Chapter 4 Tribal People 127transdeath relationship is when the time comes for the son to bury his father.
The headman of Nomya village attributed his good fortune in having four sons
and only one daughter to the favorable alignment of his father’s grave. Another
villager was less fortunate because a small peak between two mountains made
his father’s grave less auspicious. The energy of the earth is conceptualized as a
great dragon that lies beneath the crest of the highest mountain chains that
form its spine. Parallel hills to left and right are male (left) and female (right).
In order to reach the place from which rebirth occurs, the deceased must be
buried in the late afternoon (which is the morning of the spirits) in such a place
where it can catch the “dragon veins” before the dragon flies out at night, and
so ride it to the otherworld. This place would be on the crest of the highest hills
where the parallel male hills to the left are higher than the female hills to the
right. Such a burial will favor the living sons and the continuity of the family.
His head should be turned away from the sunrise so he can watch over their
welfare without being blinded by light.
This unseverable bond between father and son is the basis of the house-
hold, the village, and the clan, a principle often called “patrilineal” by anthro-
pologists. Patrilineality can mean a great many things, however, and we will
want to look closely at how it works among the Hmong.
The household is the primary work unit of Hmong society. Production of
padi is to meet the needs of this family. There are no other production units in
the society—no village-level production, no clan-level production, no private
businesses that are not household based. Households hold the fields they work
in common, husband and wife working side by side, with the children also con-
tributing, for their work, too, is of economic value.
Above the household, the most important units within the village are the
clans. Hmong say there are about 12 Hmong clans, but in any particular village
there will be only four or five. Among the 106 households at Chengmengmai, 51
were members of Yang clan, 21 were Li, 18 were Thao, 15 were Ma, and one
was Xiong. The numerical strength of the clans has important political conse-
quences for the village, since generally the headman will be from the largest clan.
These clans are patrilineal in the sense that one is a member of one’s father’s
clan, while women change their clan identities at marriage, and at death women
are among the clan ancestors who are worshipped by their living descendants.
These clans are not territorial or localized but are dispersed among the vil-
lages of the Hmong people. There is no “apical” or founding ancestor, no heredi-
tary clan headman or senior and junior lines, and no genealogies are remembered
that would attempt to account for each person’s exact tie to everyone else. The
clans have sometimes been called “surname groups” because that is the extent of
their social organization. According to Geddes (1976:57), “We may define clans
and their sub-divisions as essentially religious associations conferring rights of
community upon their members through the spiritual bonds between them.”
A myth told by the headman of Chengmengmai accounts for the origins of
the clans. The importance of this myth is apparent from the fact that Geddes