The art of being governed: apocalypse, aspirational statecraft, and the health of the Hmong body (politic)

Abstract

Hmong ritual practice revolves around managing proper relations between one’s ancestors and living kin, as this relationship is a key factor in both the physical health and more general welfare of living descendants. General Vang Pao came to take on the mantle of an ancestor for all Hmong, and his post-mortal welfare became metonymically linked to the welfare of the entire Hmong community, regardless of clan or kinship. His funeral (lub ntees, lub cawv xeeb) and soul-releasing (tso plig) ceremonies were perhaps the largest occurrences of coordinated public ritual in recent Hmong history. Beyond merely resolving the affairs of his life and sending his spirit to the ancestral realm (the common functions of these rites), these events became sites of the ritual enactment of Hmong statehood, both for those who organized and coordinated the rites, as well as for those observing and participating more broadly in the events. In many ways, the events marked simultaneously the conclusion of a Hmong apocalypse, whose apotheosis was the aftermath of America’s secret war in Laos, as well as an aspirational utopia—the very performance of a Hmong state that is more dreamed than real. An ethnographic analysis of the iconography, discourse, and ritual innovations at the events reveals a set of practices best described as ‘aspirational statecraft.’ Ritual performers asserted a meridian of time marked by Vang Pao’s passing and sought to fulfill the longstanding desire for Hmong statehood by casting Vang Pao as a metonymical ancestor to the entire Hmong body politic.

Keywords:

• Millenarianism
• health
• morality
• Hmong
• politics

Ethical approval

The ethnographic fieldwork conducted for this paper was approved by the Social and Behavioral Science Institutional Review Board at the University of Chicago, #H06206.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Xwb Fwb Yaj Ceeb Vaj for his guidance in navigating the nuances of Hmong mortuary practice. Two anonymous reviewers and the editors of this special issue provided productive critiques that helped shape the argument. Greg Thompson also gave productive feedback on multiple versions of this article. Brandon Folkman provided technical expertise to help me record proceedings by remotely capturing the first live internet feed of Hmong Satellite TV, debuted at this funeral; and research assistants Hannah Taylor and Hannah Wang assisted with multiple dimensions of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I use the term “traditional” in a descriptive, rather than a normative sense, following the use of my Hmong interlocutors.

2 I employ RPA spelling for words in the White Hmong dialect (Hmoob Dawb) that I used during the majority of my fieldwork.

Additional information

Funding

Fieldwork for this paper was funded by a National Science Foundation Grant [No. BCS-0852593], a grant from the Committee on South Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, and a grant from the Brigham Young University College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences.