
Indochina Studies Program of the American Social Science Research
Council to present the original paper at the Workshop on Kinship and
Gender in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia at the University of Northern
Illinois, is also gratefully acknowledged.
According to Durkheim (1961), the source of what we regard as sacred
or religious lies within our own image. The deities and spirits we
pay respect to are but "society transfigured" for in the final
analysis we only worship our society. It is society which is both
the cause and the expression of religious sentiments through regular
ritual representations (Aron, 1967: 53) These rights constitute
beliefs enacted for the purpose of preserving a sense of belonging
for the participants and maintaining them together as a group. They
not only tie the members of the group to each other "but also to the
past and the future generations" (Cohen, 1871: 180). Religious
ideas, in the words of Bachofen (Leaf, 1979: 118), define
fundamental relations in society, showing internal structures
similar to the actual behaviour or the believers. The supernatural
order is in general based on the social relationships of the group.
It validates and regulates these relationships, thereby conserving
the social orders.
In this paper, I will discuss
the social organisation of the Hmong of Laos and Thailand in
relation to their religious beliefs in order to see if the two
spheres mutually interact to maintain the broader social system. It
has been said that ancestral spirits are no more than "a projection
of the authority system of the living - the lineage elders elevated
to a supernatural plane" (Keesing and Keesing 1971: 309). How true
is this of the Hmong? I will attempt to locate the social forces
which cement them into distinct clans, lineages and gender
categories. Here, a clan shall be taken to mean a group of people
bond together through birth or adoption by a shared surname, but
with few or no other identifications. Members of a clan who can
trace decent to a known ancestor are said to belong to a lineage. My
discussion will focus primarily on normative prescriptions, and not
actual behaviour patterns since the latter varies greatly from one
individual to another and has also been partly dealt with elsewhere
(Cooper, 1983: 173 - 186). The issue examined here are based on my
own life experiences as a Hmong from Laos and on information
collected in the field in Thailand, Australia and the US.
Like the Han Chinese who have
dominated and influenced them over many centuries, the Hmong seem to
live constantly "under the ancestors' shadow" (Hsu, 1967). Close
observation of ancestor worship is believed mandatory to the fortune
of a family or kin group. A person's ritual system determines his or
her social groupings, and interpersonal relations are assessed in
relation to one's ancestral rites. Such important activities as
farming, hunting and gathering often involve people linked to one
another by kinship and affinal ties. As well as the need for
religious sacrifices to the dead, special occasions like New Year
celebrations, weddings, funerals, new harvests or a major crisis
bring together living members of a lineage to discharge their mutual
obligations. While the elders require the moral and practical
support of the young, the latter also seek the guidance and wisdom
of the former so that both can fulfil their physical and spiritual
needs, thus enabling each group to perform functions expected of
them.
The Hmong value highly a social
system with father-right as the norm. In other words, the male head
of the family and those male relatives who represent him in his
absence or after his death, have the authority to make decisions
affecting the household and the lineage. Their wishes are to be
respected by junior males and the female members of the group.
Accordingly, young married men should live in the house of their
father or any senior male relative who has paid for their wedding
expenses. This is a way for them to repay the debt with their
services, but in particular to show the need for the wives to be
incorporated into the husbands' parental household, together with
the willingness of the kin group to guide and to assist the newly
married in their marital responsibilities.
After a father has died, his
widow who originated from a different clan will normally raise the
children among his male relatives and with the latter's aid in order
to maintain them within their patrilineal group. As soon as one of
her male children is grown enough to act as head of the family, she
will retreat into the background to allow him to fulfil the male
duties expected of him. Although such a young man may still be
single, he is judged to be sufficiently mature for such a role when
he shows signs of leadership and a sound decision-making ability.
