Role of Women

Although all Iu Mien worked hard, women had an especially labor-intensive life. Women usually worked in the fields all day, tended the children, cared for elders, cooked, and cleaned the household. In their spare time, women worked together on the honored task of embroidery. In Iu Mien society women were considered subservient to men.⁵⁴ Men always ate first at the table.⁵⁵ Although all children were referred to by their birth order and father's name, only girls received no personal names of their own.⁵⁶ Women were not expected to involve themselves in decision making⁵⁷ and could not become priests, shamans, or leaders. Because women were considered impure, participation by women could make the spirits angry and cause retaliation on the family.⁵⁸

Child Rearing and Education

Each child was born into a family with an assigned role in life.⁵⁹ Roles were based on gender, age, and position in the family. Family members were generally called by kinship terms, for example, younger brother's wife, so that their responsibilities and privileges were automatically known.⁶⁰ The most powerful people in the house were the father and his oldest son. In general, older people always took responsibility for younger ones and men were always more powerful than women. Children needed to learn their position and role quickly and cooperate wholeheartedly in the family venture of gaining wealth and position in both the spirit and human worlds. Because children's behavior was thought to be directly reflective of their parent's upbringing, misconduct could affect the status of the family in front of the whole community.⁶¹ Therefore sons were taught by fathers, and daughters by mothers, the appropriate way to act and talk in order to maintain propriety.⁶² Usually if children did not pay attention, parents punished them first by not giving them what they wanted, and then by hitting them with a bamboo stick.⁶³ As one parent put it, "It hurts a lot but it only hurts on the skin…. We hurt them because we want them to be respectful and to be accepted by society."⁶⁴ Conflict was actively discouraged between siblings. When adult sons were unable to get along in a large household, the father generally asked one of them to leave.⁶⁵

Most children were reared by grandparents and watched over by older siblings. Generally children learned by watching and participating in family activities. In addition to agricultural, trading, smithing, and embroidery skills, most children learned chanting. Chanting was the third Iu Mien language (in addition to spoken Mien and literary ancient Chinese) and was also a form of Chinese—although less ancient than the written language.⁶⁶ It was used in ceremonies to communicate especially profound ideas or indirect messages and to communicate with visitors whose own version of spoken Mien had undergone a linguistic shift.⁶⁷ In addition to these basic survival skills, boys whose families had the resources would become acolytes of priests in order to learn the many complicated ceremonies and study the script necessary to communicate with the spirit world.⁶⁸ Finally, some individuals learned and then specialized in making the religious paintings needed to change a normal room into a Taoist temple. Such paintings had been refined to suit the Iu Mien's migratory lifestyle.⁶⁹

Selecting Leaders and Solving Problems

In order to become a leader in the Iu Mien community, priesthood was obligatory. This was because if a family was successful at producing priests, it proved that it had the benefit of very powerful ancestors who not only protected the family, but also were smart enough to choose good souls to be born into it.⁷⁰ Further, it proved that the family head, the oldest male in the lineage, was an extremely competent individual who could successfully mediate in both the spirit world and in the complicated universe of the extended household.⁷¹ Such individuals completely controlled and coordinated the families resources,⁷² made all decisions in the household, and represented the lineage in the council of patriarchs and elders who made consensually based decisions for the village.⁷³ Once a family succeeded in producing leaders or headmen who served the community for both its religious and its secular needs, the family's position in the community often became semihereditary.⁷⁴ The headman directed village-wide celebrations, maintained security in both the human and the spirit worlds, and presided over the meetings of the council of elders.⁷⁵ Even so, the headman's role was not to become the village authority or to judge disagreements that arose, but to suggest various alternatives for resolving issues quickly.⁷⁶ Thus although the family was organized in a strong hierarchy and family members were restricted to specific roles, relationships between family patriarchs were fairly equal and patriarchs were expected to act independently including conducting their own external relations with the outside world.⁷⁷

The council of elders helped adjudicate all village problems including those of community members who acted against societal norms of behavior. Generally those who had acted deviantly were levied fines in silver, and they and their family were ostracized until they paid up. After all, "What is the use of putting a man into prison or executing him if he can be made to work and repair the damage he had done? Later on he may leave prison and start the same thing again."⁷⁸ However, this simple-seeming system was complicated by the influence of the spirit world. Families of those who went against societal norms tended to experience the wrath of the spirits through bad luck and sickness.⁷⁹ Because both conducting ceremonies to appease the spirits and paying fines were very expensive, only a very rich man could get away with serious wrongdoing.⁸⁰ When a family was unable to pay a family member's fines or for some reason found a village uncongenial, the entire lineage would move away.⁸¹

