Free Downloads War And Shadows: The Haunting Of Vietnam
Vietnamese culture and religious traditions place the utmost importance on dying well: in old age, body unblemished, with surviving children, and properly buried and mourned. More than five million people were killed in the Vietnam War, many of them young, many of them dying far from home. Another 300,000 are still missing. Having died badly, they are thought to have become angry ghosts, doomed to spend eternity in a kind of spirit hell. Decades after the war ended, many survivors believe that the spirits of those dead and missing have returned to haunt their loved ones.In War and Shadows, the anthropologist Mai Lan Gustafsson tells the story of the anger of these spirits and the torments of their kin. Gustafsson's rich ethnographic research allows her to bring readers into the world of spirit possession, focusing on the source of the pain, the physical and mental anguish the spirits bring, and various attempts to ameliorate their anger through ritual offerings and the intervention of mediums. Through a series of personal life histories, she chronicles the variety of ailments brought about by the spirits' wrath, from headaches and aching limbs (often the same limb lost by a loved one in battle) to self-mutilation.In Gustafsson's view, the Communist suppression of spirit-based religion after the fall of Saigon has intensified anxieties about the well-being of the spirit world. While shrines and mourning are still allowed, spirit mediums were outlawed and driven underground, along with many of the other practices that might have provided some comfort. Despite these restrictions, she finds, victims of these hauntings do as much as possible to try to lay their ghosts to rest.
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Cornell University Press; 1 edition (July 23, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0801475015
ISBN-13: 978-0801475016
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #255,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #57 in Books > History > World > Religious > New Age, Mythology & Occult #208 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Occult & Paranormal > Ghosts & Hauntings #249 in Books > History > Military > United States > Veterans
_War and Shadows_ combines scholarly approach with real skill in storytelling, in a compact tome that makes surprisingly compulsive reading.I could not put this book down. The book probably will appeal most to three categories of reader: 1) those with an interest in contemporary Vietnamese culture and spiritual practice; 2) those with an interest in the Vietnam War; and 3) those with a general interest in comparative folklore/mythology and ghost stories.Mai Lan Gustafsson gives a fascinating account of the phenomenon of spirit possession and haunting in post-war Vietnam. As an ethnographic study, this book is an invaluable and unique window into modern Vietnamese culture. The spiritual beliefs and practices of contemporary Vietnamese are explored in the light of supernatural affliction, real or imagined.Gustafsson provides context for the phenomenon with sobering (and not often remembered) statistics of the Vietnam War, in which millions of Vietnamese lost their lives. She also corrects the sunny Western journalism on Vietnam, which asserts that everyone in Vietnam has cheerfully forgotten the war and moved on. As the book shows, the Vietnamese still bear deep scars. Although not a history of the War, this book would be of great interest to anyone seeking to understand the war from a Vietnamese perspective.On another level, anyone interested in ghost folklore would do well to add this book to his library. Thanks to Gustafsson's earnest, unadorned style, the people she interviews come to vivid life. Whether their supernatural afflictions are real or merely "in their heads," some of the anecdotes of possession and ghostly attacks are downright chilling.This slim book is a true rarity: a scholarly work that is also a page-turner.
War and Shadows is finely grained ethnographic foray into the phenomenon of spirit possession in modern Vietnam. Resisting the temptation to reduce incidents of possession to psychological factors, Gustafsson offers context-rich descriptions of the lives of those afflicted by "angry ghosts"--often a restless family member who, due to the circumstances of a sudden and violent death during the war, was unable to receive a proper burial. Gustafsson brings an nuanced understanding of Vietnamese history, culture, and post-war politics to her analysis of the precipitous rise in hauntings in an increasingly cosmopolitan nation.
This is a fascinating book for those interested in spirit attachment, mediumship, ancestor reverence, and Vietnam -- especially the cultural changes in the decades since North and South Vietnam were united.
War and Shadows: The Haunting of Vietnam Ghosts and Shadows: A Marine in Vietnam, 1968-1969 Facing the Shadows: A Christian Romance (The Shadows Trilogy Book 2) Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics) The Haunting of Blackwood House Haunting Urban Legends (SCARED!) The Haunting of Charles Dickens The Haunting of Hill House Four Brothers in Blue; or, Sunshine and Shadows of the War of the Rebellion: A Story of the Great Civil War from Bull Run to Appomattox We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War) From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War Four Brothers in Blue: Or Sunshine and Shadows of the War of the Rebellion China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975 (The New Cold War History) Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees A Soldier's Best Friend: Scout Dogs and Their Handlers in the Vietnam War
