Vietnamese Supernaturalism

Views from the Southern Region

Thien Do

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134396658
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

The beliefs and practices surrounding the meanings and symbols of the spirit world in Vietnam are explored in detail in this innovative study on popular religion in the country. The author shows an abiding interest in the 'subconscious life' at a grassroots level alongside rational formations of cosmological understanding which effect politics and economics on a national scale. By bringing together oral histories, reports and fiction writing alongside more conventional documented sources, this book reveals an area of history which has been largely neglected.

1 The đình

Le đình, où demeure le génie protecteur de chaque village, est le foyer de la vie collective de la communauté.¹

REVIVAL AND SURVIVAL

The shrine for tutelary spirits of Vietnamese villages is called đình, literally ‘a courtyard, a hall or large meeting house’.² As a territorial cult, beliefs and practice concerning the tutelary spirits of the đình are incorporated into the layout of its spatial boundaries as well as temporal demarcations in rituals.³ The word đình has also been translated as ‘communal house’ or ‘village temple’. In this sense, as a French observer noted in the above quotation, which has been reiterated by Vietnamese scholars, its image as a traditional centre of village life is almost a truism. However, beyond what the word ‘centre’ implies – a bipolar process of marginalisation, typifying the tension between an élite and subordinate groups – lies perhaps a complex dynamics that deserves scrutiny. In this sense, if popular culture is a protean phenomenon and the totality of everyday tactics through which subaltern classes appropriate and resist forms of domination, how does the đình qualify as a principal icon of popular culture in Vietnam?⁴

In addressing this question, I will approach a southern đình in three parts: (a) its architectural and decorative forms, (b) rituals at its festivals in December 1992, and (c) the maintenance of belief in miraculous power credited to tutelary spirits. Related issues concerning the cult's sinicised nature, the effects of historical change on local status hierarchy and ritual items will be addressed in due course. From this perception, I will discuss some accounts of the emergence and endurance of the đình in Vietnamese history.

A suburban đình

I can recall that when I was young no one in my family, apart from my maternal grandfather, had anything to do with đình affairs. As already mentioned, my upbringing was such that most of the ‘old ways’ were removed from children's attention. My knowledge about the đình is therefore recent, with much of it gained during my field research into the southern communal houses in the Mekong delta, starting from late 1992. In my adolescence, the two đình nearest the centre of Cần Thơ City were the downtown đình itself, called Tân An, and a suburban one called Thó’i Bình, about 200 metres from my home. Their locations are typical of most đình in the Mekong delta, i.e. close to a market-place. These, in turn, were usually set up near a river junction, where boats could take advantage of the intersecting tidal currents to moor or move off with ease.⁵

When Cần Thơ province was established in 1867, Thói Bình village had already developed on the western side of town, with houses and shops near the market by the Cái Khế river.⁶ Cần Thơ city itself lies on the southwestern bank of the Hậu Giang (‘Rear River’), the lower arm of the Mekong.⁷ Hậu Giang and her two tributaries, Cái Khế and Cần Thơ rivers, delimit the city. A chain of ever-growing mud islands disguises the immense width of its stream. A mere thirty years ago, mangrove around these islands was mostly intact. Bird life was rich. White egrets nested there by the thousands. Prawns and fish abounded. Nowadays locals lament that soon there won't be anything swimming free in the river to catch. As the cultivated area grew, wildlife disappeared with the shrinking mangrove band. With mangrove disappearing owing to land clearance, the island near Cái Khế gained in size from fast alluvial deposits. The watercourse has been reduced almost by half. In place of dense mangrove foliage with egrets’ nests ringing a few rice paddocks, rows of fruit trees, areca nut palms, banana plots and houses now dominate the island's vista. Island prosperity, symbolised by the new brick homes on larger holdings, has been achieved at the expense of the former tidal environment.⁸ The rest of this riverine land shows similar change. Recent rapid expansion of farming means three crops of Miracle Rice per year,⁹ new varieties of fruits, vegetables, flowers and other cash crops being tried out, on land as well as water. Fish farming, in small and large ponds, also gained in importance besides pig and poultry raising.

