- Funeral of the Hmong people
According to traditional customs, the Hmong funeral includes many
different rituals. When a family member dies, the first thing is that the children and grandchildren will bring a flintlock gun outside the house and fire three times to signal to the people in the village that someone in the family has passed away. Descendants and relatives of the village who hear the gunfire in any area will flock to that family to offer condolences and see if there is anything to help. The dead are wiped their face, nose, limbs, and clean clothes by their descendants before returning to their ancestors. According to the Hmong custom, after washing the face, the water to wash the face of the dead person is poured under the bed of the dead person, and the cloth for washing the face is dried for burning. After bathing
After the person died, they used a wooden plank to bring the dead body's body and place it in the middle of the house, then the eldest son quickly went to invite Dou (the priest to show the way) to perform the "declaration" ceremony to show the way to the soul. died with the ancestors. This is an indispensable ritual in any Hmong funeral. The family will prepare a crossbow, a knife and a chicken for the ceremony with the meaning that the knife is a tool to spread the road, the crossbow is a weapon to tell the dead on the way, the chicken is the direct. After the ceremony was completed, the sound of the drums and the trumpets continued to blow the "declaration" (direction) songs to show the way to bring the dead back to their ancestors.
