Calling in the Soul: Gender and the Cylce of Life in a Hmong Village [Hardcover]

Patricia V. Symonds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2003

"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. Patricia Symonds situates her study within the landscape of northern Thai mountain life and anthropological perspectives on the Hmong, and then focuses on "Flower Village," telling detailed stories of births, marriages, and deaths. Recurring motifs emerge: the complementarity of women's and men's roles in daily life and in the otherworld, and their reversal at critical moments; the importance of the brother-sister relationship; the social and spiritual significance of the ceremonial clothing women create, especially their embroidered "flower cloth" and the ambiguously nuanced sev, or "modesty aprons," they wear; the endlessly cyclical nature of life, from birth to death to birth again; the importance of sound and silence at times of transition; the complex connections between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Hmong women's primary source of power in the patriline is their fecundity, through which they influence key spiritual aspects of the life cycle. This value and power is evident in the division of bride-price into two parts: "milk and care money," which compensates a woman's parents for her upbringing; and payment for the "birth shirt," or placenta, of the child the young wife will produce. Through provision of birth shirts for fetuses and of elaborately embroidered cloth shirts for the dead, women literally clothe the soul through cycles of rebirth. An epilogue and appendixes provide a discussion of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the Hmong of Thailand, cultural factors in HIV transmission, and strategies for containment; complete Hmong texts and English translations of "Calling in the Soul," and "Showing the Way," the chant which guides the soul of the deceased through the land of darkness and back to reincarnation in a new body in the land of light; Flower Village demographic information; and an account of a shamanic healing and outline of Hmong health care issues in the United States. "Calling in the Soul" will be of interest to sociocultural anthropologists, medical anthropologists, Southeast Asianists, and gender specialists. Patricia V. Symonds is adjunct associate professor of anthropology at Brown University. She is the coauthor (with Brooke G. Schoepf) of "HIV/AIDS: The Global Pandemic and Struggles for Control".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is a gold mine of information for American social scientists and professionals interested in the traditional culture of the Hmong American population... The book is greatly enhanced by photographs and line drawings of Hmong families, homes, ceremonies, and altars, as well as translations of songs and chants. It is a 'must have' for libraries with collections on Southeast Asia, Hmong refugees, Hmong Americans, and women's studies."--Choice --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Patricia V. Symonds is adjunct associate professor of anthropology at Brown University. She is the coauthor (with Brooke G. Schoepf) of HIV/AIDS: The Global Pandemic and Struggles for Control.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: University of Washington Press (December 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295983264
• ISBN-13: 978-0295983264
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,329,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a real ethnography, April 4, 2006

By 

E. N. Anderson (Riverside, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Calling In The Soul: Gender And The Cycle Of Life In A Hmong Village (Paperback)

I came to this book after reading several recent ethnographies, and went on to more. This book stood out as a high peak between the others. Symonds actually tells, in wonderful detail, how the White Hmong of north Thailand are born, negotiate life, and finally die and receive burial. She presents the Hmong through their own words--both individual stories and sacred texts. One high point of the book is the material on childbirth--hard to study in the field, and rarely reported. Another high point is the text and translation of the entire White Hmong burial chant, which is the most sacred of texts and includes the Hmong cosmology. A sustained, striking poem, it must be darkly powerful and chillingly beautiful when shamans chant it over the deceased.
One virtue of this ethnography is that it complements existing (mostly male-written) Hmong ethnographies by presenting a female-centered view; White Hmong society is quite gender-separate, and a male ethnographer would not have had the insights into birth and its rituals.
Symonds tells us enough about herself to allow us to understand her situation, but is not obtrusively "reflexive." She contexts the Hmong in Thai politics, but never loses her focus on the Hmong. (This in contrast to some recent ethnographies I have read, in which anthropologists blow their own expertise--ethnography--and try with conspicuous lack of success to be political scientists instead.) She tells us what she thinks is happening, thus fulfilling anthropological responsibilities, but does not bury her material under floods of speculative "interpretation," again in contrast to some recent works I have had to read. Like Nicholas Tapp (oft cited herein), she actually lets the Hmong speak and act, and thus we have the enormous benefit of their words, views, and deeds. This is an extremely valuable corrective to the mere-victim or mere-backdrop status that the Hmong, like other minority peoples, have had in so much of the literature. The Hmong experience, like all human experience, is precious to us all, and this book presents an impressive amount of it. I hope young ethnographers will read and learn.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars calling in the soul: gender and the cycle of life in a hmong villagfe, January 10, 2007

By 

Mr. Pheng M. Yang - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Calling In The Soul: Gender And The Cycle Of Life In A Hmong Village (Paperback)

I like reading the book. This book contain all basic information about the Hmong culture. I highly recommended all Hmong and nonHmong who are interesting about Hmong culture to read this book. The author Patricia Symonds have come to understand and experience the Hmong Culture well.