Calling in the soul : gender and the cycle of life in a Hmong village /
Patricia V. Symonds ; with a new afterword by the author.
- Seattle : University of Washington Press, (c)2014.
- 1 online resource (xlix, 336 pages) : illustrations
Includes bibliographies and index.
Introduction : conducting research in a Hmong village -- Hmong cosmology : a balance of opposites -- Mothers, daughters, and wives -- Birth : the journey to the land of light -- Death : the journey to the land of darkness -- Reflections on power, gender, and the cycle of life -- Epilogue : HIV/AIDS and the Hmong in Thailand.
"Calling in the Soul (Hu Plig) is the chant the Hmong use to guide the soul of a newborn baby into its body on the third day after birth. Based on extensive original research conducted in the late 1980s in a village in northern Thailand, this ethnographic study examines Hmong cosmological beliefs about the cycle of life as expressed in practices surrounding birth, marriage, and death, and the gender relationships evident in these practices. The social framework of the Hmong (or Miao, as they are called in China, and Meo, in Thailand), who have lived on the fringes of powerful Southeast Asian states for centuries, is distinctly patrilineal, granting little direct power to women. Yet within the limits of this structure, Hmong women wield considerable influence in the spiritually critical realms of birth and death"--
2014011541
Hmong (Asian people)--Rites and ceremonies.--Thailand, Northern Women, Hmong--Social conditions.--Thailand, Northern Sex role--Thailand, Northern. Sexual division of labor--Thailand, Northern. Patrilineal kinship--Thailand, Northern. Hmong Americans--Social life and customs.