The people of Hue, the former capital of Annam, have preserved many 
            traditions, cults, and ceremonies that attempt to explain and 
            control the vagaries of fortune. When they wish to contact the world 
            beyond and understand the reasons for sickness and distress they 
            turn to a group of practitioners known as thay. Thay is a term of 
            respect meaning "teacher" or "master," and is followed by a 
            qualifier indicating the practitioner's specialty. The term thay 
            thus covers a wide range of practitioners; I have chosen to apply it 
            to the entire network of people so addressed by the inhabitants of 
            Hue. The diversity of their activities provides an excellent example 
            of the religious pluralism of this Indochinese people, who live in 
            an area where a number of cultural and religious traditions meet. 
            At the beginning of this century much information about the 
            spiritual customs and beliefs of the Vietnamese was gathered by 
            French colonial officers, some relying on secondhand information 
            from Vietnamese informants (DIGUET 1906, COULET 1930) and others 
            producing more substantial reports. Georges DUMOUTIER (1908), a 
            genuine researcher, gave rich and detailed descriptions of 
            Vietnamese physiognomists and their system of interpreting the human 
            face. Leopold CADIERE (1984), a Catholic priest who lived in Hue 
            Province for more than thirty years (and who is buried there), 
            compiled a competent and quite extensive survey of religious 
            practices and beliefs relating to birth, death, trees, and stones, 
            to mention just a few of the areas he studied. Perhaps because he 
            was a priest, however, he made little effort to understand his data 
            in a systematic fashion, leading to such debatable decisions as the 
            inclusion of the thay in the category "superstitions." 
            Two remarkable studies have been published in French on the subject 
            of spirit mediums and possession. One concerns North Vietnam in the 
            1950s (DURAND 1959), and the other deals with North Vietnamese 
            repatriates in France during the 1960s (SIMON and SIMON BAROUH 
            1973). The books describe the mediums' ceremonies, their pantheon, 
            and their social organization, but the discussion of possession is 
            pretty much limited to the collective communal practice known as len 
            dong (ride the servant). There is no consideration of the role of 
            the medium as a healer who, in the context of private family 
            ceremonies, addresses the problems of the individual. 
            Since the 1975 revolution most thay have hidden their activities, 
            even therapeutic practices and simple rituals to communicate with 
            the spirits, because of the Marxist government's efforts to suppress 
            "superstitious activities." Fortune-telling, astrology, and the 
            divination of auspicious days nevertheless continue on a daily 
            basis, even, probably, among the government leaders themselves.(1) 
            I have visited Hue regularly since 1990, conducting fieldwork there 
            between September 1992 and September 1993. My research focused on 
            the healing practices of the boat people (sampaniers)(2) living on 
            the Perfume River. During this time I met several thay, recorded 
            interviews with them and their visitors, and observed their 
            practices and many of their ceremonies. The present article begins 
            with a description of the various types of thay practitioners, then 
            illustrates the similarities and differences in function, at the 
            same time devoting special attention to the place they occupy in 
            society. Unreferenced quotes are from interviews with Hue-area thay, 
            whom I prefer to keep anonymous for their protection. 
            This report is primarily descriptive in nature, presenting the 
            testimony of the thay themselves, introducing something of the 
            spiritual beliefs found in Hue, and showing some of the 
            opportunities available to the individual for addressing existential 
            problems. It is my hope that this article will contribute to future 
            comparative studies with neighboring countries and other provinces 
            in Vietnam so that we might arrive at a deeper understanding of the 
            various Southeast Asian folk belief systems and the relationships 
            between them. 
            The Thay Phap (Master of Magical Verses) 
            The most popular and visible among the thay, and the one most 
            tolerated by the authorities, is the thay phap. His high status is 
            due to his mastery of the written Chinese language and, in some 
            cases, of the ancient Vietnamese script (nom), skills that are 
            rather unusual nowadays. The thay phap's practices are presently 
            experiencing a certain revival, though legal restrictions still 
            remain. 
