The Hmong Family Traditions

Split Horn: Hmong Tradition

The Hmong people are very traditional. They have passed down the same traditions for the past 5000 years. Family is very important to the Hmong, even though families tend to be scattered across the country in the United States. Many Hmong families came to the United States after the Vietnam War to start a new life. They came here because they were displaced refugees and no longer had a home. They did not want to assimilate and lose their traditions, but the younger generations of Hmong seem to be moving farther from the old traditional ways, becoming more American.

The Hmong have very elaborate ceremonies to send the deceased on to their ancestors in the spirit world. These ceremonies take four days and three nights

to complete. The women make burial coats for the deceased to be dressed in as part of the final ceremony. The men make other objects such as a bow. The shaman plays a bamboo flute, and places a palate on the soil after the grave has been covered with soil. These traditions are a very important part of the culture of the Hmong. They believe that American people bury their dead to quickly and do not send them off properly to the spirit world. They also believe that if the ceremony is not preformed correctly, that the deceased will stay in this world and haunt them.
When a young Hmong man decides he would like to marry a Hmong girl it is tradition that he kidnap her and take her off to be his wife. They do not ask for permission from the girls family. They believe that the young wife is to take on the traditions and way of life of her husbands family and leave the ways of her own behind. Interracial relationships are generally not accepted and discouraged. Living in America it is hard to prevent this completely, and is becoming more and more common. With interracial marriages comes new traditions, and a loss of the old. More and more Hmong are becoming Christian as well.
The Hmong have healing and spiritual leaders called shaman. The shaman are responsible for the wellbeing of the Hmong people. They believe that they have seven spirits and when one of these spirits leave them, they become sick and depressed. That is when the shaman will perform a ceremony to call the lost spirit back to the person. A person does not choose to be a shaman. The deceased ancestors choose a shaman from the younger generations. In this way, the traditions are passed down. Men and women both can be shaman, and even young children. Not many people are being chosen to be shaman here in America. The older shaman believe it is because the younger generations are moving away from the traditional ways. In Split Horn Paja Thao became depressed when his children started moving away from the traditional ways. He quit preforming traditional ceremonies for a while. He and his wife both became sick and his family preformed a ceremony for him showing him that they still loved him and the old ways, even though they were assimilating to the ways of America.
According to our textbook, Strangers to these shores, assimilation refers to the functioning within a society of racial or ethnic minority-group members who no longer possess any marked cultural, social, or personal differences from the people of the dominant group. Physical and racial differences will be seen, but cultural differences will no longer exist. When the Hmong have abandoned their own cultural traditions and have blended in with the white protestant American people, for example, this is assimilation.
Milton Gordon said that assimilation had many phases.

Cultural assimilation occurs when a minority ethnic group changes their cultural patterns to match those of the host society. We saw examples of this when Paja’s children no longer wanted to partake in the traditional ceremonies. Marital assimilation is when large-scale intermarriage occurs with members of the majority society. We saw this in Paja’s son who had a baby with his white American girlfriend. I believe, though they were not married, living with and having children interracially is still an example of marital assimilation. Structural assimilation is yet another of Gordons phases. This occurs when the minority ethnic group experiences large-scale entrance into the cliques, clubs, and institutions of the host society on a primary group level. I believe a great example of this form of assimilation is seen in Paja’s children becoming Christians and living a life of Christianity. Another place that this is seen is with his young son not wanting to take time out of his busy American life to participate in the traditional ceremonies and way of life of the Hmong.

Traditional cultural beliefs are very important to the Hmong people. The older generation want to hang on to all of the traditions, without change, as has been their way for 5000 years. The younger people are willing to hang on to some of the old traditions for their elders sakes. However, they enjoy making their own way, and forming their own beliefs, as is the American way. When you grow up in a culturally different society, it is hard not to assimilate and take on the host society’s

ways.