Calling in the Soul: Gender and the Cycle of Life in a Hmong Village

by Patricia V. Symonds, Patricia V. Symonds (Afterword)

Overview

Symonds (anthropology, Brown U.) went to a Hmong village in Thailand in the late 1980s to study childbearing practices. She discusses Hmong cosmology as a balance of opposites; mothers, daughters and wives; birth as the journey to the land of light; death as the journey to the land of darkness; and power, gender, and the cycle of life. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295996301
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	08/03/2015
Edition description:	second edition
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Patricia V. Symonds is a visiting professor at Brown University. She is the coauthor (with Brooke G. Schoepf) of HIV/AIDS: The Global Pandemic and Struggles for Control.

Table of Contents

	Preface	IX
	Acknowledgments	XIII
	Notes on Orthography of the Hmong Language	XVII
	Introduction: Conducting Research in a Hmong Village	XIX
1.	Hmong Cosmology: A Balance of Opposites	3
2.	Mothers, Daughters, and Wives	36
3.	Birth: The Journey to the Land of Light	77
4.	Death: The Journey to the Land of Darkness	110
5.	Reflections on Power, Gender, and the Cycle of Life	163
	Epilogue: HIV/AIDS and the Hmong in Thailand	175
	Appendixes
A.	"Hu Plig" (Calling in the Soul): Hmong Text	189
B.	"Showing the Way" (Qhuab Kev): English Translation	193
C.	"Qhuab Kev" (Showing the Way): Hmong Text	239
D.	Flower Village Demographics	270
E.	A Shamanic Healing in the United States	274
F.	Health Care and Gender Issues of Hmong in the United States	276
	Notes	279
	Bibliography	289
	Index	315

Editorial Reviews

A gold mine of information for American social scientists. It is a ‘must have.’

Choice

A gold mine of information for American social scientists. It is a 'must have.'

-- "Choice"

A sensitive . . . ethnography with real social application. A commendable study.

-- "Journal of Contemporary Asia"

This book corrects the male bias of much previous anthropological writing on the Hmong. . . . Patricia Symonds shows how women are vital to the cycle of 'birth, death, and reincarnation, ' which constitutes Hmong cosmology. . . . This is excellent ethnography; it is clearly and beautifully written and well put together. Besides this, it provides an example of ethical methodology which will be extremely useful for teaching purposes and for introductions to the techniques of modern anthropology.

-- "Asian Folklore Studies"

From the Publisher