Chiem Meng Saephan
I will now tell you about the Yienh Fiu*, or banyan tree, spirits and the Mien during ceremonies in the old days. Even when we lived near the Yienh Fiu spirits, we didn’t know who they were. When we had weddings, funerals, burials, or other religious ceremonies, the Yienh Fiu spirits would come from the jungles, but we couldn’t always see them. When we wanted to curse people, we couldn’t see them. When we pounded our drums and gongs, however, they wanted to join us. They didn’t hide their bodies then. They took off their Yienh Fiu spirit hats, which made them invisible, and then they could participate. When we killed pigs to appease the evil spirits and sat down for our food, they came and ate and drank with us.
Eventually the Yienh Fiu spirits grew to despite us. Even though they ate and drank with us, they could be cruel to us. They had a large knife rattle, gimx**, that they carried in the back of their pants. When they took the knife rattle and waved it, when they shook it and pointed it at people, it made the people get dizzy and fall down.
The Yienh Fiu spirits had become so cruel-hearted we couldn’t stand up to them. But one old Mien man finally said, “How dare you? You Yienh Fiu spirits despise us so. You always come and celebrate with us. Whenever we have a ceremony, you come and join us to eat and drink. We’ve never had the chance to eat or drink with you even once. Still you come and do evil to us.”
The old man got mad. He built a forge to make tools from iron. When the Yienh Fiu spirits came with their knife rattle to eat and drink, the old man watched them as they ate. He followed them with his eyes as they broke off pieces of iron and made tools at the forge. He studied them and later made a knife rattle of his own.
He was then read to go visit the Yienh Fiu spirits and make friends with them. He said to one of them, “Since you come here everyday, I would like to go to your village to visit with you. May I go?”
The Yienh Fiu spirit said, “If you want to go, you can.”
So he took his new knife rattle and put it in his shoulder bag. He folded his blanket and went with the Yienh Fiu spirit to a cave in the cliff. At dark when the Yienh Fiu spirit went to sleep, the old man slowly and carefully pulled out his knife rattle. The Yienh Fiu spirit’s knife rattle was leaning against the cave wall, so the old man carefully and quietly leaned his own against the wall and took the Yienh Fiu spirit’s knife rattle and put it in his shoulder bag. Then he went to sleep for the night.
The next morning, he told the Yienh Fiu spirit, “I’m going home now. I hope everyone here will come visit soon. When we have weddings and you hear drums and gongs and you want to eat and drink, please come.”
After a while it became time for another wedding. The villagers played the flute and drums and gongs. The Yienh Fiu spirits heard the music and decided to join them, taking their knife rattle. Once the Yienh Fiu spirits were at the wedding, the villagers constantly gave them liquor to drink so that they got drunk. They claimed that the Mien made them drunk on purpose.
So the Yienh Fiu spirits pulled out their knife rattle to do harm to the Mien. It went "Gaset, gaset". They waved and shook it at the Mien, but it was not the real one, and the Mien weren’t dizzy. From then on, the Mien had possession of the real knife rattle, the gimx.
After that time when the Yienh Fiu spirits came to do bad things, the Mien would shake the ceremonial knife rattle and the Yienh Fiu spirits had to run away. They stumbled and ran. Since then they have been afraid of the Mien. Now all Mien that worship banyan tree, or Yienh Fiu, spirits must have a ceremonial knife rattle. When we suddenly become sick, when we suddenly fall and become unconscious, we must use the knife rattle and spray water and go “pay, pay” and stamp on the ground to scare away evil spirits. When we suffer soul loss and want to find our soul, we take the ceremonial knife rattle and shake it to make our soul come back. That’s why Mien believers must have the ceremonial knife rattle or gimx.
* Yienh Fiu, or banyan tree, spirits live in banyan trees and other places. There is no way to tell where one is living. They can cause bad things to happen if offended.
* gimx, pronounced ghim with with a hard ‘g’ as in the English word ‘give’.