            "For two years now we have been able to work, but not to unite," 
            said one of my informants. A master from a community near Hue 
            commented, "The association still exists, and when the local 
            People's Committee accepts it we are able to practice certain of the 
            family rites. But it all depends on the region. In areas without 
            much freedom the thay cannot show themselves. In this village I can 
            do anything I like, but in others such activities are forbidden. 
            Ours is not a free profession." 
            The thay phap learns his craft from a master, with whom he may live 
            for many years or, at the very least, visit regularly for the 
            purpose of study. He must pay for this education, though he also 
            receives payment whenever he performs a ceremony. Sometimes a master 
            teaches the occupation to his son, but may at the same time receive 
            other students in his home. At present the better-known thay phap 
            generally have several students, since during the more than fifteen 
            years that they had to hide themselves they were unable to transmit 
            their knowledge to anyone except immediate family members. 
            In the center of the thay phap's house one usually finds a large 
            altar topped with an empty throne; this is dedicated to the Jade 
            Emperor, Ngoc Hoang, the Taoist deity who governs over the workings 
            of destiny.(3) Thay phap do not claim to be Taoists, however. Some 
            may have attended ceremonies at the local Taoist temple, but others 
            are not even aware of its existence.(4) If anything the religious 
            interests of the thay phap are eclectic. "I'm going to a Buddhist 
            pagoda," a thay phap once told me, "one needs the three religions" 
            (tam giao).(5) 
            Thay phap who worship Lao Tzu (called by them Thai Thuong Lao Quan) 
            will often hang the sage's portrait above the altar. Next to this 
            are shelves lined with the books used by the thay phap. Some are 
            works on Chinese divination, which he refers to when people consult 
            him about major decisions. "Before a marriage," a thay phap 
            commented, "I see if the birth dates of the bride and the groom 
            match. Later the couple invites me to the reception." Certain texts 
            are used for the rituals in which the thay phap petitions for the 
            intercession and protection of the spirits. The thay also uses his 
            books to divine the cause of sickness, since it is believed that the 
            place and date of the patient's birth destine him or her to certain 
            maladies. 
            The thay phap can interpret the influences of Heaven, which is why 
            he is consulted when an auspicious day or hour must be chosen for 
            some activity. In the past the imperial observatory issued a 
            calendar every year that listed a certain number of auspicious days, 
            as determined by the heavenly constellations.(6) 
            The thay phap are also active in ancestral rites and mourning 
            ceremonies (especially in those for the evil dead). I have seen, for 
            example, a thy phap performing the annual rite for the founding 
            ancestors (ky cao) of a family group (van) of sampaniers on the 
            Perfume River. Assisted by his students and accompanied by a group 
            of musicians, he read the placets(7) for the family in a long 
            ceremony, a kind of litany to the spirits. Quite often the thay phap 
            maintains the family register from which he recites the names of the 
            ancestors during this ritual and other such ceremonies as funerals. 
            He also reads texts that are composed or bought for the ceremonies, 
            draws up funeral tablets, and writes on the cloth banderoles that 
            hang from the long bamboo poles inserted into the ground when 
            somebody dies. 
            Although not traditionally in charge of the task, the thay phap is 
            now asked by the sampaniers to read the placets in their rites for 
            fishermen (cau ngu), since no one in the sampaniers' own community 
            knows how to do so anymore. The thay phap is also invited to read 
            the lists of names during the rites for the founding ancestors and 
            spirits of hamlets and villages. "If there is a celebration for a 
            village I decide on the date and conduct the ceremony. Everybody in 
            the village and neighboring communities invites me," a thay phap in 
            an isolated rural area told me. 
            Another important activity of the thay phap is dealing with sickness 
            and misfortune. The thay phap take their knowledge essentially from 
            their texts, basing their diagnoses on horoscopes or fortunes. None 
            of the seven thay that I met ever enters a state of possession, and 
            thus none practices in the way a medium does - that is, they do not 
            enter into a form of communication in which they or the people 
            around them ask questions of the spirits, who answer. They do, 
            however, make requests of the spirits on the basis of the diagnoses 
            they have reached.(8) A renowned thay phap informed me, "If people 
            need me, they come to my house. I have a lot of books and I can 
            help. If there is trouble in a family I ask them to open this book 
            at random, then I identify the reason for the accident or sickness. 
