• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.133-167
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• 2019

The Chinese began migrating to Vietnam very early (in the third century BC) and continuously underwent either mass or small migration afterwards. Their long processes of living and having contact with different ethnic communities in Vietnam made the Chinese worship of Goddess Tianhou change radically. By examining these practices of worship in two areas where the Chinese settled the most, Thừa Thiên Huế province (central Vietnam) and Hồ Chí Minh City (southern Vietnam), this paper aims to understand the patterns of acculturation of the Chinese community in its new land. An analysis of information from both field research and archival sources will show how the Chinese have changed the worship of the Tianhou goddess during their co-existence with ethnic communities in Vietnam. It argues that there is no "peripheral fossilization" of the Chinese culture in Vietnam.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.107-137
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• 2015

This article utilizes interdisciplinary methods in order to critically review the existing research on the Mother Goddess of Champa: Po Inâ Nâgar. In the past, Po Inâ Nâgar has too often been portrayed as simply a "local adaptation of Uma, the wife of Śiva, who was abandoned by the Cham adapted by the Vietnamese in conjunction with their conquest of Champa." This reading of the Po Ina Nagar narrative can be derived from even the best scholarly works on the subject of the goddess, as well as a grand majority of the works produced during the period of French colonial scholarship. In this article, I argue that the adaption of the literary studies strategies of "close reading", "surface reading as materiality", and the "hermeneutics of suspicion", applied to Cham manuscripts and epigraphic evidence-in addition to mixed anthropological and historical methods-demonstrates that Po Inâ Nâgar is, rather, a Champa (or 'Cham') mother goddess, who has become known by many names, even as the Cham continue to re-assert that she is an indigenous Cham goddess in the context of a majority culture of Thành Mẫu worship.

• Issues in Feminism
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.81-120
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• 2019

This study looks into the history of Silla in terms of the theory of goddess culture recently rising in the Western academia. Goddess culture was introduced in the 1980s by Marija Gimbutas, a pioneering archaeomythologist. She showed us the lives of goddess-worshipping prehistoric Europeans which was peaceful, matrifocal, egalitarian and sedentary. It has been recognized that Silla society reveals it's own unique aspects in comparison with other kingdoms of the time. And those aspects seem to be in consonance with goddess culture, such as goddess-worship, the presence of 3 queens, respect for the motherline, the Hwabaek(council of nobles) and the Wonhwa(priestesses) etc. The study concludes that there was a culture in Silla that could be named as goddess culture. The culture shows the following 5 characteristics. The first one is the life-centered thought. Most of indigenous deities of Silla were goddesses and there was a celebration of the birth of life at the center of the goddess worship. The second one is egalitarianism. Silla society was not only prominent in gender equality but also seems to have maintained economic and social equality in relatively good level until the 5th century, based on communitarianism. The third one is political consensus. The politics of Silla rooted in a tradition of governance and consensus, as the Hwabaek tells which was run by the rule of unanimity. The fourth one is non-patriarchal masculinity. The masculinity of Silla society can be partly understood through the Hwarang, a group of men whose activities were based on aesthetic and life-centered spirituality. The fifth one is relatively weak belligerence. Silla was not a hostile, militant country, and kings were meant to be the guardians of a peaceful life rather than a conqueror.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.37-67
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• 2021

Mazu is considered the famous Chinese Sea Goddess, venerated by seafarers. Mazu belief was conducted in Meizhou County, Fujian Province. Soon worship of Mazu spread quickly to other parts of over the world, especially in Southeast Asia. In China, the Mazu belief was strongly influenced by marine culture, but its marine factors faded when Chinese immigrants had lived together with the Kinh people in Pho Hien (in the north of Vietnam) for more than four centuries. Applying the Acculturation theory, this paper aims to analyze the migration background of the Chinese and their integration into Kinh culture in Pho Hien. It can be said that historical, economic and social context, as well as native government policies have highly affected the manner and the rate of this belief's acculturation. Furthermore, the article explains the reasons for the fading of marine cultural traits and their replacement by the Kinh people's cultural factors in this belief.