Speaking with spirits: the Hmong Ntoo Xeeb New Year ceremony.

OVER THE PAST two decades, the term "Hmong" has come to be used internationally to refer to fiercely independent montagnards who have lived for centuries in isolated mountain villages throughout southern China and Southeast Asia (YANG 1975, 6). It has been proposed that they were the autochthonous inhabitants of central China (Yellow River basin) before the Han Chinese settled there during the third millennium BCE (MOTTIN 1984, 99). Military and population expansion into fertile lowlands by the Han eventually forced the Hmong to migrate southwards to the mountainous province of Guizhou, with an average elevation of four thousand feet above sea level. From that lofty region, the Hmong held out against the Chinese empire for more than two millennia, periodically establishing their own independent kingdoms until annihilation and genocide by the Qing Dynasty in 1776. There were subsequent Hmong diasporas to Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.

The Hmong have long been called Miao (alternatively spelled Meo) by Han Chinese, who used the term as a general catchword to refer to all non-Chinese in the south in ancient historical works such as the Zhanguo ce (Intrigues of the Warring States) and Shi ji (Records of the Historian) (JENKS 1994, 32). The Chinese character is composed of the "grass" radical over "field," which may be interpreted to mean "rice-plant shoot" or "sons of the soil" (WIENS 1954, 73). This suggests an early status the Miao may have held as indigenous farmers. A leading Hmong intellectual, Yang Dao, believes that the word's meaning in Chinese is "barbarian" or "uncivilized" (YANG 1982, 6). It has been proposed that "these names are onomatopoetic designations for 'cat' and both carry derogatory connotations" (SCHWORER-KOHL 1995, 241). This refers to the fact that Meo, pronounced in a different tone, can mean cat in Vietnamese (MOTTIN 1984, 99) and in Thai (ENWALL 1992, 26). Many scholars claim that Hmong means "Free People" (BRITTAN 1997, 5; GIACCHINO-BAKER 1995, 50; CHAN 1993, 2; CONQUERGOOD 1986, iii) but a preeminent Western scholar has written that "as far as I know there is no evidence that would legitimate this claim" (MoTTIN, 1984, 99). A more literal translation would be "human being" (LIVO and CHA 1991, 1; YANG 1992, 253). What is indisputable is that the Hmong have vigorously resisted assimilation by dominant alien cultures throughout their long history. (1)

The indomitable will of the Hmong to maintain their own independent cultural identity through the vicissitudes of centuries of migration from political and military oppression finds symbolic expression in traditional ritual practices. These ceremonies not only symbolize the complex relations in the Hmong animist belief system, but also represent a social construction of remembering. This social memory articulates a collective experience (FENTRESS and WI CKHAM 1992, 25), giving a group a way to know the past and providing a basis for identity and an instrument for influencing the actions and practices of its members. Although the Hmong, together with other upland peoples, have been characterized as remote from the influence of the secularizing nation-state, they have not remained immune to a crisis of identity brought on by increasing integration into the global market economy. Yet they have not completely yielded to demystification; Hmong village ritual ceremonies serve to affirm the powers of locality and local spirits. What the Hmong regard as the central aspects of their culture, their kevcai, (usually translated as "customs," but can be more accurately rendered as "ways") are renewed by traditional New Year ritual ceremonies. These ritual practices constitute sites of contestation over what should be preserved and what must be rejected in Hmong culture, particularly within the context of modern secularization (TAPP 2002, 97).

YANG Dao has referred to the Hmong New Year celebration as Tsiab Peb Caug, (1992, 300). It has been described as

 
   the only Hmong religious ceremony shared by the entire community 
   .... Shamans performed ritual sacrifices to placate the spirits of 
   the forest and field, to honor house spirits, dead ancestors, and 
   the souls of the living members of the family, as well as the 
   souls of the family's livestock.... The festival lasted for three 
   days. And except for the time reserved for ritual sacrifices, 
   during those three days Hmong, young and old, visited friends and 
   relatives, ate and drank, and played games from dawn to dusk. 
   (QUINCY 1995, 110-11) 

Currently, Hmong New Year celebrations in northern Thailand no longer coincide with the lunar calendar, but have been adapted to fit the Western calendar; also celebrations are not limited to three days, but take place during an entire week, December 26 through January 1, with different villages within a locality rotating festivities so that neighboring villages can attend each other's events. (2) A central function of spiritual renewal is conveyed by this description:

 
   Of the various farming-related ceremonies in the Hmong annual 
   lunar cycle, the New Year Celebration (naj peb caug) [an 
   alternative Hmong term] was the most elaborate and important.... 
   Standing as a spiritual and material marker between the old year 
   and the new, the ceremony is aimed in general at removing the evil 
   influences that had assimilated during the previous year and 
   ensuring an adequate supply of good fortune for the next. All the 
   specific rituals performed during the celebration involved 
   expiation, supplication, and sacrifice intended to reassemble the 
   ancestral souls and familiar spirits back at the village to secure 
   their spiritual assistance for the coming year. (SCOTT 1982, 67)