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The Hmong People are originally an Asian society from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and southeast China. Currently about twelve million Hmong people live scattered across the world. Even though the Hmong culture is patrilineal, the women of these societies have traditionally carried a large amount of responsibility. Being patrilineal, a husband’s family would make all major decisions, even those solely concerning the women. However, the women have not been powerless due to the vast amount of food and labor input they contribute to their families. Without female input, the families would not be able to function.

Women's Roles
Early gender expectations shaped Hmong children young so that they knew what their role was before their childhood was over. Women belonged to the family into which they married. Before marriage, their own family or clan considered them “other people’s women." By the time they were eight years old, girls learned the skills necessary to be good daughters-in-law from their female elders. Traditionally women worked as housekeepers, child bearers and caretakers, cooks, and tailors, and were responsible for making all of their families’ clothes and preparing all meals. Women also planted, harvested, and cleared fields with their husbands, carried water from the river, tended to the animals, and helped build their own houses and furniture.

Marriage

 * "Marriage is considered vital in every Hmong person's life and is the basis for establishing ties with other family groups." When a man decided on a bride who was a woman from outside his own clan, his father began arranging the marriage. It was taboo for a man to choose a bride from his own clan. He consulted with his own relatives and the bride. She could decline the match, but if she and her family agreed, drinks were made and a bride price was discussed. The wedding consisted of three separate ceremonies of animal sacrifices and feasts. In the Hmong society, a woman keeps close relationships with her family and never takes her husband’s last name; however, after marriage she joins her husband’s family to work and live with them. If widowed, a woman does not have many choices. A Hmong saying says that “Widows cry to death.” The woman’s children belong to her husband’s family and a woman cannot inherit wealth, which leaves her with virtually nothing. If her husband’s brother marries her she can remain in her husband’s family. Polygamy is condoned in this society; however, it is rare. An accepted circumstance would be for a man to wed his brother’s widowed wife.

Paj Ntaub

 * A large part of Hmong women’s culture is their sewing. The women are highly skilled and famous for their fine needlework and embroidery called paj ntaub (flower cloth); the ancient craft is represented in Chinese art albums. Women spend years on one piece of clothing for wedding or other celebratory attire. The cross-stitching, if done exceptionally well, is so fine it can appear to the naked eye as beading. There are five traditional patterns to the craft including an eight-point star, a snail shell, a ram’s head, an elephant’s footprint and a heart, which, when combined create a beautiful display. Women work all day in the fields and around the house and then sew by oil lamp throughout the night so that their children have appropriate clothes for New Year’s. The intricate stitching is another example of the Hmong women’s never-ending responsibilities.

Childbirth
Hmong families usually consist of many children, fulfilling several crucial purposes. First and foremost, it guarantees the continuation of the lineage and clan. Lots of children would also provide more helping hands for farm work, housework and childcare. Being able to produce many children also adds to a sense of importance for women; helping them feel a stronger sense of belonging within their clan. Children are also very highly celebrated in Hmong culture, “a birth signifies the reincarnation of a soul in a new body." A new family member was cherished in a society in which family means everything.

Pregnancy and Labor

 * During pregnancy, women continue with their day-to-day responsibilities until the day they go into labor. A Hmong woman would follow her food cravings to guarantee that her child would not be born with a deformity. Once her water broke she would then walk to the nearest water source and carry water to her house to wash her baby with when it was born. “A long labor could be eased by drinking the water in which a key had been boiled, in order to unlock the birth canal.” Boiling a key is one example of the many sacred acts that are a part of Hmong religion performed before, during, or after childbirth. In the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Fadiman discusses a woman who gave birth to twelve of her fifteen children alone in the middle of the night. The woman, Foua, delivered each child into her own hands completely silently believing noise would “thwart the birth.” The father then cut the umbilical cord and the mother washed her newborn. The father proceeds to dig a deep hole in the dirt floor of the house to bury the placenta in. If the baby was a girl it was buried underneath her parent’s bed, if it was a boy it was buried with greater honor under the central column of the house. The Hmong believe that after death a soul returns to its birthplace, retrieves its placental jacket, puts it on, and begins its voyage to the sky. Women had a strict postpartum diet that consisted solely of hot foods and drinks. Cold food would “make the blood congeal in the womb instead of cleansing it by flowing freely." These beliefs were closely followed to ensure the fertility of the new mother.

Hu Plig

 * A baby was not considered part of the community until a ceremony called the hu plig (soul-calling) occurred three days after its birth. Chickens were sacrificed and if the soul was content in its new body, the chickens tongue would be curled upward and the skulls translucent. Then either string or silver necklaces or bracelets were put on the infant to prevent the soul from wandering from the body. After this ceremony the infant would be named and was officially part of the human race and recognized as a real person.

Socio-Cultural Dynamics
Foua, the woman from The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, provides insight that her personal life was based on her cultural life. Hmong culture is centered around their legends, religion of shamans, their souls, high regards for their ancestors and the many rituals and ceremonies they perform. Women's social life and status is often a direct result of the completion and attendence of the proper rituals and ceremonies. One Hmong legend tells of a girl who took every man who passed by her as a lover. Eventually, "her sexual excesses so destroyed her health that she fell ill and died." In this story, the woman's neglect to follow one of the religious sanctions of Hmong culture resulted in her death. The Hmong also have stories of great female shamans which proves that social life and cultural life of Hmong women are interrelated. Hmong culture supplies new insights about the role of all women in that female culture is a culture in itself. The female gender is shaped beginning in childhood and to gain high status, a woman must always fulfill the expectactions that are supposedly inherent with the female sex.

Current Situation
The Hmong people’s way of life was drastically changed during the Vietnam War. The United States could not send troops into Laos so they instead trained Hmong men to fight in the hopes that they could keep Laos an anticommunist nation. Since the Hmong were fighting against Laos, they had to evacuate their homes and live in refugee camps in Thailand. After the war was over, Thailand needed to close the refugee camps and Hmong people were dispersed all over the world to Western countries such as the United States, Australia, France, and Canada. The rest of the Hmong people fled to various countries in Asia. Hmong women in the Western world had a difficult time adjusting to the western, modern way of life. The newer generation of Hmong women has become more assimilated into the Western world. However, the generation of women that came from Asia has had a tough time transferring their skills to the United States. In Fadiman’s book, the mother, Foua, declares herself stupid because she is not familiar with American culture. She cannot read or speak English and due to that inability could not perform simple yet necessary tasks such as grocery shopping. She could no longer farm or provide for her children as she once could.

Women's Current Roles

 * The patrilineal and patriarchal family system has changed little since moving their culture to the Western world. Decisions about any family member of either gender are still passed down through the husband’s family elders. Women still contribute a lot of effort to their families, but in different ways. Marriage is more modern in that women have a little bit more freedom in the choosing of their husband. However, the families of both the bride and groom still have the final say in the match. The woman does not live outside the home before she is married to protect her reputation. Childbirth is also a different process now that hospitals are located in every neighborhood. Once Foua, from Fadiman’s book, relocated to the Unites States she no longer birthed her own children, a doctor did. She no longer bathed her infants; a nurse took care of it. Foua’s husband brought in the proper postpartum food because the hospital offered her ice water. Often times the doctor would not release the placenta to the parents of the newborn baby and the Hmong lived in fear that they would never recover their placental jackets necessary for after-life. Over time, the women of this group have lost some of their power or agency. The things they used to control have been stripped from them as they moved into the Western world and globalization consumed their lives. Hmong women no longer provide food for their families in the same way that they did, they no longer birth children in the traditional matter, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult for them to perform the ceremonies they find essential to life.