            But I do not wear the scarf and the spirits do not take possession 
            of me. I do not dance for them, I do not sing. The answer is in the 
            script. I read it and that's all." 
            When someone sick comes to consult him, the thay phap first asks the 
            client his date and hour of birth and the time he became ill. The 
            master then turns to his books. As one thay phap explained, "It's 
            like a doctor checking the origins of a disease; to effect a cure 
            you must first check the books to find the sickness and the type of 
            day on which it occurred. If I were to get sick today, for example, 
            I would look up what sort of day today is and find that it is the 
            day linh. I would then look under linh in another book, see what it 
            says, and use the information to perform the rites." 
            Searching his lists of evil beings and their characteristics, the 
            thay phap determines how the patient might have provoked them and 
            thus become ill. In this way he determines the formulas to call the 
            most important of the evil beings in order to destroy them, subdue 
            them, or drive them out of the ill person. Even malicious spirits 
            can be easily deceived because, as a thay phap assured us, they are 
            not very clever. One thay phap summed up the entire process as 
            follows: 
            If someone is ill I can tell them where the sickness comes from. If 
            the cause is spirits (vong) the patient makes offerings and 
            afterwards I heal him. I take the book and three incense sticks, 
            then I pray. For [spirit-induced] diseases, like for those caused by 
            ma quy (diabolic or maleficent spirits), we have to use sacred 
            lyrics. These spirits cause sickness in those they harass. When 
            someone becomes sick he comes to my house and I open my book to find 
            what type of disease it is and what the origin is. For example, I 
            found that these men here work in the mountain cutting trees,(9) and 
            that they should leave the forest when it is bad for them to be 
            there because they are disturbing some of the spirits. 
            The thay phap will visit gravely ill patients whom the doctor has 
            been unable to cure. He attempts to exorcise the malevolent spirits 
            (tru ma or tru, ta) through either threats or conciliation, 
            depending on the diagnosis he arrives at from reading the stars. For 
            this purpose he participates in healing ceremonies led by mediums 
            (thay dong ho), for which he procures special ritual papers to be 
            burnt and at which he sometimes reads the placets. 
            If someone performs the rites without success he should try calling 
            the ngai.(10) The medium burns the ritual papers, mixes them with 
            holy water, and has the sick person drink the mix. 
            Speaking of a female patient, the thay explains: 
            If the papers are not prepared she will become insane. Rites must be 
            performed to protect her so that the maleficent spirit does not 
            seize her anymore. This sick woman came first to see me, then 
            visited the medium. You must consult the book and then carry out the 
            rites. In this way you can understand what kind of illness it is, on 
            what type of day it started, and at what time it will be gravest. If 
            the cause is not a spirit then the patient must take medicine. 
            In order to protect families from problems caused by the spirits of 
            the dead (family or otherwise), the thay phap writes texts that the 
            medium keeps at the foot of his altar. 
            I also make koan [letters of recommendation] to be left with the 
            medium on behalf of children who are difficult to raise. For 
            example, there are people whose children refuse to eat properly. 
            Such people come to my home and I write passages on fabric; these 
            are papers directed toward earlier generations. For example, aunts 
            who died childless (co ruot) and subsequently harass their 
            relative's children are a type of ma trung, family ghost. You have 
            to write a koan to protect these later generations. 
            The thay phap also writes the ritual papers that are attached to 
            houses to protect the family and discourage ghosts from entering. He 
            participates in the construction rites for new buildings by 
            preparing a piece of red cloth with the Taoist symbol for yin and 
            yang in its center, accompanied by some magical words asking the 
            beneficial spirits for protection. 
            The thay phap can cure some mental illnesses but not all. This is a 
            task that many thay are unwilling to accept, since it is less well 
            accepted and involves greater risks at a variety of levels. 
            In those cases where demons (ma quy) are involved I can help but not 
            in cases of neuropathy (than kinh). There you have to see a doctor. 
