The Living and the Lost

War and Possession in Vietnam

Bibliographic Data

ID2464840
AuthorsMai Lan Gustafsson (Christopher Newport University, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume18
Issue2
Pages56-73
Publication date2007-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropology of Consciousness (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1053-4202 • E-ISSN: 1556-3537
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/ac.2007.18.2.56
OpenAlexW2148213425
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited22

The war in Vietnam claimed the lives of five million of its citizens, many of whom died in ways thought to have turned them into malevolent spirits who prey on the living. These angry ghosts are held responsible for a host of physical ailments and other misfortunes suffered by survivors of the war and their descendants. Known in the anthropological literature as possession illness, the cross-cultural treatment for such maladies is typically provided by practitioners like mediums and exorcists, who cure victims by interacting with noncorporeal entities. In Vietnam, such spirit healers were banned after the communist takeover of the North in 1945. This has posed a problem for the large numbers of Vietnamese who suffer from ghost-induced sickness. This paper focuses on three victims of angry ghosts, presenting the common origin, context, and resolution of their suffering. In doing so, it provides an overview of Vietnamese beliefs about death and the after-life, the ideal relationship between the living and the dead, and the connection between state politics and spirit practice

Communism · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Ethnology · Ideal (ethics · Political science · Politics · Possession (linguistics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Vietnam War · Vietnamese · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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