Throughout the country, with the changeover to a socialist regime, many đình buildings were converted to barns or storage sheds. Particularly in southern Vietnam since 1975, religious buildings in general could not be properly maintained for many reasons.¹⁰ But from about 1988, with the upswing in economic fortune and a shift in official attitude to cultural tradition, the đình's and other popular religious festivals have made a comeback. As in the past, organisers of Thó’i Bình đình hold two annual events celebrating the beginning and end of the traditional rice-growing season, rather than six times a year if the new cropping practice were to be the norm. However, in numerous other ways, there is a gap between claims to reproduce old patterns and actual practice. Before exploring this resurgence phenomenon from my own observation of a festival scene at the đình in Cái Khế precinct, it pays to go over some current perspectives on the đình.

Terms and typology

There has been no universal consensus for labelling temples and shrines in Vietnam. Amidst a plethora of classifying terms, plebeian usage differs from élite and court nomenclature. Writing in the early twentieth century, Phan kế Bính distinguishes two types of village temple: đình and miếu, with miếu located at fairly secluded places, their exclusive function being ‘principal worship’ (thờ chính), while those called đình are buildings for thờ vọng or ‘emissary’, i.e. secondary, worship, nearer habitation or where it is convenient for villagers to meet and notables to carry out administrative duties.¹¹ At the time of Nguyễn Văn Khoan's 1930 study, the procession during the annual festival of An SÒ’ village indicated a division of function. From the đình, the procession headed for the miếu, where the royal certificate(s) could be brought out, to be carried to the đình altars for the ceremonies, then carried back to the miếu at the end. This formality implies a genealogic definition of the đình.

That seemed to be the pattern in the north. In southern popular parlance, however, the đình may have an inscribed name of miếu, e.g. Long Tuyến Co Miếu (‘Ancient Miếu of Long Tuyền’),¹² while the next type of shrine, đến, has been lumped together with Buddhist temples as well as larger miếu. They are all termed colloquially as chùa.¹³ In contrast, Sơn Nam draws four broad categories of temple in the south from his own observation of vernacular usage:

• Đình, where the tutelary spirit(s) and associated deities are worshipped.
• Đến, usually dedicated to deities of non-orthodox cults, are often smaller than its variants điện, dinh, phủ, đài and tînh, shrines for locally deified heroes, past kings and other legendary figures.
• Chùa, or pagodas, are mainly Buddhist and often situated in secluded spots. Near a cemetery they are called chùa âm hồn (yin or departed souls’ pagodas), or am chúng sinh (ashrams for sentient beings).
• Miếu, shrines, smaller in size, for venerating spirits at the lower echelons of the pantheon, e.g. the Earth god, the god of Agriculture, the goddesses of Water, of Fire. Those dedicated to the family ancestors are called gia miếu (family chapel), to the royal lineage, thế miếu (generation shrine), to Confucius and literature, văn miếu, to medicine, y miếu. In the vicinity of a cemetery, there can also be a miếu cô hồn (shrine for lonely ghosts).¹⁴

The above four categories imply further pairing: Đình-đến, mimicking imperial palaces, are communal buildings with some links to the State; and chùa- miếu, either private or communal facilities honouring mainly Buddha and celestial beings. The corresponding deities that they house further reflect a dual category in Vietnamese speech: Thần-Thánh (tutelary spirits and holy sages) and Tiên-Phật (Immortals and Buddhas) respectively. This division mirrors the opposition between state-sponsored Confucianism and popular Daoism/Buddhism which inheres in both élite and popular conceptions.

Other terms for public or royal buildings such as cung (royal palace) and phủ (princely/lordly palace) are used for those đến shrines associated with the mediums’ cult of Immortals and Nature Spirits. Such terms are also thought to refer to the original practical purpose of those monuments, when they were erected by locals to accommodate the king or his ministers in transit. As a kind of stage hotel, they were examples of the proto-đình which were built for local deities.¹⁵ Another edifice attached to the đình with different significance for the court and the villages is đàn (literally ‘raised ground’, ‘platform’), which I shall now consider.

