Hmong Oral Traditions

Some people say that hundreds of years ago Hmong people had their own unique written language. At that time, the Hmong people were a minority people living in the mountains of southern China. When the rulers of China decided to colonize the areas inhabited by the Hmong, they made rules prohibiting them from using their own language and wearing their own kind of clothing. They also made the Hmong children go to Chinese schools. It is said that all the people who knew the Hmong written language gradually died and the language was lost. But the Hmong are very ingenious people and had other ways of keeping their own culture alive. They created rich forms of songs, poetry and stories which told of the history and ways of life of the Hmong, and these were passed from generation to generation.

Through these oral traditions, Hmong people keep their own unwritten record of important events such as their migrations from China two hundred years ago and from Laos, Thailand and Vietnam more recently. These narratives tell of the life of people in all these different places. Many songs and kwv txhiaj (pronounced "ku tchia," and refering to the sung courtship poetry) talk about a life in Asia that is very different from the one that Hmong people live in Pennsylvania.

The Hmong language is a tonal language. Like other languages common to Southeast Asia and China, the intonation and inflection of a single sound can have as much impact on its meaning as the sound, or phoneme, itself. There are eight tones that can be applied to any one sound. Thus, it is not possible to translate the way a singer throws his or her voice or the way a single word that "paints a whole picture" of life back in Laos. Within this tonal system, the Hmong have developed special ways of saying things that touch them very deeply. Only the continued practice of these oral traditions can convey certain feelings and draw upon memories that many Hmong people hold dear.

In the same way, the Hmong instrumental music system has a direct correspondence to their spoken tones. The sounds that come out of the flute or jaw harp are actually words and images. The sound image of a word played on a flute reverberates with greater dimension than a single literal meaning. These images are equally as difficult to translate into the spoken word.

Each verse of a kwv txhiaj has two couplets, with four lines in all. The lines can be of different lengths, but the last word, or words near the end of each line in a couplet must rhyme. At the same time, each verse contains a pair of linked ideas. The first couplet is a metaphor which is often drawn from nature. The second must refer to the singer or to the couple. T-Bee Lo refers to this structure as "two reasons and two results." By this he means that there is a cause and effect relationship within each couplet. A further intricacy is that the tonal directions of each line in a couplet must overlap like waves on the sea. The ending tone of one phrase must be the same as the beginning tone of the next.

Within this rigid structure, there is great innovation and improvisation. The words of a love song or New Year's song may vary from singer to singer and from generation to generation, reflecting the experiences and artistic dexterity of the individual singer.

Kwv txhiaj are traditionally performed in Laos by young women and men of marriageable age. Children rarely sing. There are no children's songs or lullabies in Hmong culture. Rather, singing is a tool for courtship... and, in exceptional cases, for conveying wisdom and pathos to the larger group.

The talent for singing is a highly valued gift in Hmong society. In fact, unmarried virgins and widowed women who display their skill at singing during the New Year Festival are the most sought after marriage partners, even more so than their needleworking sisters. During the New Year's celebration, people gather for as many as fifteen days to throw the handball and sing to each other. In the morning, they prepare their finest clothing and dress up and go out to the field to play handball. Couples line up opposite each other and toss the ball back and forth while they take turns singing romantic love songs for all to hear. Beyond these expressions of love there is a sense of competition to find the most challenging rhymes that cannot be matched or to stump your partner with surprising twists of direction in imagery and tonality.

At the end of the day, the singers come home and sing some more. The family sets up a table where the boy and girl sit side by side and sing into the night. If one girl is a particularly skilled singer, boys might come from all over to sit and sing with her, challenging her skills and trying to catch her in a mistake. Stories are told now of girls who faced challenger after challenger for as many as nine or ten days without ever losing.

© 2001 On Tour Productions