Vietnamese Sorcery
From: Carl Robinson
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 4:15 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I am curious to hear if anyone's done any academic work on a form of Vietnamese sorcery known as "ngai". (Unsure about the accent marks.) I've first heard about this sorcery from my southern Vietnamese wife years ago during the war years and occasional other stories, some quite fantastic involving eggs that suddenly appear and disappear.
The belief is that someone can "ngai" you and almost hypnotically bring you under their control, whether it's a young woman trying to entice a man into leaving his wife, ruining someone's business and some other evil. Individuals can have a perfectly normal life but after they've been targeted will suddenly change, abandon everything and follow that person. One example heard here in Australia was the daughter of a well-educated Viet Kieu I knew who was studying to be a concert pianist, and doing quite well at it, when a man came along and "ngai'd" her into following him and she left everything behind. The family blamed "ngai." In fact, I get warned quite regularly by you-know-who, even at my age, about getting myself "ngai'd" by a lithesome young beauty.
How widely-known in this phenomenon? It is just a regional southern thing, or something you find all over the country. I'd be fascinating to hear your comments.
Best regards,
Carl Robinson
AP Saigon, 68-75
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From: <tobiasrettig@smu.edu.sg>
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 7:32 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Adding on to Carl, I would be interested to learn more about the eggs - eg I read (or was it a documentary?) Eggs were used as divinatory tools to check whether the digging place and the bones belonged to the right veteran gone missing in action.
Eggs are also used by some Filipino healers who suck out bad things (nails, etc!) out of the bodies of those seeking healing.
Best,
Tobias
Best,
Tobias
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 7:37 PM
To: "tobiasrettig@smu.edu.sg" <tobiasrettig@smu.edu.sg>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
On "ngai" also known as "bua ngai", see Leopold Cadiere, Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Vietnamiens. He did his fieldwork in Central Vietnam where the belief in ngai is particularly strong, possibly as a result of influence from minority religions.
I don't know of sources regarding eggs.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Alec Soucy
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 7:42 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
In my reserach on religion in the north, I have not come across this idea, but maybe I haven't asked the right questions. I suspect that it is a regional thing. Has anyone else come across this in the north? Maybe Kirsten Endres would have heard something, if she is reading this...
Cheers,
Alec Soucy
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, Canada
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From: Lonán Ó Briain
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 9:22 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
On Tobias' eggs, some animist Hmong in northern Vietnam use eggs to diagnose whether a person has recovered from illness or not. An egg is placed in a bowl, some cooked rice is placed on top of it, and then another egg is balanced on top of the rice. If the egg on the top of the pile falls, the person is still ill and a further shamanic healing ritual (ua neeb kho) has to be carried out. This has come up in discussion with a couple of shamans in Lao Cai as an alternative technique but I have not encountered any literature on it.
Best,
Lonan O Briain
PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology
University of Sheffield
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From: Kirsten W. Endres
Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 1:29 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
With regard to the eggs, I only that a bowl of glutionous rice with two chopsticks stuck into it and a hard boiled egg between them are used in funerary/ancestral rites, and that a hard boiled egg balancing on a chopstick is used as a sign that the soul of a deceased relative is resting with (or near) the bones in an unmarked grave.
Concerning the "love magic", I've come across a number of wild "bùa mê thu?c lú" stories in Lao Cai city about ethnic minority women using some kind of potion in order to make men fall in love with them and forget all their previous obligations in life.
Alec, will you be in Hanoi at the end of November? Let's get in touch!
Best,
Kirsten
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From: Vu Hong Phong
Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 2:18 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Regarding "bua ngai": When I did my study in Hoa Binh province, northern upland of Vietnam, I met at least two people (both are Muong ethnic) who mentioned about it. Both cases relate to love, or control of love. The first case, a man, said that Muong men used to use a special comb to win love. The trick was to get the girl they like use that comb. The second case, a Muong woman, claimed that her husband had been 'bua ngai' by another woman (of another ethnic minority) who lived hundreds of kilometres away from her house. Each time that far-away woman "operates" bua ngai, her husband suddenly sneezes three times, and leaves her and her children for a few weeks.