            I can usually help with sickness caused by ghosts (benh ta), though 
            not always, since there are so many types of spirits (am binh) 
            causing problems. It is important to call the spirit that gave rise 
            to the sickness. Binh are soldiers and the am are the dead who have 
            nobody to perform the rites for them. They are those who died at sea 
            and those who died in the hills. They may be traders or soldiers who 
            died in accidents. The effectiveness of the cure depends on the 
            identification of these spirit forms. Sometimes one can heal in a 
            matter of days, sometimes it may take years. But I have stopped 
            working with people like this. 
            The thay phap also performs public or private ceremonies relating to 
            construction, with the thay asking the local spirits for protection. 
            In this they are distinguished from the thay phong thuy, the 
            geomancers who practice the Chinese science of phong thuy (wind and 
            water). The latter's duties precede those of the thay phap, 
            involving calculations related to the location and positioning of 
            the house, tomb, road, bridge, canal, or whatever else is to be 
            built in order to determine whether the site is indeed appropriate. 
            For additional income the thay's family often makes cult objects out 
            of paper, objects like dolls, clothing, shoes, hats, and boats. They 
            make these for themselves and for the mediums, who may then sell 
            them to stores or at their own place. Because of their use of paper 
            the thay have come to be known in ordinary speech as "the ones who 
            perform rites with paper." The most renowned thay phap rely 
            exclusively on activities involving the use of paper, especially in 
            the more populated areas. With the boom in construction and the 
            increase in economic decisions that have to be taken, their advice 
            is often solicited and their profession quite profitable. On the 
            other hand, we met a thay phap in a rural zone who told us he could 
            not earn a thing because people were so poor that they could not pay 
            for the rites after they bought the offerings, paper objects, and 
            pieces of fabric with the texts written on them. 
            The richest of the thay phap dress up lavishly for the ceremonies, 
            donning a kind of silk kimono, embroidered shoes, and a 
            three-cornered hat with pendants. The more modest are content with 
            the long traditional black tunic (ao dai) with long tails over white 
            trousers, and the black headband worn by men. 
            To recapitulate, the thay phap are active in public and private 
            ceremonies involving local spirits, the ancestors of a family, and 
            the founders of a village, in rites to cure sickness, and all other 
            activities involving the use of texts to communicate with the world 
            beyond. 
            The Thay Cung (Master of Ceremonies) 
            The thay cung are a type of lay Buddhist "master." They are people 
            who were brought to Buddhist temples at a young age, invested with 
            the novice's robe, and taught the ancient Vietnamese characters 
            along with written Chinese. Otherwise they remain laymen throughout 
            their lives. 
            The thay cung do not consider it necessary to possess extraordinary 
            powers - it is sufficient that they study seriously and lead an 
            honest life according to the Buddhist precepts. The thay cung 
            dedicate their lives to the Buddha, who is regarded as the protector 
            of humanity. The numerous texts they use do not differ fundamentally 
            in function from those of the thay phap. One thay cung told me that 
            the Buddhist texts contain as many as 8,400 ways to help people live 
            better. These are the counsels left by the Lord Buddha in his 
            infinite wisdom. 
            The thay cung, like the thay phap, are active principally in private 
            homes, where he conducts ceremonies and prayers: rites of 
            thanksgiving, funerary prayers at the time of mourning (cau sieu), 
            rites to request happiness (cau am), rites to change a person's 
            destiny (thuc man), rites to expel evil spirits haunting young 
            children (quan sat), and various other rituals such as the 
            recitation of texts during the construction of a house. He also 
            serves as a fortune-teller, using horoscopes to determine the best 
            dates for weddings. 
            The thay cung sometimes use small pagodas or special altars (dien) 
            consecrated to the Buddha or his feminine form Quan Am, as well as 
            to the Holy Mothers (thanh mau). Although thay cung are fervent 
            Buddhists with altars to Buddha Sakyamuni in front of their 
            ancestral altars in the center of their homes, many admit to 
            visiting the temple of Hon Chen to pray to the Holy Mother of the 
            Sky, Thanh Mau Thien Y A Na. This is necessary because, when called 
            upon to treat maladies caused by evil spirits, they must address the 
            saints, spirits, or mandarin deities of that pantheon. Furthermore, 
            in such cases they must frequently work with the mediums, who are 
            not literate. The thay cung, with his ability to write, adds the 
            virtue of the written word to the rite. 
