Bridge to the spirit realm: Hmong shamanism in Minnesota
When Billy Lor was first selected to be a Hmong shaman, he wasn’t entirely sure he believed in it.
“I particularly didn't really believe in shamanism at [that] time. I'm not going to lie about that.” Lor said, sitting in his Wisconsin family home where he keeps his shamanic alter.
The shaman's role in Hmong spirituality is often mistakenly thought to be solely related to religion.
But shamanism is only part of traditional Hmong spirituality and religious practice. It also involves animism, which is the belief that everything in nature has a spiritual essence, and ancestor veneration, which is the practice of showing respect and reverence towards deceased ancestors.
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Lor, 25, also explained that a shaman’s role is more like that of a healer.
“Pretty much, a shaman practices holistic healing within the community, whether that'd be spiritual, physical and mental. And through that they work with ancestral shamanic spirit guides that help them navigate and perform ceremonies,” Lor said.
But not every illness is treated by a shaman.
“Most times when someone comes to us and they're having maybe symptoms that may be physical, we will most times suggest [you] either visit your family doctor, [or] we’ll ask, ‘Have you have [been] checked out medically?’” Lor said.
“The reason we do this is because we believe that spiritual illness is not that common. It is not as common as physical or mental.”
Mark Berkson, a religions professor at Hamline University, says that shamans appear across many cultures. According to him and other scholars, shamans often serve as a connection between the physical world and the supernatural, or the "spirit realm.”
“These specialists, these mediums, practitioners voluntarily enter into altered states in order to engage in some kind of connection with, dialogue with, sometimes combat with the spirit realm in order to serve their communities, largely as healers, but in other ways, too.” Berkson said.
Shamans enter altered states and trances to communicate with spirits and ancestral guides. They use this ability to perform ceremonies and rituals that can improve the health and wellbeing of their community. These rituals can range from funerals to calling back wandering spirits.
“This trance may involve multiple chants. It will involve hours of performing of, of shaking of maybe stomping their feet.” Lor explains.
Answering the call
The process to become a shaman doesn’t involve a job application. It is instead a calling.
“No one can choose to become a shaman on their own willingly,” Lor said. He explained that once spirit guides choose you as a shaman, you will become ill. “You typically start getting sick, experience a lot of physical illness actually, and many times mental, and it's uncurable.”
For Lor, his illness began with pain in hands which prevented him from writing. He was eventually taken to a shaman who performed a ceremony on him.
“[The shaman] hit the gong and I just shook, I started shaking. So, my whole body was shaking profusely... I started chanting, probably some of the best Hmong I've ever spoken,” Lor said.
After the ceremony, Lor’s illness became better. This eventually led to his life as a shaman. Like all Hmong shamans, Lor's knowledge was not entirely learned from books.
According to Lor, about 90 percent of what shamans learn comes from connecting with shamanic guides during trances. Ancestral guides are important in Hmong spirituality and may be called upon to help in certain ceremonies.
“If I'm doing a ceremony, and, let's say, I'm helping someone heal because they've gone through traumas in the past, and now their spirit, their personal soul, is having a hard time processing it ... I may call upon a spirit guide, who is good at talking” Lor said.
The role of the shaman
Lor offers his services to Hmong people throughout the Midwest. He now lives in Minnesota, where 50 percent of his cliental also resides, like Pakou Hang in Inver Grove Heights.
“Billy has become so important, not only as a friend and someone who's journeyed with me, through my grief journey, but also as a teacher of shamanism. You know, and a teacher of Hmong history,” Hang said.
Although Hang, 46, had known Lor for some time, it was the recent death of her mother that made her appreciate Lor and shamanism more deeply.
“I feel really blessed that there's someone like Billy, because he is a teacher, that many young people can be much more inquisitive [with].” Hang said. “It's not a curiosity that that hits against a wall, but a curiosity that’s fed, and that's nurtured.”
Growing up, Hang experienced both Catholicism and Hmong shamanism and remembers doing shamanistic rituals on Saturday, then going to mass on Sunday.
She says she felt like a bystander to shamanism.
“Myself and my siblings, you know, we would, we would just watch and observe, and we wouldn't even assist in any of the ceremonies because it seemed very strange and loud, and really foreign to us.” Hang said.
She still practices both Catholicism and Hmong shamanism as “synchronized religions.” But when her mother passed away, she took on the role of upholding Hmong traditions in a modern way. Hang said that as the first generation of Hmong people who came to America are dying, some of their knowledge has not been passed on.
“It wasn't that our parents and grandparents didn't want to teach us about shamanism or certain types of Hmong culture,” Hang said. “It was that the environment wasn’t conducive to the type of the method of learning that they grew up with.”
Lor's natural talent for teaching makes him a helpful resource for learning about Hmong traditions, Hang says. In her experience, shamans don’t always take the time to explain their processes or why a particular ritual was performed.
“I feel really fortunate to have met Billy,” Hang said. In her eyes, Lor is focused on the intention of rituals, rather than the “rigid traditions,” and is always willing to explain and educate.
“The way that he practices shamanism is very much in a teacher mode.”
The road of a shaman isn’t easy, as Lor acknowledges.
“There is only about one month a year that you get to not perform ceremonies, and it’s during the Hmong New Year,” Lor said, “Being a shaman requires a lot of emotional, physical and mental capacity.”
While he has questioned whether he would choose the same path again if he had the choice, he does not regret becoming a shaman.
“Just to know that the impact I’m making, whether it's for the next generation or for our predecessors, for those who have come before us and after us be able to hold that tradition. I think it is such a blessing. It's such a privilege — and so no regrets in that.”