Please note that Vietnamese women/men often say "my husband/wife has been hit by a bua ngai" when explaining the lack of love/attention toward family, though they don't necessarily believe in bua ngai.
But in the context of Hoa Binh, in the second case, the wife seemed to really believe in the power of bua ngai. In the first case, I don't know if Muong men are still using that technique these days.
The third case, interestingly, relates to Kinh immigrants who live together with Muong people and have seemed to be affected by that practice. A Kinh woman was said to bring a T-shirt of her husband, who had been in love with a woman recently, to a Muong traditional healer. The healer did something on the T-shirt and told the Kinh woman to bring it home, without her husband knowing anything about it. It was believed that if the husband wear the T-shirt, he would stop see that woman. Later, the husband did stop it.
Best wishes,
Phong Vu
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From: Tobias RETTIG
Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 2:51 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks to all for the information regarding the eggs.
Kirsten's account matches what I saw or read - I tried to find out where, but only came across a short reference in Wayne Karlin's Wandering Souls (can be read via google books, where one can also check for 'egg'), p. 183, where the medium instructs Hoang Ngoc Dam's family (which is trying to identify the location of his remains): "So then she said to get an egg, because it is a custom to do an egg and a chopstick."
As the medium appears from the family's home village (p. 183), Thai Giang in Thai Binh province (p. 83), the custom also appears prevalent in the north.
Now, on p. 190, we learn a bit more, by a Vietnamese expert: "A chopstick is stuck in the earth of a gravesite, an egg placed on the point. If the egg doesn't drop, that's the correct grave." She laughed. "If they do it enough times, they'll eventually manage to balance the egg."
Have a good weekend,
Tobias
Tobias Rettig
School of Social Sciences
Singapore Management University
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From: Paul Sorrentino
Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 4:58 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Tobias, Carl, and all,
Such stories are quite common in the North as well, and often linked
to Kinh's idea of minorities. A master of ritual (th?y cúng) I work
with told me about his hesitating about learning the use of bùa dân
t?c (especially Mu?ng) : they are supposed to be very very powerful,
but can be dangerous and include some usually forbidden practices,
such as those related to influencing people's desires. Indeed,
according to him, some bùa dân t?c could be used in order to 1) make
people fall in love and 2) make people become one's followers.
However, stories about bùa used in romance can also be heard among
urban Kinh. Earlier this year, a close friend knowing about my working
with a number of th?y cúng asked my advice about her suspicion of her
husband being the victim of this kind of bùa ng?i. The fact was that,
for the first time, she felt like their family could be threatened by
one of her husband's lovers. When she described her husband's unusual
behavior to a friend, that friend suggested that the lover might have
used a bùa, and from then on, my friend entered a process of visiting
several th?y bói and th?y cúng, building more and more suspicion about
the "magical" agression : only this could have made her husband become
so different (and break the rule that their mariage was built upon,
rather unusual in Vietnam, at least in such an explicit form : they
both could have lovers but it should have no consequence on the
family's life).
It is only when my friend started considering hiring a th?y cúng to
dissipate the charm (gi?i bùa) - and had actually already begun
working with one of them - that she told me about it, though she had
always said that she "did not believe in these things" and was "not
superstitious". This kind of attitude is very widespread, at least in
the North. This might be a reason why Alec, who's working in a very
Buddhist environment, hasn't come across such stories. The first pages
of Kirsten's book show very well how you learn by accident about
people being involved in ritual practices although they have been
denying it constantly. I have several similar stories in my own
fieldnotes. Those interested in the question should read Kim Chongho's
book about the "paradox" Korean shamanism : he makes this
contradictory attitude towards "superstition" (in Korea) the center of
his approach to Korean shamanic/possession rituals, and the book
starts with his learning about his wife's family (whith whom he lived
during fieldwork) organising a séance right on the day after his
departure from Korea.
About the eggs. Of course, they have long been a usual offering in
many rituals, boiled most of the time (except for the Five Tigers, Ngu
H?, who are offered raw eggs and meat). Their typical donees are the
dead, though the Messengers of the Five Orients (Quan S? Gi? Nam
Phuong) are systematically offered five bowls of rice topped with a
boiled egg in some rituals (some involving a phát t?u sequence).
However, I have never heard of any specific use of eggs in the making
of bùa (also because I haven't been able to learn much about bùa,
which are a very sensitive subject with the th?y cúng, probably the
one they are the most secretive about). The use of an egg and a
chopstick in the grave-finding business is now very widespread (and I
have actually become quite good at balancing an egg on a chopstick !).
Many recent press articles mention this practice, but I haven't found
anything older than a Th? Gi?i M?i 1996 article cited by Shaun K.
Malarney in Pr. Ho Tai's book (2001 : p.71) (and actually I am looking
for a copy of this article, does anyone have a scan ?).
It would for sure be interesting to dig these "egg symbolics" further.
However, one thing should be noted : I guess most of you can't balance
an egg on a chopstick. And I guess most can't because most haven't
tried. One of the reasons why most haven't tried (apart from not
caring at all) is that eggs break when they fall and no one wants to
break a dozen eggs in the kitchen for that. It might sound trivial,
but I think this is one of the reasons for the spread of this practice
: few people take the effort to practice and realise that it is quite
easy to do. But when you are in a graveyard at night and start trying,
you end up balancing the egg quite soon. My purpose here is not to
"bust a hoax" (like some Vietnamese press articles about the egg and
chopstick), but just to underline a very simple material aspect that
might be one of the reasons of the spread of this practice (as a
method of proving the dead's presence through the demonstration of
their agency and power). Of course, this is just a very small part of
the explanation, and probably not the most important.
Best,
Paul Sorrentino
ATER
Université Paris Descartes
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From: Ngo, T.
Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 6:39 AM
To: Vu Hong Phong <phongvhp@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi all, here is what I wrote about 'bua' in relation to what I see as a common practice in Vietnam: sexualized minority. This except is from my dissertation. I would love to hear your comment on it.
ps: Chi Kirsten, i am going to be in Laocai in Hanoi and December, would you like a couple of coffee?
Tam
Sexualized minority: Stereotype and prejudice
The popular images of the Hmong in Vietnam, through the eyes of the Kinh Vietnamese, are not only as dissident others but also as erotic others (as I have shown in chapter 4). Very similar to what Schein observes in the case of the Miao in China, the figures of Hmong women are a revealing index of the transformation in which the Hmong are perceived differently along with the vicissitudes of their relations with different neighbors, observers, and rulers. In the eyes of the Kinh and other dominant groups, Hmong barbarism was contrasted with Confucian based civilization. Hmong women's scanty but colorfully embroidered dress represented a kind of bodily excess, which combined with courtship mores of permissible premarital sexual play, signified an unconstrained and perhaps too seductive sexuality. Hmong women were especially feared by the Kinh for their ability to manipulate, bring sickness, and cause death to people using various witchcraft ornaments (bua) and poison. I was told of one such 'spell' which is used particularly for sexual purposes-seduction, revenge for infidelity, control of sexual partners-and the Kinh have ample lore about the dangers of Hmong women using it on them. When a girl wants to seduce or have total control over a man, she will use her menstruation blood, which she wipes on a kind of hemp garment (it is said that normally Hmong women do not use sanitary napkins during their monthly period, which of course is not true, but the Kinh love to circulate such lore to demonstrate how barbarian and dirty the Hmong are). The blood-soaked garment is then dried and burned to ashes, which is then mixed with a mixture of herbal poison and opium. The final product is a very fine powder which the girl places in the targeted man's drink. According to popular lore, once he drinks, his shall be her sexual slave forever.