Fundamentally, recorded categories – with a loosely termed ‘Daoist’ component to either Buddhist or Confucian orders – are polysemic and are discursive objects within élite groups themselves. Élite classification was also made for reasons to do with the continual debate between central and regional groups. The nineteenth-century Nguyễn dynasty text of geography, Đại Nam Nhất Thống Chí, distinguishes two categories in its description of monuments in the provinces.¹⁶ Đến miếu is the compound designation for temples classed in the first group, which includes:

• Đàn (platform), as mentioned above, for the worship of the Spirit of xã tắc (‘soil and field’), of sơn xuyên (‘mountain and river’) or of Tiên Nông (‘God of Agriculture’).¹⁷
• Miếu Hội Đồng (shrine of the Assembly of Spirits) consecrated national heroes; miếu Thành Hoàng (‘shrine for the Wall and Moat Spirit’) where the village Tutelary Spirit is installed, and other miếu as mentioned in the fourth group above.
• Various đến for the worship of any deities or spirits considered to be powerful and responsive to people's prayers or supplications. These may be erected privately.

In this typology, the đình has the sinicised name of miếu Thành Hoàng, being a subclass of miếu in the second group above. The inscribed name of the đình for Bình Thủy village, being the above mentioned ‘Long Tuyền Cổ Miếu’, is an instance of this courtly classification. On the other hand, miếu Hội Đồng appears to be a type of đình established in the South towards the end of the eighteenth century without local expectation of royal recognition.¹⁸ They were, according to Tạ Chí Đại Trường, listed because of the attention which the court wished to give to southern villages in fortifying central control.¹⁹

The second group named in Đ.N.T.C. is từ quán (‘pagodas and shrines’) which refers to those categorised as Buddhist. This court classification shows not only a duality which consists of Confucian-Daoist beliefs on one side and Buddhist ones on the other, but also a different meaning to the word quán. Nguyễn Văn Huyên points out that the word quán in Northern Vietnam is interchangeable with miếu in designating those đình having only a memorial function.²⁰ The 1895 Huỳnh Tịnh Của's dictionary denotes quán as a miếu for spirits and immortals, presumably for the south, implying its general Daoist character.²¹ The flexible typology and nomenclature of the village communal houses together with a complex process of consecration hint at competing views of, and attitudes to, the nether world at all levels. This contention has outcomes that relate to changing social relations over time, which I will elaborate further on.

Significantly, we may note the observation by two contemporary ethnologists, Léopold Cadière and Lê Văn Hảo, whose perceptual frameworks may delineate the background to that debate. Cadière alludes to a balance between the social importance of đình and chùa (Buddhist temple/pagoda) in his comment on the two Confucian and Buddhist-Daoist bodies of belief since the late nineteenth century.²² He implies an underlying mutuality as well as a symmetrical tension between the so-called élite and popular groups of practitioners, when the same notables attended both đình and chùa gatherings. Lê Văn Hảo seems to concur with this dualism in his writings on northern temples, but places the đình in contradistinction to two other sizeable counterparts, đến and chùa (shrine and pagoda).²³ This multilateral relationship is not consistent with a model of male Confucian dominance in popular beliefs, to the...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The đình
• 2 Platform for the Immortals
• 3 Trance and shadows
• 4 Self-cultivation
• 5 Daoists from the Mountain
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Translation of certificate from King Tự Đú’c
• Appendix B: Procedure for services at Đàn Tiên temples
• Appendix C: Sample poems from spirit-writing sessions
• Appendix D: Huỳnh Văn Ngà’s ballad
• Appendix E: Lê Thái Sanh’s poems
• Appendix F: From An Hà Nhật Báo
• Appendix G: Texts of a sorcerer’s invocation
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index