The role of the ritual specialists among teh lu Mien of Laos
Final Report Abstract
The research of the role of the ritual specialists among the Iu Mien/Lanten of Laos was conducted against the background of the comprehensive historical changes that have affected this society during the last three centuries. Their migrations, from the early 18th Century onwards, from China to Laos and Vietnam, the first and second Indochina wars, and the subsequent transformation of the Kingdom of Laos into a communist State left their traces in the social, economic and political dimensions of the society. Particular attention has been paid to the way in which these developments have affected the Lanten ritual and exchange system. This system was originally predicated on an exchange of locally produced opium against silver from China, Vietnam and Thailand. It guaranteed the influx of the resources required for the production of silver objects to be exchanged along different types of social relations and instrumental in the performance of various types of rituals. It enabled the reproduction of the socio-cosmological order, dependent on the continuous interaction between the living members of society with the ancestors, Daoist Deities, and various types of spirits. When the second Indochina war and later Lao State interventions interrupted the production of opium this forced the Lanten to alienate their ritual objects. The sale of Daoist paintings, silver artefacts, and centuries old manuscripts secured the people a livelihood, yet it depleted the very means to conduct the rituals required for the reproduction of all social and cosmological relationships. These rituals have been carefully studied. The research has revealed the existence of an elaborate system of ranked statuses among ritual experts. These experts, who acquire their statuses in successively performed rituals of ordination, command an extensive knowledge, which enables them to perform their roles and which of old is codified in manuscripts that have been copied from originals, some of which date back to the 15th Century. Written in Classical Chinese script they contain all necessary information required for the performance of the rituals of birth, initiation, marriage, death, exorcism, healing and ordination. An inventory was produced of all the silver objects, masks, musical instruments, manuscripts and other paraphernalia employed in these contexts. This research has made it abundantly clear that the sustainability of this ritual system is seriously endangered due to the continued alienation of these ritual objects. Manuscripts, paintings and silver artefacts turn up at the art auctions in the USA, Europe and Japan. Therefore a follow-up project has been initiated to salvage these ritual resources by producing digital copies, facsimiles and audio-visual documentations. An application for funding this project has been submitted to the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library to that end.