            The thay cung recite the same printed placets that the thay phap 
            does; dressed in a long grey garment similar to the robe of monks, 
            they chant the text while beating time on a wooden drum (mo), as the 
            Buddhists do when they recite the sutras. 
            He also uses other temple objects, such as the small bells that are 
            thought to drive away evil spirits in the rites of exorcism. He also 
            administers paper amulets that are burned and then swallowed, or are 
            kept on one's person, placed under one's pillow, or put under the 
            roof of the house. These amulets do not differ greatly from those 
            collected from mediums who use ideograms as well as a system of 
            characters claimed to be Sanskrit (phan) though resembling Tibetan 
            much more (but being neither of these). The thay cung can, however, 
            use texts to make amulets appropriate for different occasions. 
            To sum up, the thay cung's activities relate primarily to private 
            rites and worship, especially in the case of funeral ceremonies; he 
            treats certain diseases where a supernatural cause is suspected, and 
            also gives information related to horoscopes and thus to the events 
            of life. 
            The Thay Dong Ho, the Medium(11) 
            The thay dong ho (a name apparently peculiar to Hue) does not come 
            to his profession as the result of a long apprenticeship like the 
            thay phap or thay cung. Rather, he is chosen by the spirits, 
            generally after a long and painful illness, and is thus under oath 
            to serve them. In the process of his selection he experiences the 
            classical transformation from pathological possession to a ritual 
            possession of a sacrificial type. From this process he derives his 
            power to heal. 
            The thay dong ho also makes amulets (bua) or talismans (ngai) for 
            protection against ghosts (ma), malevolent spirits (ma quy, am 
            binh), and evil dead or wandering spirits (co hon). 
            When performing a diagnosis, the thay dong ho first determines what 
            kind of ghost is involved, how to rid the patient of it, or how at 
            least to reach an agreement with it. Both as a medium and as a 
            healer or protector, the thay dong ho is able to distribute benefits 
            only because he himself serves and is under the protection of a 
            powerful spirit, whom he calls master. This spirit protects his fate 
            (thay ho mang) and "rides" him regularly during seances to give him 
            advice on healing. 
            The protectors of the sampanier mediums are, curiously enough, the 
            Thuong (a word that generally means "high," but is used to refer to 
            the Montagnards, the non-Vietnamese mountain-dwelling populations). 
            Many mediums claim descent from the ninth prince of the mountains, 
            Chin Thuong Ngan, whose wooden sculpture they keep on the altar in 
            their floating houses. For ceremonies in which they call their 
            spirit master, the thay dong ho smoke pipes and wear necklaces and 
            clothing decorated with a flower design. These accessories are all 
            associated with the mountain people (kinh) in the Vietnamese 
            imagination. The thay dong ho also revere the tiger,(12) an image of 
            which is present at the base of every altar. They regard the tiger 
            as a powerful spirit, especially effective for curing infants' 
            sicknesses. Some of the mediums possess skulls and bits of bones, 
            teeth, and claws that they use for protection and healing, and that 
            they guard like precious relics. Their altars are surrounded with 
            flags of different colors: red, white, blue, yellow, and green. 
            Sometimes the medium waves these flags over the head of patients 
            during exorcism rites in an effort to chase away evil spirits. 
            The medium stores his amulets in a coffin placed before the altar. 
            The amulets are pieces of white or yellow paper on which ideograms 
            of a kind are scribbled with brush and red ink, with special seals 
            dipped in the same ink sometimes added. Believed to bring good luck, 
            these amulets contain cinnabar, a reddish mercury oxide, and are 
            given at times to families who have to safekeep them for a time in a 
            place specified by the medium. A medium who diagnoses an illness in 
            a child may also obtain a text written by a thay phap for the 
            generals of the otherworld, asking them to protect the sick child. 
            The texts are regarded as talismans (bua), though some see them as 
            contracts with the malignant spirits. In most cases they are written 
            in red and black on pieces of yellow (rarely white) fabric. "If a 
            child does not want to eat," says a medium, "I have a letter made 
            requesting the ngai to nourish the child until he reaches twelve. 