It has been said that " the
married woman among the Meau not only loses every connection with
the sib from which she is descended... but also after her death her
soul arises anew in the next child of her husband's family" (Bernatzik,
1970: 43). The belief in this form of reincarnation is not accepted
by all Hmong, but there is no doubt that after marriage, a woman
belongs exclusively to the spiritual world of the husband in that
only members of his lineage offer sacrifices to her soul after her
death. Her inclusion in their ancestral line, however, does not mean
that she is no longer of her parents' clan since she continues to
maintain her former clan name to the end. Thus, a married woman in
Hmong society still remains physically a member of her clan of
birth, but no longer belongs to her parents' lineage and ritual
circle because she has already been adopted into her husband's
spiritual domain through the rites of marriage. Should she be
divorced or widowed, she can always return to her consanguineous
relatives but must live separately as only people with the same
ritual system can inhabit the same house.
In so far as affinal ties are
concerned, it has been asserted that after the payment of the
bride-price a married woman goes to live with her husband and "never
gives anything else to her parents again" (Chindarsi, 1976: 131).
Whether it is the Green Hmong of Thailand or the White Hmong
elsewhere in Southeast Asia, such a statement is not totally
accurate. She may not give because of the long distance between her
new residence and her parents, or because of poverty. Regardless of
these factors, she and her husband are expected to offer
occasionally gifts and practical help to her parents and siblings,
to pay visit to them during New Year and in special circumstances,
and in general to maintain contact with them.
The role expectations of sons
and daughters are symbolised by the places where their placentas are
buried at birth. Graham (1937: 39) states that among the Ch'uan Miao
of China, another branch of the Hmong, a boy's placenta is "buried
deep under a pillar of the house and that of a girl under a door of
the house". Geddes (1976: 53) also reports the burial of a boy's
placenta near the central post of the house, and the girl's one
under the bedroom floor. This tradition is attributed to the belief
that for the Hmong the central post holds the house structure as
well as the household spirits and religious symbols. A boy's
placenta is consigned to this post to represent the role of a male
descendant as bearer of the household's ritual responsibility. A
girl's placenta is disposed of under the bedroom floor because this
is the most convenient place when a woman gives birth at home. There
is no symbolic meaning to it since a daughter will not perform
social functions of importance for the family and the ancestral
group.
The Hmong practise marriage by
clan exogamy: they must marry only women from a clan different to
their own, and women must go to live with their husbands and the
latter's kin group after marriage. Daughters are, thus, often
referred to as "other people's women". They are expected to marry
and to belong rightfully to strangers from outside their group of
birth. As we have seen, they are cut off from their parents' ritual
system as soon as they are married. Therefore, they must seek
remarriage in the event of divorce or widowhood so that they will
have a proper place in the afterlife and avoid becoming "lost
souls". This is unless they already have sons in whose lineage they
are included as ancestors. Although a son can confer lineage status
on his mother, it is usually a husband and his lineal relatives who
legitimise her entry into the group's spiritual world. A son can
only do it by virtue of his membership in a lineage. In other words,
such a son must be legitimate; and if born out of wedlock, he and
his mother must have been adopted into a particular lineage, whether
that of his natural father, his mother or some other persons.
Spinsters without male children
occupy a rather dubious position in Hmong society. A daughter who
remains unmarried all her life, is considered ominous to the life of
her lineage. Upon her death, the "maum phauj" (or father's sister's
husband) will be asked to cast away her spell from the group so that
she will not be born again into spinsterhood or influence other
female descendants to fall into the same condition. Despite this
belief, unmarried daughters are usually regarded as full members of
the family with major economic contributions to make, and not just
burden.
Because they are not entrusted
with the perpetuation of the family line, the most that can be hoped
from female offsprings is their labour assistance. When a girl
marries, a bride-wealth will be required from her husband. The more
industrious she is, the higher the bride-wealth is likely to be.
This bride-price is also referred to by the Hmong as "nqi mis nqi
hno" or nurturing charge, implying that a girl's parents bring her
up at much cost only to lose her to her husband. Although male
children are given greater significance, this does not mean that
daughters are devoid of parental care and affection, or that
spinster relatives are not given offerings after death.
Nevertheless, couples without sons may seek to adopt them, or may
compromise their monogamy by allowing the husband to marry a second
wife in the hope that she will bear him male offsprings to take care
of the parents during old age, or to provide them with offerings
after they are dead.
