PebHmong Discussion Forum
General Category => Hmong Culture & History => Funeral Rituals & Customs => Topic started by: LION HEART on August 13, 2015, 01:54:26 PM
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EDIT: I realize I may have posted this in the wrong forum.
As an adolescent, I once came upon a tree that had a hole in it. Inside that hole, there contained an egg, incense stick, rice, and what seems to be meat wrapped up in foil. I didn't touch it but just saw it inside the tree. The tree was on the property of a Hmong family that lived in the neighborhood. If I remember correctly, they had a lost a child about six months or a year earlier prior to me stumbling upon it.
My questions are... why would someone put that there? Is it related to the child's death? What is its purpose?
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Yes, feeding the spirit. My Thai friends put food in a stump or hole of tree or outside alter to feed the spirit. So that the spirit does not come inside and bother them. For hmongs to put food in tree is strange, not certain why. When I set food outside, I put it on a table with eggs and incense. Never in a hole.
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it could be anything...ran ging from sending food to spirits....to 'XA DAB"....to worshipping the tree as in "fiv ntoo txwj ntoo laus" for something.