Village activity
Sticky rice is hard work! (December 14th, 2020) Hmong New Year celebrations are traditionally held at the end of the rice harvest based on the lunar calendar. This year the events were curtailed due to the virus, but sticky rice was still produced in Phoumieng village. In the video below Bounchan, our village coordinator, is wearing a blue jacket with his back to us at the start. His wife, Noi, is in the pink sweater on the far right. Mother Daw – in the blue top & kerchief – is helping Noi wrap rice cakes in banana leaves. Toward the end of the video son Vong is holding another young villager and is quite pleased with himself.
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Bounchan and Noi spent the afternoon of August 1st, 2019 with son, Vong, gathering bamboo shoots for a family meal that evening. (August 25th, 2019)
The Hmong New Year (1) (December 7th, 2018) Starting off the New Year celebrations was a rope-loop ceremony to send away all the bad things of the old year: bad luck, bad omens, demons, negative forces, devils, etc. The intent is to protect all living family members from evil spirits. A loop is formed from a bent tree and a rope made from straw grass that is attached to the top and bottom of the tree.
Participants walk through the loop several times in one direction, and then repeat in the opposite direction. Once finished the shaman conducting the ceremony blesses participants with good fortune, health, luck, prosperity, and happiness for the upcoming year. A rooster who was part of the ceremony was not so fortunate.
The photos:
The first photo shows kids arriving first as the loop is prepared. In the 2nd photo the loop appears; the bundle of plant fronds suspended above the ground will be pulled aside as people march through. Notice that the man wearing the camouflage hat is holding plant fronds in his right hand, and also a rooster dangling head downward in the 3rd photo. In the 4th photo the left, bent-over woman is reaching for an axe; it’s never good to be a rooster in such ceremonies. Notice that the plant fronds are attached by symbolic red cloth strips to the tree.
The 5th photo shows the collapsed loop, followed by one showing people bending to go through the loop under the bundle of plant fronds. Photo 7 shows people moving through the loop in the reverse direction – notice the houses in the rear. Photo 8 has a good view of the surrounding mountains as people are passing out of the loop. The woman in the indigo top is doing double duty with a baby on her back and front. The child on her back is keeping an eye on us.
There is no mobile reception in the village, but the 2 phones evident in the photos are an indication of how reasonable phones & rates are in Laos, unlike Canada where we are completely ripped off !!
The Hmong New Year (2) (December 7th, 2018) After the opening rope-loop ceremony of the New Year celebrations to banish evil spirits described above, many families have one of the village shamans perform a soul-calling ritual (Hu plig -- "who plee") in their house. Hmong believe each person to have 12 main souls which must remain in harmony for good health. If disharmony occurs souls sometimes leave the body, which can cause serious illness, and a lost soul may be taken captive by a malevolent spirit. Soul-calling returns the wandering souls to reunite with the family.
For the village adolescents there are two fun activities: the spinning top game, Tuj lub (“Too loo”), which is touched on briefly in the December 2nd posting below, and the ball tossing game, Pov pob.
There are 2 ways of playing the spinning top game: the simplest is to see whose top will continue spinning the longest, the more interesting is to knock your opponents’ tops out of the game – which leads to some intense action.
The ball tossing game is, in fact, an “ice-breaker” to promote social interaction between young men and women who are normally not encouraged to interact. It’s one way of finding and checking out a potential spouse and often leads to marriage later on. Two lines are formed 10 to 15 feet apart. Girls can toss the ball to other girls or boys, but boys can only throw to girls. It’s a taboo to throw the ball to someone of the same clan; that is, with the same last name. In some versions if a ball is dropped, or missed, an ornament or other item is given to the throwing partner which can be recovered by singing songs. The songs are traditional courtship songs, though among many expats in the US the teenagers bring their own favourite music. And even middle-aged community members join in, including widowers and divorcees.
In the photos:
Both games are visible in the 1st photo: boys have 7 tops spinning on the ground to the left (zoom in), and a mixed group is engaged in the ball toss on the right. Some traditional costumes are evident in the 2nd photo as the ball toss game is about to start. The social element of this game seems to be working well in the 3rd photo as the girl with the umbrella, and holding the ball, is sharing a good laugh with the boy behind her. Note the indigo accents on her outfit – and some of the others, and the traditional hats that all the young women have on.
The remaining photos indicate the intensity of the spinning tops game: the young man wearing the Chelsea pants and orange top is poised to blast an opponent out of the game, while the lad in the dark blue tee shirt in the following photo appears to have just made a contact. Notice the tilted solar panel to the left of the roof in these two photos. Around the corner to the right of the game are a group of future stars practicing their technique in the final photo.