Troll_ov_Grimness
15-07-2012, 11:41 PM
Currently I am reading Ghosts Of War In Vietnam by Heonik Kwon. It's not very good. It is full of references to things outside the scope of the Vietnam conflict, nation, and its people. What I mean by this is that the author peppers his writing on Vietnam with random other things that he erroneously feels are relevant to the discussion often without properly explaining in what way they are relevant. For example.. in writing about the transformative soul growth that occurs when one intakes the pure spirit of a denizen of the afterlife and feeds this entity with that of their own profane substance he has the audacity to make example of some random country in Africa. The implication is that the Vietnamese believe much the same thing. It is a bit jarring but informative none the less. In any case.. I actually live right outside a bustling Vietnamese community here and had seen spirit shrines within their businesses. Perhaps one day I may specialize in Vietnamese ancestor veneration since it is so close at hand.
Summary of what I have read so far of this book is that the nature of such catastrophic warfare had a profound effect on Vietnamese spiritual life. The Vietnamese would venerate any victim of this tragedy. Even lost MIA American souls are adopted into the ritual life of the Vietnamese. They kowtow not just to the ancestors in their home but the victims of 'death in the street'. In such cases they generally place a shrine for such a spirit outside of the home but may be brought into the home with the family ancestors in a form of adoptive kinship. That is basically a summary of what this book is about. To get a feel for this culture I'll post one of the popular incantations.
Those who died while working away from home,
Those who perished in distant battlefields,
Your family knows not where you are, what you do,
We call upon you to come to us.
You are wandering in the dark.
You are frightened by the cry of a rooster.
We call upon you to come and receive our offering.
* here is another,
Those who died beheaded
Those who had many friends and relatives but died lonely
Mandarins
Those who died in the battlefield
Those whose death nobody knew about
Students who died on the way back from an exam
Those who were buried hurriedly with no coffin and no clothing
Those who died at sea under a thunderstorm
Merchants
Those who died with a shoulder hardened by too many bamboo poles carried on it
Innocent souls who died in prison
...
All spirits in the bush, in the stream, in the shadow, underneath the bridge, outside the pagoda, in the market, in empty rice field, on the sand dune
You are cold and you are in fear
You move together, young ones holding the old
We offer you this rice porridge and fruit nectar
Do not fear
Come and receive our offering
We pray for you, we pray.
Summary of what I have read so far of this book is that the nature of such catastrophic warfare had a profound effect on Vietnamese spiritual life. The Vietnamese would venerate any victim of this tragedy. Even lost MIA American souls are adopted into the ritual life of the Vietnamese. They kowtow not just to the ancestors in their home but the victims of 'death in the street'. In such cases they generally place a shrine for such a spirit outside of the home but may be brought into the home with the family ancestors in a form of adoptive kinship. That is basically a summary of what this book is about. To get a feel for this culture I'll post one of the popular incantations.
Those who died while working away from home,
Those who perished in distant battlefields,
Your family knows not where you are, what you do,
We call upon you to come to us.
You are wandering in the dark.
You are frightened by the cry of a rooster.
We call upon you to come and receive our offering.
* here is another,
Those who died beheaded
Those who had many friends and relatives but died lonely
Mandarins
Those who died in the battlefield
Those whose death nobody knew about
Students who died on the way back from an exam
Those who were buried hurriedly with no coffin and no clothing
Those who died at sea under a thunderstorm
Merchants
Those who died with a shoulder hardened by too many bamboo poles carried on it
Innocent souls who died in prison
...
All spirits in the bush, in the stream, in the shadow, underneath the bridge, outside the pagoda, in the market, in empty rice field, on the sand dune
You are cold and you are in fear
You move together, young ones holding the old
We offer you this rice porridge and fruit nectar
Do not fear
Come and receive our offering
We pray for you, we pray.