The Traditional Beliefs and Protestant Beliefs in the Funeral Rituals of Hmong People in Dien Bien Province
Abstract
The writing points out clearly that the careful performance of funeral ritual for the dead in Hmong traditional society has become a obssession and burden in both material and spiritual aspects for the living. Meanwhile, the performance of funeral ritual according to Protestant ceremony has satisfied in part Hmong people’ aspiration, has helped them reduce their economic burden and avoid their debt after each funeral ceremony. The conflict between Hmong people who have maintained their traditional beliefs and those who had followed Protestantism had taken place in many localities where there were Hmong people converting to Protestantism in the last years of 20th century and at the beginging of 21st century. However, after over one decade of co-existence, the traditional and Protestant beliefs of Hmong people have had harmonization in funeral performance which has expressed in both family and community sphere. So far, Hmong people in Dien Bien province only have had their differentiation of the traditional beliefs from the Protestant ones in process of ritual performance, the rests are the harmonization, share, and mutual help among the Protestant and non-Protestant Hmong.