The aspirations for male
descendants may be strong, but it does not lead all parents to
prefer sons over daughters in practice. In cases where the sons are
incapable or unwilling to contribute to the parental household,
parents may even care more about their daughters and sons-in- law.
Although the Hmong are usually attached to members of their lineage
and value its spiritual protection, these concepts are not
absolutely compelling. A married man, for instance, may fail to live
in harmony with his parents and relatives, or may wish to exploit
resources elsewhere, and thus move with his family away from the kin
group. A husband who cannot pay the bride-wealth of his wife may
also resort to residence near his relatives-in-law to work off the
debt by giving service to them. Thus, it is not unusual to find
transgression of residential norms and gender role expectations.
Variation obviously exists where physical distance and cultural
divergence are involved.
Graham (op. cit.: 26), for
instance, states that "formerly the husband lived with the relatives
of their wives so that the families may have been matrilineal". De
Beauclair (1970: 133) and Mickey (1947: 51) both say that for the
Hmong they studied in Southern China, the bride returns to her
parents after the wedding and is only visited by the groom until
just before the birth of the first child when she joins her
husband's household for good. This practice is unknown among the
Hmong in Thailand and Laos where residence is patrilocal. Ruey
(1960: 29-30) further contends that the Magpie Miao of Szechuan
display bilateral elements in their social structure in that they
maintain "close association" with relatives of both the husband and
wife; and among those in Western Hunan, the old tradition of
neolocal residence and independent nuclear families is still
followed. From this evidence, he concludes that the present Hmong
patrilineal kinship system with patrilocal residence has developed
from the influence of the Han Chinese, and that old patterns survive
because of poor assimilation of Chinese culture by the Hmong.
Strictly speaking, the Hmong's
kinship system is not patrilineal with the inclusion of in-married
women into the kin group and the exclusion of daughters who marry
into other clans. Membership is based on descent, affinity and
adoption, but not on descent on the male side alone. Be this as it
may, it is clear that gender roles are usually prescribed for sons
and daughters, or for husbands and wives, by religious beliefs.
These beliefs centre on the ancestral cult characterised by
offerings from all male household heads to the spirits of their dead
relatives, especially in any special event requiring the killing of
domestic animals as food offerings. Because of this religious
responsibility, men's social roles are more prominent than those of
women. Women serve the important function of meeting the material
needs of the family but they do so without the parallel political or
religious responsibilities assumed by the men.
In
order of generality, Hmong social relationships consist of ties
within the family, the family line, or marriage. Of course, distance
in degrees of relationship cannot be equated with their social
importance as this is affected by the nature of physical or
emotional proximity and other circumstances. From this point of
view, there is no doubt that the nuclear family and the extended
household are the smallest unit of Hmong social structure, and the
most important psychologically for all members in term of their
commitment to one another. A household may have more than one family
or generation, and more than one wife married to a man. Household
membership, therefore, is not commensurate with memberships of a
nuclear family. The Hmong call people living in the same household
"one house people" (ib yim neeg) and regard them as "the strongest
category of relationships" in their society (Cooper, 1978: 309).
I will now examine the
relationships of the "house people" to one another. Whether only one
or more married couples live in the same house, a husband and his
wife or wives often share sleeping quarters with one another and
with all younger children. In a polygamous household, the wives may
sometimes have their own separate beds or bed rooms in which they
sleep with their children who, upon reaching puberty, move to their
own sleeping compartments. At this primary level, the relationships
include those of "husband-wife, father-son, father-daughter,
mother-son, mother-daughter and brother-sister" (Geddes, op. cit:
46).
In their traditional village
setting, all Hmong mothers breast-feed their babies, and generally
carry them around on their backs in an apron- style embroidered baby
carrier, particularly when preoccupied with household chores or
farming activities. In this sense, mothers spend more time on child
care than fathers. However, most fathers also share in looking after
small children when their wives are too busy or when there are no
older children to help. With older children, a father's role is
primarily to train his sons in the knowledge and performance of male
responsibilities in such spheres of life as agriculture, socialising
and religious induction. On her part, a mother teaches her daughters
womanly behaviour and tasks related to household work (cleaning and
cooking), the procuring of firewood and water, the gathering of food
for domestic animals, sewing and embroideries, farming and other
activities deemed appropriate for the successful fulfilment of their
roles.