            This is written on a piece of fabric. In a certain way I am like the 
            mailman." This practice is most commonly employed for children 
            difficult to feed and raise. It is also used to protect pregnant 
            women who have previously miscarried a child, and to aid families 
            haunted by the above-mentioned co ruot spirits. 
            In ceremonies that involve spirit-possession by the medium he is 
            assisted by different "servants," known as dong or ong dong in the 
            case of men and ba dong or ba cot in the case of women.(13) After 
            the spirit invoked by the medium comes it may incarnate itself in 
            one after another of these persons, who then speak in its name. The 
            dong wears a scarf and tunic that varies in color depending on what 
            spirit is called. When the spirit arrives the dong shivers, then 
            utters a loud shriek. If the dong is dancing to chau van (songs of 
            praise that accompany the rite), he may collapse for a few seconds. 
            In certain seances several dong may enter the action alternatively 
            as a means of calling up a variety of spirits. 
            The mediums share the common people's life. Generally they drink 
            only a little rice alcohol (ruou thuoc) that they mix with roots, 
            flowers, leaves, or animals as a kind of medicine or tonic. They 
            must never be intoxicated during a ceremony. 
            The thay dong ho are traditional practitioners who integrate the 
            powers of a medium with a more or less sophisticated knowledge of 
            traditional Vietnamese medicine and medicinal plants. They pray to a 
            complex pantheon derived from both Taoism and Confucianism but also 
            including the local beliefs and cults of Hue. Some of these are 
            believed to originate with the Cham people, who lived in the area 
            before the Viet came. 
            The Thay Phu Thuy (Sorcerer, Master of Amulets and Water) 
            Like the mediums, the thay phu thuy derive their powers from higher 
            spirits, whom they conjure to earth. The spirits then possess the 
            thay phu thuy, using the practitioners' bodies to speak through. 
            The thay phu thuy are called the masters of amulets (phu) and water 
            (thuy) because they so often use water in their rites. They are 
            regarded as sorcerers, and are believed to possess such evil powers 
            as the ability to make people sick, change the course of their 
            lives, and drive them crazy. They are also thought capable of 
            hypnotizing people, finding those who are lost, suggesting ideas 
            from long distances, and arousing the passions with love elixirs. 
            Presently it is quite difficult to meet this type of practitioner in 
            the urban areas because they are outlawed, and also because they 
            frighten the inhabitants so much.(14) 
            It is said that if you are possessed by a thay phu thuy it is quite 
            difficult to rid yourself of his spirit unless you are able to find 
            a more powerful sorcerer to break the spell. According to the 
            sampaniers there are very powerful thay phu thuy among the Thuong. 
            In other mountainous regions they are also called thay mo or thay 
            tao. 
            The Thay Boi (Fortunetellers) 
            The thay boi, a well-known and regularly visited figure in the local 
            public square, is primarily consulted for the purpose of divination 
            or fortune-telling. Called thay so in some regions, he is not 
            thought of as possessing any real magic powers. His methods are 
            varied. He may read the client's palms and face, use old coins or 
            large beans to predict future events, or make skillful calculations 
            on the basis of the client's birth date. The thay boi is an 
            important part of Hue society, and is regularly consulted at the 
            beginning of the year, before important decisions are made, or after 
            unfortunate events (other than illnesses). DUMOUTIER (1908) affirms 
            that some thay boi are itinerants, working in the streets wherever 
            they wander. He distinguishes them from the thay coi chi tay 
            (palmists) and the thay tuong so (physiognomists who analyze the 
            face by dividing it into twelve sections, each one corresponding to 
            a certain realm such as destiny, wealth, or family). I never came 
            across such distinctions in Hue, where the thay boi engage in all of 
            these different practices, though they may have one area in which 
            they are particularly competent. 
            The Thay Lang and Thay Dong Y(15) 
            The they lang is a doctor of traditional Eastern medicine who moves 
            from marketplace to marketplace making injections and selling 
            different kinds of drugs. The thay lang generally has few formal 
            qualifications, and does not possess a university education. Some 
            mediums hide their esoteric and spiritual practices under the guise 
            and name of the thay lang. 
