Before ever seeing the six foot tall giants, Hmong people as they knew it, never knew there were people beyond their border. Life was isolated to their own people and their neighbors around them. When the French colonize Indochina in the 18th century, they sent missionaries to spread the words of God to all the people there, and that’s where the Hmong and Christianity begin.
Christian services are very common within the Hmong people in western civilization countries. Most Hmong people who have Christian belief still follow traditional guidelines though. Examples are from the funeral that just pasted and the funeral that I attended over the weekend. In these two funerals, the family and the church that the decease attend, still feel really strongly about the three day process of rites of passage for the decease. It is still believed that whether you believe in the old ways or have become a Christian, you still have to guide the soul back to their place of birth and then back into the spirit world.
Instead of drum beats and qeej (a wind instrument used for funeral) songs to guide a spirit into their new life, Hmong Christian sing songs of hope, they pray for the safety of the spirit, and the pastor reads passages from the bible, to ensure that the decease will find their way to heaven.
These Christian services have caused a lot of debates over issues of what is cultural and what is religion. Many Hmong Christians have now disowned their non-Christian counter partners. They’ve refused to take part in many non-Christian funeral and wedding rites, and have made rules or laws for themselves to govern them. This has stirred a lot of attention among non-Christians Hmong.
Most non-Christian have no problem when it comes to taking part in any of the Christian services, but many Christian feel that the way the “non” are performing their rites are against Christian belief. They are afraid to eat the food that the “non” serves at weddings and funerals, because they believe that the food have been offer to bad spirits. They automatically exempt themselves from performing some Hmong rites like, bowing in thanks for gifts and not offering food or services to non believers.
The biggest issue that the non-Christian see is that, why do they, the believers, follow traditional beliefs if you can’t accept us non believers? At the end of the day, they still need our help to ensure that the wedding or funeral will go smoothly.
What is the problem? This past summer I had my wedding. My wife’s family is Christian and my family believed in the old ways. Because she came from a Christian background, her family wanted a Christian wedding for us along with the traditional wedding. Everything went well as far as planning went except for the pastor of their church, after finding out that I wasn’t a Christian, refused to do our wedding. Many Hmong pastor refused our request for a service so we had to use a non-Hmong priest to give us our service.