Hmong Life and Background

Background

The Hmong (pronounced without the 'H') is one of the oldest people in Asia.  The early history of the Hmong is not known for sure.  One Hmong tale tells us of life in a land of ice and snow, which may have been Mongolia where the Hmong might have come from (The Hmong in Winona, 1995).  Chinese history tells about people who could have been the Hmong around 2700 B.C.  "Later Chinese history tells about how the Hmong were forced to move from the Yangtze plains around 2000 B.C.  Over thousands of years, Hmong people have migrated throughout Southeast Asia, into what is now known as northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma in the early nineteenth century"  (Center for Cross-Cultural Health, 1998).  There is no absolute knowledge of where the Hmong originally came from, but it is believed that the Hmong were related to people who long ago had migrated from the west into Eurasia and then later migrated to Siberia.  This explained the reason why in the seventeenth century when the first westerners made contact with the Hmong, the Hmong mostly had blonde hair and blue eyes.  While it is rare now to see a Hmong with blonde hair and blue eyes, it was common back then.  "The Chinese defeated the Hmong and as punishment for their rebellion, ordered the death of every male Hmong they could find, even children and infants."  (Quincy, 14)
 

                                                                                                                             
   A Hmong man and woman at the market                                                     A Hmong woman at the market                                                                                 A Hmong woman on her way
  selling their hand made embroidery.                                                            on her way to the farm.                                                                                            to the rice fields with a slasher.
 

"The Hmong culture is agrarian, with religious beliefs based on animism (including the use of shamans for guidance, healing and other ceremonies)"  (Lindsay, 1998).  In Laos, the Hmong people had farmlands to plant rice, cucumbers, corn, wheat and many other kinds of vegetables.  Hmong people also had many other animals that they raised for either labor or food such as pigs, chickens, cows, horses and water buffaloes.  The main source of food for the Hmong is rice.  It is always eaten at every meal whether it be breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Hmong people practice a pure form of shamanism.  The shaman is not a witch doctor but a regular man or woman who deals directly with the spiritual world.  "The shaman falls into a trance and his soul leaves his body and enters the world of the souls, phantoms, genies, and ghosts.  There he combats the evil spirits that cause illness, death and misfortune.  Since shamanism originated in Siberia, this is further evidence, though not conclusive, that the Hmong came from there."  (Quincy, 24)

Language and Communication Styles

Hmong culture is an oral culture.  In the early 1950's, the Hmong language was given written letters by French missionaries.  Hmong history and life was mainly told through the making of elaborate tapestries known as story cloths or "paj ntaub.'   There were many forms of written language attempted but the method now used is a romanization system in which pronunciation seems highly non intuitive for both English and Hmong speakers, although it seems to be based on both sound and linguistic principles.  (Lindsay, 1998)  "Hmong oral literature probably reached its golden age in a time lost in prehistory.  Born in the heart of China, it grew ever richer across the centuries, diversifying into several genres:  soul calling and baby naming ceremonies, marriage rituals and funeral rites, songs of love and complaint, blessings and prayers for the New Year and for veneration of the ancestors."  (Johnson, v)  Hmong is mainly a monosyllabic language which is when most words appear in the shape of a single syllable.  "Each syllable is made up of an initial consonant or consonant cluster, a vowel or a diphthong, and a simultaneous tone.  There are no final consonants, except for ng, as in English 'sing', which occurs only as part of the pronunciation of the nasalized vowels of Hmong and hence is not considered a full-fledged final consonant."  (Hargreaves, 1)  There are also different types of tones.  The most common type of tone is the use of normal voice quality and changes in pitch.  In Hmong, pitch changes are part of a phenomenon called tone and these form an intrinsic part of the syllable.