It is the mother who admonishes
her daughters for any misconduct or shameful acts. When they are
"kidnapped" by suitors for marriage, she will challenge their male
abductors rather than the father. She and other older females in the
group are responsible for counselling younger girls in all matters
of the heart. The men will only intervene when matters have come to
a head, demanding a major resolution. Should the parents die before
the children are married, their socialisation are passed on to
paternal grandparents, a parental uncle and his wife, an older son,
or an unmarried daughter (Ruey, op.cit: 154). Preference in such
cases is vested with the parents and male siblings of the dead
father, but a lot also depends on who can assume such undertaking.
There are many prohibitions
regarding the relationships between fathers and daughters-in-law.
These taboos described by Chindarsi (op. cit.: 79) for the Green
Hmong, apply equally to the White Hmong, especially those with the
clan names Vang, Yang and Lee. Among the Vang people, a married
woman and her husband's father cannot enter each other's bedroom,
because it is believed that in former time there was violation of
the incest taboo between them since the Hmong see a daughter-in-law
in a position similar to that of a daughter. As long as she and her
husband continue to share the same house with his parents, she also
cannot enter the area separating the family fireplace and the
sleeping compartment next to the central post. This area is know as
the southern side of the fire place (qab cub), and is the domain of
the household spirits. It is believed that if a daughter-in-law
steps over this area, she will make offend these spirits who may
make blind as retribution. Blindness, of course, is not the only
form of punishment by household spirits and women are not the only
ones incurring their wrath. The Hmong believe that illness or
disability can be the result of spiritual chastisement - for both
men and women.
With the Lee or Yang clans, a
daughter-in-law cannot climb onto the ceiling of the house to store
and retrieve goods. To do this, she would have to pass the central
beam which is held by the central post, again the domain of all
household rituals. Trespassing this area would amount to showing
disrespect to family ancestors, thus bringing harm to her and other
members of the household since the house formally belongs to her
husband's parents. Once she has her own house, a married woman can
go up to its ceiling without fear or harm, because the house is now
hers. These are some examples regarding the relationships and
obligations of parents and their daughters-in-law. There are other
prohibitions applicable to other sets of relationships or other
Hmong clans, but these should be sufficient to illustrate role
classification and behaviour prescriptions between certain members
of a household or nuclear family.
Few Hmong know for long the
close ties of the family as an isolated unit. As soon as a son
marries and brings his wife to live in his father's house, the
family becomes an extended household. Thus, we have firstly a
nuclear family, then the male siblings take in their wives and
children under the same roof, giving the fullest expression to their
relationships in the form of the extended household. This cluster of
classificatory brothers will later separate into different
households; but they, together with their spouses and children, can
become a lineage. Lineal ties will be remembered so long as this
brotherhood is remembered. If it is forgotten, the sharing of common
ancestral rituals will be evoked in reckoning lineage membership
with other people.
Ancestral rituals are used to
trace membership in an original family or household, because the
closer the blood relations between the living the more common the
number of dead agnates invoked for offering by them. In such
invocations, a ritual performer begins with the most distant
ancestors of the household, followed by each generation of dead
relatives on the male side down to the lowest in the line. Only
included in these offering are those dead who were in primary and
secondary degree relationships. Beyond this range, relatives of
lesser age status may be omitted as they are in any case taken care
of by their own immediate living relatives. Some members of the
original household may have moved to other villages or live a long
way away; and with distance over time and space their newborn
children will be unknown to those who do not settle close to them.
Thus not all dead or living members of a group can be known and
included in one's ritual offerings. Moreover the Hmong rely almost
exclusively on memorising the names of all dead relatives: it is
possible and even necessary to overlook some of them from an already
long and complex list.
