Religions
Hmong Shamanism
Polytheistic (Animist)
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Hmong shamanism, ua neeb, is the traditional religious practice of the Hmong people of southern China and highland Southeast Asia, and of Hmong diaspora communities formed after the Vietnam War, centered on a shaman called txiv neeb who enters trance to negotiate with spirits on behalf of a client, most often to recover a wandering soul believed to cause illness. A txiv neeb trains for years under a teacher, learning ritual implements such as a gong and finger bells, and the neeb, a sung ritual text that guides the journey between the human and spirit worlds. The chant is transmitted within shaman lineages rather than fixed in a printed text open to general use, so the atlas describes the practice without supplying the chant's words. Hmong shamanism continues as a living practice today alongside Christianity and other religions adopted by Hmong communities.
Facts
About This Record
Coverage NoteThis page is shorter than many others in the atlas, and that is a record artifact, not a judgment of how much Hmong Shamanism matters. Much of what Hmong Shamanism holds is kept in restricted custody, passed on through oral transmission among initiated or authorised practitioners, or both, in the way its restricted tradition note above already sets out, so there is less that outside, publishable sources can responsibly say. A short entry here does not mean Hmong Shamanism matters less than a tradition with a long one; it means the atlas can currently say only what it has been permitted to say. If you can point toward documented material the community has authorised for outside use, sign in and open a dispute on this page naming the source; it will be reviewed. 2 Origins
Place of OriginSouthern China and the highlands of Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, and Hmong diaspora communities in the United States, France and elsewhere. 1 Belief
TheologyAnimist: persons and powers in land, water and living things 1 Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Cultural Restriction
Restricted TraditionThe chant is not published here as a reproducible text. Ua neeb chant is transmitted within shaman lineages, and the atlas describes the practice rather than supplying the words. 2 Learn More
A Practice That Crossed an Ocean With Its People
Hmong shamanism, ua neeb, is carried by a shaman called txiv neeb, who trains for years under a teacher before conducting the trance journeys through which a wandering soul is sought and returned to a sick client. The chant that guides that journey is not published here; it belongs to shaman lineages, transmitted person to person rather than fixed in any printed text meant for general use. What is public is the practice's history and its continuity across an extraordinary displacement. Hmong communities originated in southern China and the highlands of Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, where shamanic soul retrieval sits within a wider regional pattern of trance based healing that comparative scholarship on shamanism, including Mircea Eliade's survey of the phenomenon across Asian cultures, has long studied as a distinct religious form.
After the Vietnam War, large Hmong communities resettled as refugees in the United States, France and elsewhere, a migration that is itself thoroughly documented public history. Ua neeb shamanism made that crossing with them and continues to be practiced in diaspora communities today, often alongside Christianity or another faith individual families have also adopted. That coexistence, a shamanic tradition and an adopted religion held by the same family, is one of the more visible features of Hmong American religious life, recorded here as exactly that: a living practice, not a historical curiosity.
Correspondences & Relations
Cross-Tradition Connections
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
An outside filmmaking team's documentary account of one Hmong shaman's family, aired by American public broadcasting, not the tradition's own institutional voice.
Sources
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