Book Description

The Hmong Songs of Memory: Traditional Secular and Sacred Hmong Music book and ethnographic film offer the reader, viewer, and listener an absorbing multi-sensory experience to explore the age-old music, ceremonies, and beliefs of the Hmong. Vivid accounts of Hmong shamans, healers, ritual specialists, headmen, musicians, and villagers are brought to life by over 350 color photographs and an enclosed 75-minute DVD in Hmong and English.The Hmong have developed an astonishingly rich culture over millennia as they migrated from their source in Mongolia and Siberia, moving from mountaintop to mountaintop along the great rivers of China to the foothills of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar, and, presently, to the four corners of the world.An agrarian people keenly attuned to the cycles of seasons and the wheel of life, the Hmong have created a complex, all-encompassing belief system rooted in animism, where everything in nature possesses a soul and the universe is organized by supernatural powers. Frequent rituals, ceremonies, and festivals are performed throughout the year to maintain harmony between the world of man and realm of spirits, be they benevolent or malevolent.The medium propelling these rites is music, which springs from a vast repository of songs, chants, invocations, and instrumental pieces that chart the human experience. This soundscape pervades daily life as it does sacred enactments. For a culture that historically had no literary tradition, music also serves as the most powerful channel for transmitting everything the Hmong know about their inner and outer lives, linking the first ancestors with present generations and beyond.Hmong Songs of Memory: Traditional Secular and Sacred Hmong Music. Text, photographs, and film by Victoria Vorreiter. Summary: Hmong Songs of Memory: Traditional Secular and Sacred Hmong Music, a book of essays and photographs accompanied by an ethnographic film, explores the Hmong vocal and instrumental musical heritage and the Hmong beliefs, traditions, and rituals that music animates. The lyrics of all pieces are cited in both the Hmong and English languages. (281 pages)