We have
already seen that for the Hmong a lineage is a group of male
relatives and their families united around an agnatic core. The
brotherhood group and the father who created it form the core of the
lineage with membership spanning across all male descendants, their
wives and all unmarried daughters. A family can give rise to a
lineage which is a descent group leading back to a known procreator.
Not all households result in a lineage in a patrilineal society such
as that of the Hmong, particularly when there are only daughters
born in the group. Households with only female children (whether
married or single) will contribute nothing to the life of the
lineage, since only men can perform ancestral worship rituals
through which the lineage is remembered and perpetuated. So long as
there are male descendants who adhere to the cult of ancestors, the
lineage will survive. Hence, Hmong parents desire to have sons who
will offer sacrifices to ancestral spirits and thus maintain the
family line. The need to have sons is, therefore, dictated by a
religious sanction which ensures that the physical and spiritual
well-being of the parents are taken care of.
Due to this material and
religious need, parents prefer that their unmarried sons remain in
their household, or live in their village. It is only through the
father that sons will learn about the lineage and its attendant
rituals. A man who joins his father-in-law does so only in extreme
circumstances. Such a move is considered a betrayal of one's own
lineal group, a lack of filial responsibilities towards parental and
male relatives, or an indication of major discord in the extended
household or lineage concerned. A man living with his in-laws is
spiritually on his own, despite all the practical assistance he
obtains from his uxorial relatives. In ritual matters, he still has
to perform his own ancestral ceremonies and revere his own
ancestors, since he and his family can never be admitted into the
cult of his wife's parents as they are not of the same clan or
lineage.
The observation of different
ancestral rites in the same house is forbidden in Hmong society. The
problem cannot be resolved by the adoption of affinal ancestors, for
this requires that the son-in-law changes his clan to that of his
wife, which is a violation of the practice of clan exogamy in
marriage and a defiance of the incest taboo. A Hmong who resides
patriuxorilocally, therefore, will have built his own house
separately from that of his father-in-law. Beside the rule regarding
clan and ritual differentiation, he will anger the father-in-laws
house spirits by having sex with his wife in her parental home. Even
with young couples working off the bride-price with their
parents-in-law, the fact that they cannot pay it at a wedding puts
them in a lower social-economic position than those who can free
themselves of such bondage. Patrivirilocal residence is the
preferred practice, because it allows the continuation of lineage
development under the guidance and protection of one's kin group for
the interest of its members.
The ancestral cult not only
unites the living under one roof or in one settlement through their
common ancestors, but also establishes a mutual dependence between
the dead and the living descendants through the bond of blood
relationships across the generations. The living members of a
lineage are to follow the same ancestral rituals without deviating
from the group's norms, and to provide mutual help by virtue of
their kinship bonds. To the dead, they have to pay respect through
commemoration and sacrificial ceremonies, to provide their spirits
in the other world with food and paper money, and to remember them
during feasts and harvests. On their part, the dead relatives will
protect the living from misfortune, but will bring harm or sickness
if they are neglected or spurned by their descendants.
As postulated by Radcliffe-Brown
(1945: 40), this structuring of social relations with religious
rituals give incentives to those who take part in them to have a
sense of dependence on their ancestors and to remember them for
having given the life, while they are spurred on to bring up their
young ones to whom they will one day also became revered ancestors.
It is this scene of duty to the dead as well as the living that
creates a direct association between a Hmong religion and his social
structure, particularly his lineage. Ancestral rites are the symbols
which express, regulate, maintain and transmit this association from
one generation to another, thereby enforcing lineage solidarity and
inspiring members to carry out their duties to the living, the dead
and those yet to be born. These rites can be found elsewhere (Chindarsi,
1976) and are not discussed here since this is the purpose of the
present paper
With respect to lineage depth,
Hmong knowledge rarely goes "deeper than four generations" (Cooper,
op. cit: 308). Geddes (op. cit: 52) also discovers that lineage are
often of no greater depth than two generations from "the most senior
men among the living". These observations apply equally to other
Hmong groups where lineage generation depth is often five to eight
generations encompassing the dead and the living members of a
lineage. Lineage heads are usually the oldest living male
descendants of the group, except in the case of a woman who assumes
the role after her husband's death. These lineage leaders belong to
at least the fourth generation from the lineage founder. They are
not called "tus hau zos" (village headman) as stated by Cooper (op.cit.),
but carry the title of "tus coj plaub" (trouble bearers), and "tus
coj dab" (ceremonial bearers) for their members. They may be, but
not always, village heads who are formally appointed or elected for
the whole village or a group of villages which contain many
lineages. There is only one village headman or woman, but there are
many lineage and informal leaders within a settlement.