Those priests who had the wealth, prestige, skills, and compassion sometimes became high-level leaders over a large area.⁸² Such higher-level priests and headman also helped bring together the Iu Mien beyond their immediate village neighborhood. Higher-level ceremonies required large numbers of higher-level priests to officiate.⁸³ The arrival of priests/leaders from hundreds of miles facilitated communication between distant groups and helped the Iu Mien maintain cultural continuity as they migrated farther and farther from their homeland.⁸⁴

Changing Life of the Iu Mien

The comprehensive system of the Mien universe and social system started to break down when the French, during their struggle to retain control of Laos (1945–54), and the American CIA, starting in 1958, began heavy recruitment among the mountain tribes in order to counteract the Chinese and Vietnamese communists across the border and the Pathet Lao in Laos.⁸⁵ Over 40% of the young men became soldiers. Although they were conscripted, many were willing because they could earn incomparably more money for their families through the military than through farming.⁸⁶ However, as young men started actively engaging in military pursuits, making decisions for themselves, learning how the outside world was organized, and taking leadership positions in this new social order, the old system began to seem partially confining and less meaningful than before.⁸⁷ At the same time, Iu Mien villages in northern Laos became more and more disrupted, both because it was difficult to maintain cultural continuity with young men spending their time out on raids, rather than learning ceremonies, and because American saturation bombing of hill tribe territory made farming an impossible endeavor. Soon, the American military organized a temporary migration of the Iu Mien so that they could do large-scale bombing around their villages. Over 70% of the Iu Mien in Laos were forced to leave, abandoning their livelihood⁸⁸ and walking two to three months to settle in large camps where they survived on the limited supplies provided by the American army.⁸⁹

When the United States began to withdraw from Laos in 1975 due to the communist victory, the Iu Mien, both because their villages were destroyed and because they were long-term enemies of the Pathet Lao, began to make the dangerous run for the Thai border. Most family groups experienced the anguish of leaving sick relatives behind to die by themselves and watched others be murdered by the Pathet Lao.⁹⁰ Most of the harrowing journey was made at night. Once in Thailand, some Iu Mien managed to find relatives, but most ended up in refugee camps. Crowded together as never before, families subsisted mainly on rations doled out by Thai authorities, living for years in a state of uncertainty about their future.⁹¹ At the same time as their loss of autonomy rankled, many families were also disturbed by the implications of the recent dead whose improper funeral rituals ensured their negative intervention in the lives of their families for years to come.⁹² Between 1978 and 1981 thousands of Mien started leaving the refugee camps for America.⁹³ Many Mien, expecting to finally resume their life as farmers carefully packed up seeds and farming implements before they left.⁹⁴

Endnotes:

