Hmong traditional song – Mai Vang Lee

Now a member of the Missoula Hmong community, Mai Vang Lee was raised in Laos with traditional Hmong values and beliefs. Beginning when she was twelve years old, she learned traditional singing from her grandmother, mother, and sister. This music, called kwv txhiaj in the Hmong language, originated in China hundreds of years ago and is very important to maintaining Hmong cultural identity.

A tribal people living in Laos, the Hmong were our allies in Vietnam. When the United States lost the war, they were forced to flee to refugee camps in Thailand. To compensate them for this terrible loss, our government brought groups of Hmong refugees to several areas of the United States, including Missoula. Missoula’s Hmong are doing their best to become good U.S. citizens, but they also face the tremendous challenge of adapting their tribal customs to life in a modern, western, high-tech society. They want to keep what defines them as a people to help strengthen them for their new life in this country.

Mai was the recipient of a MAC folk and traditional arts apprenticeship award to teach Hmong women’s singing and songs to young girls from her culture. “Traditional singing is extremely important, especially in Laos, because it was the only way to communicate with the opposite sex,” Mai wrote in her application. “Singing enables the development of love relationships and communication between lovers. The New Year time back in Laos was for men and women to seek future spouses. Traditional singing was a way to communicate feelings, emotions, and experiences.”

Mai also says that she wants to share the beauty of her culture with others, both from within her community and beyond. She hopes that this could “reduce prejudice and discrimination against non-whites in Montana,” and that “the celebration of culture will increase self-awareness in others to understand and be proud of their origins too.”

From Folklife Gallery at mt.gov

Hmong textile art exhibited – October 24, 2008

Thursday night, Missoula resident Helen Cappadocia gave a talk about her collection of more than 600 brilliantly colored textile pieces from the Hmong culture, 74 of which are on display until Saturday at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture.

The Helen Cappadocia Collection of Southeast Asian Textiles showcases traditional and ceremonial dress and other textile items including wedding outfits, skirts, prayer shawls, an elephant head cloth, a money vest, hats and a Buddhist temple banner woven out of cotton and bamboo.

I thought that if these pieces were dispersed that the culture would be lost, said Cappadocia, a former Chicago gallery owner and one of the first female licensed contractors in Montana.

She began collecting the intricate weavings in 1989 in the midst of political unrest in Laos in an effort to help preserve their culture.

Cappadocia said she included textiles from Thailand, Burma and Laos to show the variety of people that the Hmong lived amongst.

We think largely in terms of the nation-state, but many cultures are not as involved in that as we are, Cappadocia said.

The contemporary Hmong pieces are called story cloths. They tell stories of important features of Hmong history in stitched pictures and words. The four story cloths on display depict the Hmong migration south from China, the Vietnam War, relocation in Missoula and the Hmong New Year celebration.

The Hmong sided with the West in the Vietnam War following recruitment by the American CIA. One of the story cloths depicts Hmong soldiers rescuing American pilots whose plane had been shot down, leading to their captivity in Vietnamese POW camps, Cappadocia explained.

After the war ended, many Hmong fled the area and this is what brought some of the Hmong to the United States and Missoula.

Manuela Well-Off-Man, curator of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, said that the Hmong are known for their work ethic and that there are several Hmong in Missoula who sell fruit and vegetables at the Saturday farmer’s market.

Well-Off-Man estimates that the oldest piece on display dates from around 1910. Most of the items in the exhibit were used in everyday life.

Some of the pieces on display reflect the ancient Hmong spiritual leanings towards Buddhism and animism. Animism is a religious belief whereby spirits and souls exist in nature in plants and animals.

The goal of the woman was to create something that dazzles the eye and also has spiritual meaning, Well-Off-Man said.

Written by Editor of www.hmongism.com