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Gordienko E. Rural Spirits in the City: Vietnamese Cult of Tutelary Spirits in a Modern City (According to Field Work in Vung Tau, Vietnam)

Elena Gordienko
Russian State University of the Humanities
Moscow, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0003-3922-7686
E-mail: GordyLena@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. Drawing on the case of Thắng Tam, a neighborhood of the coastal city Vũng Tàu in southern Vietnam, the article addresses the Vietnamese cult of tutelary spirits. The study is based on the author’s fieldwork in 2018. Veneration of these spirits occurs in the communal house, which has maintained its land and buildings despite the anti-religious policies of the 1970–80s and ongoing urban development of the locality. There are many altars in the community house and its temples. The main tutelary spirit worshipped here is the spirit of Ngô Văn Huyền, a local garrison commander who was granted this land in the beginning of the nineteenth century for protecting the mouth of the Saigon River from pirates. Prayers to this spirit contain petitions for peace and prosperity. Nowadays, other heroes and victims of recent wars are venerated along with this spirit. Another deity of great importance for the locality is the whale spirit, who patronizes fishermen. Whale meat is not consumed, and if a whale dies on the shore, the Vietnamese bury it with honors. Whale bones are kept as objects of worship behind the altars in a special temple of the communal house. With the new tourism boom in Vũng Tàu, whale funerals were moved outside the city, while the annual temple ceremony in honor of the whale has become an urban festival.

 

KEYWORDS: Vietnam, Vũng Tàu, folk religion, guardian spirits, tutelary spirits, communal house

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2021-2(12)-148-160
УДК 394(598-25)

 

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