Severing ties

Ritual objects and the category of religion in Hmong American families

Bibliographic Data

ID4894436
AuthorsMelissa Borja (0000-0002-8663-8034, University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume55
Issue2
Pages507-524
Publication date2025-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0048721x.2024.2444130
OpenAlexW4405999808
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

This article considers two objects at the center of the Hmong ritual life – the wrist strings tied during a khi tes ceremony and the meat of ritually sacrificed animals – and analyzes the diverse ways that Hmong American Christians have understood the significance of these objects and managed the family and community controversies surrounding them. Drawing on oral histories, news media coverage, and archival sources, this article shows how Hmong American Christians held markedly different interpretations of traditional Hmong ritual objects that surfaced the blurry boundary between religion and non-religion. The decision by Catholic and mainline Protestants to view wrist strings and ritual meat as non-religious cultural objects reflected ongoing commitments to maintaining family relationships amid broader transformations in Hmong religious and spiritual life in the late twentieth century. More broadly, this case illustrates the role of materiality in the discursive inventions of religion and non-religion

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Ceremony · Materiality (auditing) · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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