Space, physical resources,
social conflicts, or political upheavals can restrict the expansion
of a lineage when some of its members may be forced to move and
re-establish themselves in other villages, and more recently even in
other countries. This means that the descendants of a lineage are
not necessarily residents of one village, but can be scattered over
great distance from one another. More commonly, this wide dispersion
is often the result of intermittent migration caused by the Hmong's
practice of shifting cultivation (Cooper, op.cit.: 308 and Geddes,
1970). The environment in which they depend for their livelihood
generally become depleted within ten to fifteen years, and they may
have to move elsewhere to seek new land for farming. However, some
of them may choose to remain in the old settlement or may join
relatives of the wives in other villages. After a few generations,
these lineage members will lose track of one another from lack of
communications and written records. Their children may be unable to
remember the original founders and other descendants of the group,
thus forcing some of them to adopt the slightly different ritual
practices of neighbouring sub clans in a place of their own.
Lineages are open to division,
shrinkage and leadership take- over, as the generation levels
increase over time and as its membership disperses in space. To be
preserved in a cohesive group worshipping the same set of ancestors,
the member must remain together or be separated for only a short
time. Long distance migration fragments the group, although some
descendants may later reunite. However, unless the original
ancestors and rituals are remembered, they may form merely a sub
clan rather than a lineage. In some cases, the ritual difference may
be so great that only clan membership remains.
We have seen that members of a
lineage honour the same "parental spirits" in ritual ceremonies,
which can be traced to a common original male founder. Above this
level, membership of more inclusive groups such as the clan and sub
clan also exist. Clan identification is made on the basis of a
common surname. When two persons have a similar surname, they are
said to belong to the same clan. If they further share similar
rituals but without any genealogical connection, than they are of
the same sub clan, a grouping intermediate between the sub clan and
lineage. A lineage is known in Hmong as a "cluster of brothers" (ib
cuab kwv tij), and a sub clan as "one ceremonial household" (ib tus
dab qhas). One of the distinguishing features between kinship
categories is that members of a lineage can die in one another's
house and will be given funeral, but not people related only by clan
or sub clan membership.
The clan serves as a reference
point for the Hmong to recognise one another as kin or non-kin. It
unites them into organised kinship groups, while it also divides
them along mutually exclusive patrilineal lines, except for the
connections maintained via and wives. If man is of a particular
clan, even if they have never met or known one another before. Their
relationships will be closer still if they are also of the same sub
clan. Persons of the same clan or sub clan without any known blood
links refer to each other as "kwv tij" or relatives in the broader
sense of the term. Based on the various surnames found in Thailand
and Laos, Binny (1968: 380) groups them into 12 clans: Chang, Hang,
Heu, Lee, Lo, Mua, Pang, Thao, Vang, Vue, Xiong and Yang. Other clan
names also exist, but it is difficult to know how many altogether
because of the Hmong's wide dispersion across many countries. The
Green Hmong, for instance, share some clan names with the White
Hmong, but also have others of their own.
The clan system proscribes
marriage between persons of the same clan. It helps a person to
identify the groups with which he or she can count on for closer
ties and support, despite the fact that the bond of mutual
obligations will not be as strong as that between members of a
lineage. Of the main religious rituals used to establish sub clan
connection, the most common are the "door ceremony" (dab roog) and
the "ox ceremony" (nyuj dab) as described by Chindarsi (op. cit:
113- 125). The door ceremony involves the offering of a piglet every
one to two years to the spirit of the household's southern door to
ask protection for a family's domestic animal. The ox ceremony is
performed at irregular intervals, depending on when dead ancestors
(parents or grand-parents) require an ox offering. Such requirements
will be transmitted to the living through an illness in the family
and revealed through shamanic divination.
