Hmong+Music+and+Visual+Art

Music, Visual Art and Literature

// Compiled by Adam Serpa //

Music:

"The musics of the minority peoples of Vietnam remain obscure to many outsiders. One of fifty-four ethnic groups in Vietnam, the Hmong are a prominent group which inhabits the mountain areas bordering China and Laos." (Thao)

"Music is an essential part of Hmong life. Hmong musical instruments include the jew’s harp and various flute-like instruments. The most important instrument is the reed pipe or qeej: Where there are Hmong, there is the qeej. The instrument is played for entertainment, for welcoming guests, and at funeral rites. A Hmong person who wants to be a qeej player must be trained; it takes years of practice to memorize the flowery language of the instrument. Its music contains the entire repertoire of Hmong knowledge and wisdom." (Cultural Orientation Project)

The Hmong language is tonal just like Mandarin or Cantonese. This means that words spoken at different pitches have different meanings. This can be used in their folk music by using notes to convey meaning without lyrics! "An instrumental piece often has an equivalent song carrying specific meanings. Young men, hence, can play their mouth organs to tell stories . . . To the Hmong, music is not merely a means of entertainment. They understand its meanings and value it. In the folklore of many minority peoples in Vietnam, there are epics which feature heroes: Gfit Giong, a MiIng man, who teaches people how to overpower beasts; Px LiIng Quxn of the Toy who is able to knock down elephants and fight and kill tigers. No Giao's tales tell us that the Hmong are capable of taming tigers with their Qeej mouth organ. Qeej and songs are as important to the Hmong as their daily meals. The Hmong are fond of this legend: In the beginning, the Qeej had only one pipe (i.e., one note). One day, six brothers played a hiding game with theirQeej. When they found them, they happily played together. This made a nice harmonic sound from the six Qeej. They then began to make a six-noteQeej. This is how the current k/nh is constructed. Its six pipes of different lengths are tied together by a belt representing the union of these brothers." csuchico.edu

"The Qeej playing is always accompanied by the dancing of the player. In Hmong tradition not only one but several Qeej players can perform a dance together. I have seen four Qeej players dance together in rhythmical movements in time with their playing. Some groups of Hmong have characteristic rules for their Qeej dances. While a White Hmong dancer can hit his feet with another's, a Flowery Hmong dancer only hit his own feet. In some areas, they perform the Qeej and dance by lying down and rolling their bodies on the ground and by walking on three stakes or on a bamboo stick placed across boiling oil." (Thao)

Here is a link to a man playing one: []

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media type="file" key="The Death Song from the Hmong Funeral Ceremony - YouTube.wmv" align="center"

Visual Art

"Hmong traditional art is mainly made of embroidery or // paj ntaub // with sophisticated geometrical designs, usually in combination of red and green, and yellow and blue colors. It is an abstract art. There are geometrical patterns that have been transmitted from generation to generation long time ago. According to scholars, the geometrical figures would be fields, rivers, houses, places, etc. that the Hmong people had left because of wars and starvations during their migration to the South and to the West.

After 1975, in the refugees camps in Thailand, started a new form of art: the figurative art where women and men, spent days to draw the various scenes of traditional lifestyle or of war in pencil before beginning to sew them to give birth to a the tapestry. These "naive scenes" with different characters working in the fields, crossing a river, etc. are called " // Padau // " or in Romanized Popular Alphabet or writing system invented in the 1950's, " // Paj Ntaub // ". The popularity of this art, introduced by the representatives of the High Commissariat of Refugees in Thai camps, became the symbol of Hmong identity in the West even if they are old of about 30 years. I think the introduction of this work was to heal refugees' heart of loss: this time, instead of remembering their past life as geometric lines, they now kept their past as alive scenes that constitute their history. These tapestries are also called " story clothes". The development of this new art is in fact due to economic and financial needs more than a artistic promotion of Hmong culture and art, and but all traditional or new forms of art help to preserve memory, history and an oral tradition of the ethnic group." (PBS)





http://www.hmongcontemporaryissues.com/GalleryartKLY.html

Sewing : "Hmong also tell stories through story cloths, or Paj ntaub (which means "flower cloth.") Their textiles are intricately sewn designs composed of appliqué, cross-stitches, batik and embroidery. Traditionally, when Hmong families bury their dead, they dress them in hand-sewn clothing. In refugee camps, picture cloths grew out of an effort to teach written language to the Hmong. The women transferred their drawings to cloth. Paj ntaubs were later made as pillow covers or hung on walls as tapestries. Storycloths often incorporate Hmong family history, village life, death, the disturbance of war, emigration and life in a new land. Paj ntaub reflects how the medium of an old tradition continues to be used to tell a modern story of Hmong history and culture." (PBS)

Literature: "Hmong culture is rich in oral literature. Through various forms of songs, poetry, and recitation, the Hmong pass down their stories, beliefs, history, and moral values from one generation to the next. Many of the Hmong stories tell about an orphan who, although harassed and discriminated against by others, never gave up. He worked day and night, and through self-discipline and perseverance, he eventually became a man and a king. The orphan in the story can stand as a symbol for the Hmong people themselves—orphans without their own country who survive wherever they go." (Cultural Orientation Project)

Works Cited:

Thao,Hong. ed. Nguyen, Phong T. __NHAC Viet the journal of Vietnamese Music Special Issue Volume 4 - Number 2__. " Hmong Music in Vietnam." 1995. International Association for Research in Vietnamese Music. Retrieved from http://www.hmongnet.org/publications/hmv.html

The Cultural Orientation Project. __The Hmong: An Introduction to their life and culture.__ "Life in Laos". July 08, 2004. Retrieved November 17, 2011. http://www.cal.org/co/hmong/hlaos.htm

Public Broadcasting System. __The Split Horn: Hmong Culture.__ Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/splithorn/hmong.html