Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region (Anthropology of Asia)

319 Pages·2003·2.58 MB·English

by  Thien Do

Vietnamese Supernaturalism
Popular religion in southern Vietnam is often regarded as an indefinable
mix of many different beliefs, meanings and symbols with little pattern or
explanation. In contrast, this book highlights that the beliefs and practices
of the Vietnamese can be discerned through four distinct, yet overlapping,
spheres and that the varying attitudes which exist towards the spirit world
are a direct result of unique historical and environmental circumstances.
Vietnamese Supernaturalism examines a wide range of religious customs,
from trance possession practices to styles of self-cultivation, against several
different backgrounds including migration settlement and the effect of colo-
nialism. Despite the ostensible differences within the practices of ‘popular
religion’, Thien Do controversially demonstrates two consistent similarities:
an abiding interest in the altered state of consciousness and the daily acts of
survival employed in order to evade or resist domination.
By bringing together oral histories, reports and fiction writing alongside
more conventional documented sources, this book reveals an area of history
which has been largely neglected. It will prove to be a valuable resource to
students of Asian studies, anthropology and all those with an interest in the
culture and history of Vietnam.
Thien Do is a Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Pacific and Asian
Studies, Australian National University. He has formerly been Visiting Fel-
low at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, and taught at the
National University of Singapore.

Vietnamese Supernaturalism
Views from the southern region
Thien Do
First published 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by RoutledgeCurzon
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2003 Thien Do
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Do, Thien, 1944–
Vietnamese supernaturalism: views from the southern region / by Thien Do.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Vietnam—Religion. 2. Vietnam—Religious life and customs.
I. Title.
BL2055.D58 2003
299’.592—dc21
2003000523
ISBN 0-203-48907-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-33969-X (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-30799-6(Print Edition)
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xii
Abbreviations xiv
Introduction 1
Foreground 3
Backdrop 4
Metaphoric imagining 5
Supernatural power 9
Constructing social time 13
Self-cultivation 15
Outline of chapters 16
1 The $ình 19
Revival and survival 19
Towards an outline history 40
2 Platform for the Immortals 63
1àn Tiên twin temples 65
Plan and layout 69
Facets of temple practice 74
Trance communication and popular religion 88
3 Trance and shadows 90
Northern mediumship 90
Southern mediumship and related cults 110
4 Self-cultivation 132
Transforming discourse and action 132
Commitment 142
vi Contents
5 Daoists from the Mountain 165
Sketches for portraiture 165
Agency 182
Conclusion 207
Appendices
Appendix A: Translation of certificate from King T@ 1Ec 211
Appendix B: Procedure for services at 1àn Tiên temples 212
Appendix C: Sample poems from spirit-writing sessions 215
Appendix D: Huznh V#n Ngà’s ballad 221
Appendix E: Lê Thái Sanh’s poems 223
Appendix F: From An Hà Nhpt Báo 226
Appendix G: Texts of a sorcerer’s invocation 227
Notes 228
Bibliography 278
Index 294
Illustrations
Map 1 Vietnam around 1900 xv
Map 2 Southern Vietnam – the Mekong Delta xvi
Map 3 CQn Thd City – west side xvii
Figure I.1 Contrasting characteristics of linh 13
Figure 1.1 Plan and layout of ThDi Bình $ình 30
Figure 2.1 Plan and layout of Hiqp Minh temple 70
Figure 2.2 1àn tiên implement 77
Figure 4.1 Meditation diagram 146
Table I.1 Supernatural power relations 12
Table 5.1 Daoists and their deeds 185

Preface
This country is so strange to us newcomers,
Eerie are the bird calls, frightful too, the lashing sound of fish.
This study began with my own impression of some profound disquiet
registered by early Vietnamese settlers in the South, as echoed by oral
poetry such as in the lines cited above.1 That apparent disquiet led me to
pose questions on what Vietnamese history can offer beyond the spectacles
of national consolidation, conquest and resistance that histories of great
events have dealt with extensively. How are issues concerning the lived ex-
perience of meaningful events and the grounding of that experience in the
Mekong delta landscape addressed? What can attempts to deal with per-
sonal problems and traumas in a rapidly changing reality, and what can
insiders’ explanations for such experience tell us about self, society, and
change?
Although begun as postgraduate research, what kindled my interest in
this topic took hold much earlier than my mid-life ponderings. Coming
from an urban environment, my early vision of the world was strongly
conditioned by parental aspiration towards pursuing Western techno-
scientific ideals. Such orientation meant a general exclusion of day-to-day
challenges and discourses of conflicting social interests and powers from
my early learning stock. In compensation, I was left pretty well alone for
occasional excursions into the ‘water-locked’ landscape of the southern
Vietnamese imagination. That noumenal country beckoned me with tales
of uncanny events that occupied a more prominent place in it than I could
fathom. And many of those tales were relished at the side of my grand-
father, who had the time to feed us children with ghost stories, animal
demons, sorcery, even bawdy religious anecdotes...tantalising stuff for
young minds. However, the world of gods and spirits that actuallyconcerned
adults in a formal and practical way remained intriguingly distant. Although
my grandfather went to the $ình on festival days, my parents attended
their chùa regularly, trance mediums were around in our area every so often,
and ordinary people practised self-cultivation widely, there was hardly any