These two ceremonies are the
yardstick by which the Hmong differentiate sub clans, because the
number of plates into which the various cooked portions of the pig
(door ceremony) or the ox (ox ceremony) are distributed differs from
one sub clan to another. For the door ceremony, the pork can be
divided into 5, 7 or 9 plates; and for the ox ceremony, all parts of
the ox can be put as small cuts into one big bowl; 30 big and 3
small; and 33 big and 3 small bowls. The big bowls of meat are for
ancestral spirits, and the small plates for the local spirits of
places surrounding the village. One sub clan may divide the pork
into 5 bowls, and the ox meat into 13 big bowls and 3 small plates.
A second sub clan may have 9 piles for the door ceremony, and 30 big
plates plus 3 small bowls for the ox ceremony. Any number of
combination is possible within the above variations. If two Hmong
discover that they have the same combination, they are said to be of
the same sub clan.
There are other criteria
employed for the identification of sub clans such as the type of
grave construction or the nature of clan taboos. Hmong graves can be
a mond of earth with some tree branches on top to protect the corpse
from wild animals, a mond of earth surrounded by a plaited bamboo
fence, or a mond of earth protected by boulders. Each type of grave
is strictly observed by each sub clan. In terms of clan taboos, some
sub clans are forbidden to eat animal hearts or pancreas. Again,
people who share common grave construction or clan taboos usually
see themselves as members of the same sub clan.
However, it is doubtful whether
some sub clan members are related other than by clan name. Rituals
are likely to undergo changes from their original forms over the
generations, since they are only verbally transmitted so that small
details can become lost or forgotten. It is believed that originally
all Hmong had 33 big bowls and 3 small bowls for the ox ceremony,
but smaller numbers had been adopted because some groups could not
afford so many bowls and plates. It is not easy to determine if
one's sub clan has resorted to such changes over the generations.
Thus, when a Hmong finds that he has the same set of ritual as
another person of the same clan, it can be a coincidence rather than
the sharing of a common sub clan origin. The clan had sub clan
rituals discussed do not, therefore, totally reflect the social
structure of the Hmong, except at the level of the lineage. This is
despite the fact that they are acknowledged means for identifying
clan affinity.
I have tried to show how the
Hmong organise their social relationships into gender and kinship
categories based on the patrilineal ancestral cult. Their conception
of existence consists of mutual interaction between the living
descendants and their dead ancestors, the latter having the power to
aid or punish the former who must revere their memories and wishes.
Hmong kinship structure is, therefore, really a ritual structure
with religious rites and beliefs specific to each category of
relationships such as the household, the lineage, the sub clan and
the clan. Each category carries its own proper ritual prescriptions
and performances. A household is more than just a shelter and the
people living in it. It is a kin group as well a place for worship,
with appropriate domain for its living members and for the spirits
of the dead relatives on the male side.
In practice, social
relationships are not confined to these kin groups and religious
sanctions. The rule of patrivirilocality, for example, does not
prevent a Hmong married man from having social contact with
relatives of the wife, particularly her parents and brothers. A
special bond may be developed between them when one party is in a
more economically advantageous position than the other, although no
ritual links are evident. For this reason, Hmong religious beliefs
cannot be said to dominate all relationships. A man may have
obligations towards his parent-in-law and their descendants, but
these obligations are not manifested in his rituals.
The Hmong, indeed, maintain
close connections with affinal ties, but reserve their ceremonies to
agnatic ancestors. These ceremonies serve to place the lineage dead
on a supernatural level while also preserving the power structure
and gender relationship of the living. Because of this, Durkheim's
assertion that the source of religion lies within our own image, as
stated at the beginning of this paper, only partly applies to the
Hmong. To a large extent, they can be said to worship their own
images (represented by their ancestors), but more precisely the
images represented only by the male lime of decent. These worship
activities clearly define the position of each Hmong, male and
female, within a social system in such a way that both the religious
observation and the social mutually reinforce and justify each
other's existence.
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