The Split Horn
The documentary opens with the daughter of a Hmong shaman narrating the story of how
her father is trying to keep the tradition of the Hmong shaman alive in America. Hmong people,
as the narrator states, have 7 souls each and when one of them leaves (resulting in sickness in the
human), the job of the shaman is to follow it to the sky and catch it.
Her family came from a small village in the mountains in Laos but when the Vietnam
War happened, it destroyed their home and her parents had to flee. Her family, including their 6
kids, fled to a refugee camp and lived there for 8 years. Eventually a family member sponsored
her family to come to America, to Chicago where they first arrived. Her father went back to
school in the US because there wasn’t a need for literacy in Laos. Christian missionaries always
visited her house even though they had their own belief system.
Uncle Por suffered a stroke and passed on. The documentary follows the funeral and
grieving process in Hmong culture, which include a 4 day process, involving sewing a traditional
outfit and making a crossbow for the Uncle to cross over with while gathering relatives from all
over for the ceremony.
Her dad is worried about the size of the family dwindling and the Hmong culture
disappearing, especially since none of his sons come back to help with the ceremonies. Her older
sister Zoua got kidnapped by a boy from Fresno, abiding by Hmong tradition where the man
kidnaps his bride. Her second oldest sister Kia got eloped in the middle of the night, without
telling anyone. She details that her siblings who have left home also have adopted Christianity as
a religion, in part because they feel like it is less commitment-intensive compared to traditional
Hmong culture. Going to a pharmacy to pick up medicine is more convenient than performing an
entire ceremony, says her brother.
Her parents fall ill and as a part of the healing ceremony, her dad sacrifices a pig for his
wife, and her mom sacrifices a cow for her husband. Her great aunt, who’s a shaman, throws
down split buffalo horns to see if their souls have returned. They then have all the relatives tie
strings to their wrists which represent their souls and help secure them to their bodies. They do
this in order to keep them healthy for a long time.
I think this video connects back to the other class materials in the sense that it emphasizes
the importance of keeping ethnic cultures and traditions alive, even in communities and areas
where there is not much of the same cultures. It relates to the idea that people pass down cultures
through these ceremonies, names, and other rituals like Native Indians perform Powwows in
America as a part of their culture. If people do not pass down these rituals, their culture dies
when they do, so it’s important to respect them.