Anthropologist Norma Diamond (1988) reviewed evidence that Gu poison, a famous witchcraft remedy allegedly said to be a dangerous product of the Miao in China, was actually traceable to the Han. This connection suggested that such lore was promoted by a need to enforce ethnic boundaries in light of the scandalous sexual and gender mores of the Miao and the fear that intermarriage or sexual relations with their women would mean irrevocable contamination. In an insightful analysis, Diamond (1988) addressed the problem of danger surrounding minority sexuality and marriage practices through an examination of Han allegations of the Miao's use of magic poison. Diamond suggests that the power attributed to Miao women to cause illness and even death through Gu poison sorcery was a projection of the fear held by the Han Chinese of the perceived strength and relative freedom in Miao women's gender roles. This strength and relative freedom profoundly threatened the Confucian moral order, which already saw Han women as dangerous because of their liminal status as those who moved, through marriage, between competitive or hostile lineages. The threat implied by outside women marrying in was compounded by the fact that during the Ming and Qing dynasties large numbers of male migrants and demobilized soldiers who had been sent to suppress Miao rebellions had settled in the southwest provinces. In the absence of Han women, they depended on the Miao and other non-Han for marriage partners, making the maintenance of a 'safe' distance impossible. A few stories of poison potency constructed by the Han in this context continue today. They are a kind of mythmaking generated by attempts to resolve a highly contradictory relationship in which the 'other' women's attractiveness and sexual availability also constitute her danger (Diamond 1988, cf. Schein 2000:61).
In Vietnam today, perhaps because of the increased contact between lowlander Kinh and mountain inhabitants like the Hmong, as the result of Doi Moi and internal migration, the fear of the black magic power of the Hmong still exists. Yet, as ethno-tourism becomes more and more popular since the last decade, now Hmong women are celebrated more often for the beauty, rather than the impropriety, of their clothing. The ornately costumed Hmong women have become a widely circulated symbol of ethnic otherness, now rendered in a consumable, unthreatening, and even desirable form. This celebratory spin was also backed up by a new ethno-nationalist agenda after the cultural reform in 1986 which pictured the multi-ethnic society of Vietnam as a variegated flower garden (Vu?n hoa muôn màu); a metaphor for unity in diversity through the image of a diversely costumed throng of nationalities smiling as they marched toward socialism (Salemink 2003b).
The growth of ethno-tourism has made good use of Hmong "sexuality." Various stereotypes of Hmong sexuality including courting customs, sexual practices, and marriage became sellable commodities in this emerging travel economy. Tourists to hill stations like Sa P? search for "Cho Tinh" (the so-called love market of Hmong youngsters). Marriage by capture has inspired one of the most popular hard rock songs in Vietnam in the last few years.[1] <https://mmg-3.mmg.mpg.de/exchange/Ngo/Drafts/RE:%20[Vsg]%20Vietnamese%20Sorcery..EML?Cmd=reply&Create=0#_ftn1>
While Hmong sexuality is celebrated in popular media and in the emerging travel economy, it continues to be a target of regulation by state developmental policies. Educational and propaganda campaigns focus on targeting the early age marriage practices. There is public criticism about the polygyny practices in the Hmong community (in a program to evaluate and nominate a "cultural village," many villages in B?c Hà which are majority Hmong, fail to qualify because of too many cases of polygyny). Women's unions in the mountain province are active in family planning campaigns and women's development, which include the use of contraceptive methods and preventing domestic violence against women. In Vo Chong A Phu, a famous short story written by the revolutionary writer To Hoai and made into a movie, marriage by capture is heavily criticized, as in the film it is the cause of suffering of Hmong women and poor Hmong parents at the hand of the cruel, greedy, and exploitative Hmong rulers (who were backed by the French colonial power). In short, Hmong sexuality, in the light of the state's interest for a "healthier" population, is deemed in need of regulation. While failing to achieve its aims of regulating Hmong sexuality, these programs seem to be successful in making the Hmong conscious of how the majority society perceives their sexuality and culture. While some Hmong people, especially the Christian converts, do begin to perceive their customary sexual practices as abnormal and to be condemned, many others embrace a "resistant spirit" and resentment toward the Kinh's contempt.
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[1] <https://mmg-3.mmg.mpg.de/exchange/Ngo/Drafts/RE:%20[Vsg]%20Vietnamese%20Sorcery..EML?Cmd=reply&Create=0#_ftnref1> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYuIqq0zjh4&feature=related<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYuIqq0zjh4&feature=related> . (Accessed 27/01/2011).
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From: Marc J. Gilbert
Date: Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 3:57 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Comment: An excellent example for use in courses on cross-cultural contact/ the imperial body/ colonialism/the post-colonial nation state. It is shorter and more accessible than most of the essays in Ballantyne and Burton’s Bodies in Contact. Many thanks!