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The Spirit Catches You and You Falt Do’i1/n I 21
Fadiman, A (1997). The Spirit Catches You and You
Fall Down In A. Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and
Yo
w¬(pp. 20-31). New York: Farrar, Straus
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STeel”he Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
W
hen Lia was about three months old, her older sister Yer
slammed the front door of the Lees’ apartment. A few
moments later, Lia’s eyes rolled up, her arms jerked over
her head, and she fainted. The Lees had little doubt what had hap°ened. Despite the careful installation of Lia’s soul during the bu ptig
ceremony, the noise of the door had been so profoW1dly frightening
that%r soul had fled her body.and become lost. They recognized the
resulting symptoms as qattg da_b P%. which means “the spirit catches
you and you fall down.” The spirit referred to in this phrase is a soul³tealing dab; peg means to catch or hit; and qaug means to fall over
WJ.th one’s roo?still in the ground, as grain might be beaten down by
wind or rain.
In Hmong-English dictionaries, qaug dab peg is generally translated
as epilepsy. It is an illness well known to the Hmong, who regard it
v,ith ambivalence. On the one hand, it is acknowledged to be a serious
and potentially dangerous condition. Tony Coelho, who was Merced’s
congressman from 1979 to 1989, is an epileptic. Coelho is a popular
figure among the Hmong, and a few years ago, some local Hmong
men were sufficiently concerned when they learned he .suffered from
qaug dab peg that they volunteered the services of a shaman, a txiv neeb,
to perform a ceremony that would retrieve Coelho’s errant soul. The
Hmong leader to whom they made this proposition politely discour¡ged them, suspecting that Coelho, who is a Catholic of Po?es?
descent, might not appreciate having chickens, and maybe a0ig as
well, sacrificed on his behalf.
On the other hand, the Hmong consider qaug dab peg to be an
illness of some distinction. This fact might have surprised Tony
Coelho no less than the dead chickens would have. Before he entered
politics, Coelho planned to become a Jesuit priest, but was barred by
a canon forbidding the ordination of epileptic? What was considered
a disqualifying impairment by Coelho’s church might have been seen
by the Hmong as a sign that he was particularly fit for Jivine office.
Hmong epileptics often become shamans. Their seiwres are though?
to be evidence that they have the power to perceive things other peo,Ie cannot see as well as fat1tifafing t11e1r entry into trances, a re²equisite for their journeys into the rea n of the unseen. The fact that
they have been ill themselves gives them an intuitive sympathy for the
suffering of others and lends them emotional credibility as healers.
Becoming a t.xiv neeb is not a choice; it is a vocation. The calling is
revealed when a person falls sick, either with qattg dab peg or with
some other illness whose
ptoms similarly include shivering and
pain. An established txiv nee summoned to diagnose the problem,
may conclude from these symptoms that the person (who is usually
but not always male) has been chosen to be the host of a healing spirit,
?? (Txiv neeb means “person with a healing spirit.”) It is an offer
?the sick person cannot refuse, smce 1(e rejects his vocation, he
will die. In any case, few Hmong would choose to decline. Although
shatnariisrri is an arduous calling that requires years of training with a
master in order to learn the ritual techniques and chants, it confers
an enormous amount of social status in the community and publicly
marks the t.xiv neeb as a person ofhigh moral character, since a healing
spirit would never choose a no-account host. Even ¡n e ile tic turns
out not to be elected to host a neeb, his illness, with its thrillin aura
of the siipriimundane.,singles him out as a person o consequence.
In their attitude toward Lia’s seizures, the Lees reflected this mix´ure of concern and pride. The Hmong are known for the gentleness
with which they treat their children. Hugo AdolfBernatzik, a German
ethno
her who lived with the Hmong of Thailand for several ears
ong he had studied regarded a
during the 1930s, wrote that
2 2 / The Spirit Catches Yo u :rn
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