1. Peter Kandre, “Autonomy and Integration of Social Systems: The Iu Mien Mountain Population and Their Neighbors,” in Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities and Nations, Peter Kunstadter, ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 667 as quoted in Patricia Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change. Sacramento, Calif.: Sacramento City Unified School District, 1989, p. 15.
2. Wildflowers Institute Informal Leaders Focus Group I, 11/27/99.
3. Jacques Lemoine, Yao Ceremonial Paintings. Bangkok: White Lotus Co., 1982, p. 12.
4. Jacques Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” in Highlanders of Thailand, John McKinnon and Wanat Bhruksasri, eds. Kuala Lumpur, New York: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 3.
5. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 9.
6. Dr. Michael Strickman, “The Tao among the Yao: Taoism and the Sinification of South China,” given as a communication to the American Oriental Society, Western Branch, Los Angeles, April 2, 1979, as quoted in Lemoine, Yao Ceremonial Paintings, p. 22.
7. Ibid., p. 64.
8. Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” pp. 6–7.
9. U.S. Department of the Army, Minority Groups in North Vietnam, Ethnographic Study Series, Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 550-110. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972a, p. 156, and Kandre, “Autonomy and Integration of Social Systems,” and Kacha-Ananda Chob, “Yao: Migration, Settlements and Land,” in Highlanders of Thailand, McKinnon and Bhruksasri, eds., pp. 212–214, as quoted in Jeffrey L. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997, p. 86.
10. Kandre, “Autonomy and Integration of Social Systems,” pp. 583, 587, 592, as quoted in Jonathan Karl Joseph Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order: The Responsiveness of Lao Iu Mien History, Religion and Organization, Ph.D dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, 1987, p. 29.
11. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, pp. 35–36.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., p. 63.
14. Kandre, 1971, as quoted in Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 34.
15. Paul and Elaine Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984, p. 169, and Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 21.
16. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 52.
17. Ibid., p. 56.
18. Emily Jill Brandenfels, Iu Mien Practices Surrounding the Events of Pregnancy and Childbirth: East and West, M.S. thesis in Health and Medical Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, 1990, p. 32.
19. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 40.
20. Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” p. 14.
21. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 52.
22. Ibid., p. 61
23. Ibid., p. 53.
24. Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 47.
25. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 37.
26. Ibid., pp. 48–49.
27. Lemoine, Yao Ceremonial Paintings, p. 33
28. Janey Egawa and Nathaniel Tashima, Indigenous Healers in Southeast Asian Refugee Communities. San Francisco: Pacific Asian Mental Health Research Project, 1982, p. 29.
29. Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 161.
30. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 40.
31. Wildflowers Institute Informal Leaders Focus Group II, 1/22/00.
32. Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 156.
33. Ibid.
34. Frank M. Lebar, Gerald C. Hickey, and John K. Musgrave, “Thailand Yao,” Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven, Conn.: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1964, p. 93.
35. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 49.
36. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 124.
37. Ibid., p. 46.
38. Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” pp. 10, 16.
39. Sarah Hoying Hsia, Iu Mien Southeast Asian Refugees: Choosing Health Practice Options from the East and West, M.S. thesis in Health and Medical Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, 1985, p. 18.
40. Lebar, Hickey, and Musgrave, “Thailand Yao,” p. 92.
41. Ibid.
42. Wildflowers Institute Informal Leaders Focus Group II, 1/22/00.
43. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, pp. 48–49.
44. Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 152.
45. Lebar, Hickey, and Musgrave, “Thailand Yao,” p. 92.
46. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 26.
47. Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 73.
48. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 45.
49. Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” p. 15.
50. Judy Lewis, ed., Minority Cultures of Laos: Kammu, Lua', Lahu, Hmong and Mien. Rancho Cordova, Calif.: Southeast Asia Community Resource Center, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, 1992, p. 343.
51. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 44.
52. Wildflowers Institute Adult Focus Group, 11/28/99, and Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” p. 11.
53. Peter Kunstadter, ed., Southeast Asian tribes, Minorities, and Nations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,1967, p. 594, and R. Ho and E. C. Chapman, eds., Studies in Contemporary Thailand. Canberra: Australian National University, Department of Human Geography, Monograph HG/8, 1973, p. 258 as quoted in Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 152.
54. Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 151.
55. Rani Marx, Oakland's Iu Mien: A Study of Three Indo-Chinese Refugee Households, senior honors thesis in anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of California, 1980.
56. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 61.
57. Ibid., p. 25.
58. Brandenfels, Iu Mien Practices Surrounding the Events of Pregnancy and Childbirth, p. 41.
59. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 24.
60. Lewis, Minority Cultures of Laos, p. 344.
61. Wildflowers Institute Informal Leaders Focus Group II, 1/22/00.
62. Wildflowers Institute Informal Leaders Focus Group I, 11/27/99.
63. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 24.
64. Mey Chow Saetern, in The Original Tracks, 1983 Portland Foxfire Project. Portland: Oregon Public Schools, 1984, p. 215, as quoted in Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 23.
65. Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 151.
66. Wildflowers Institute Informal Leaders Focus Group II, 1/22/00 and MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 58.
67. Ibid., p. 59.
68. Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” p. 8.
69. Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 157.
70. Kandre, “Autonomy and Integration of Social Systems,” 1967, p. 597, as quoted in MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, pp. 48–49.
71. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, pp. 48–49.
72. Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” p. 10.
73. Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 78.
74. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, pp. 48–49.
75. Lewis, Peoples of the Golden Triangle, p. 150.
76. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 23.
77. Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 77.
78. Kandre, “Autonomy and Integration of Social Systems,” p. 605, as quoted in Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 23.
79. Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” p. 12.
80. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p. 22.
81. Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 79.
82. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 48
83. Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 83.
84. Ibid.
85. Lewis, Minority Cultures of Laos, pp. 362–363.
86. Habarad, Spirit and the Social Order, p. 91.
87. Ibid., pp. 92–93.
88. Moore-Howard, The Iu Mien: Tradition and Change, p.75.
89. Lewis, Minority Cultures of Laos, pp. 363–366.
90. Ibid., pp. 367–368.
91. Ibid.
92. MacDonald, Transnational Aspects of Iu-Mien Refugee Identity, p. 183.
93. Lewis, Minority Cultures of Laos, pp. 375–377.
94. Ibid., p. 376.

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