            In some ways the thay lang is similar to the thay dong y, except 
            that the latter has a more commercial function. The thay dong y is 
            an Oriental doctor who practices acupuncture, acupressure, 
            moxibustion, and bloodletting (phlebotomy). He also prescribes and 
            prepares herbal medicines according to the pharmacopoeia of northern 
            and southern Vietnam (thuoc bac and thuoc nam). His practice is 
            totally legitimate and has deep roots in Asian history. I mention 
            him here because he is part of the repertoire of Vietnamese 
            medicine. His practice is based on the rich body of Sino-Vietnamese 
            medicine that is based on traditional Asian notions of energy, the 
            balance of hot and cold, and equilibrium between the five elements. 
            This ensemble of practitioners is to some extent peculiar to 
            Hue.(16) Its members offer a wide range of skills and activities to 
            answer the various needs of Vietnamese life, yet each practitioner 
            maintains his own specific clientele depending on the sociocultural 
            stratum he serves. Next to the they lang and the thay dong y, who, 
            with their long history as medical practitioners are easily 
            approached, the most sought after are, no doubt, the diviners. Even 
            if young "scientific types" do not give much credence to these 
            practices, the curiosity to explore them often outweighs the will to 
            resist. Although young people claim not to believe in the 
            fortune-tellers, they do not hesitate to consult divining sticks 
            before wedding ceremonies and at the pagoda during the traditional 
            New Year's visit. 
            The thay phap too are frequently consulted. They often participate 
            in the ancestral rites held by prestigious and tradition-minded 
            families. The function they are most commonly asked to perform is 
            the preparation of talismans to be placed under the roof during the 
            construction of a house or boat. 
            The thay cung develop a network of clients centered on the pagoda. 
            Although officially outlawed, they are said to exercise their skills 
            even in homes of Communist cadres, who have them come in secret if, 
            for example, their sick child is not getting better. Their robe 
            alone, connecting them to the Buddha, bestows a certain aura on them 
            that protects them. 
            The thay dong ho are for the most part socially invisible because 
            their activity - possession - is severely suppressed. Some of them 
            have suffered fines, beatings, or short-term imprisonment. I visited 
            one medium, who lived on the land in a remote rural area, at night 
            under great precautions. Because of threats from the police he now 
            restricts his activities to saying prayers and giving offerings. I 
            visited another medium in a place of spirit worship (and was 
            subsequently arrested by the police). I have also been able to work 
            with several of them who live on the lagoons and on the river. Their 
            clientele is mostly petty merchants and illiterate people from the 
            lower classes, devotees of the len dong celebrations. 
            These practitioners may be categorized according to several 
            characteristics: their education; their level of familiarity with 
            the various writing systems; the type of references they use in 
            their practice; their relations, or lack of them, with spirits, 
            ghosts, or wandering souls; the general nature of their activities 
            as therapeutic, informative, or maleficent; and, finally, the 
            economic aspects of their activities. I have tried to organize these 
            criteria in the summary table. 
            Although certain practices, such as the use of astrology, are 
            performed in a similar manner by several types of thay, I wish to 
            emphasize the complementarity of their approaches and functions. I 
            am particularly interested in those dimensions of their therapies in 
            which the patient follows a path of healing that requires the use of 
            Eastern and Western medicine as well as consultation with thay phap 
            or thay cung, who, in turn, work with the mediums (unless the latter 
            detect the influence of an evil spell, and are unwilling to risk 
            interfering with the work of a sorcerer). 
               The various religiophilosophical systems of Vietnam operate in a 
            complex form of syncretism to produce the concept of the human body 
            and the view of life, destiny, and human freedom held by these 
            practitioners. 
            The traditional religion of Vietnam can be grasped only with some 
            difficulty within frames apparently too rigid to catch the 
            luxuriance of the reality that pervades the collective and the 
            individual life in its most solemn as well as its most everyday 
            aspects. This luxuriance, the result of deep beliefs and habitual 
            rites solidly rooted in the history of the Vietnamese people, and of 
            the influence of outside forces and borrowings, reaches in certain 
            aspects the highest points of a rich religious meditation, and in 
            other aspects it harks back to the most archaic religions. 
            (Translation of SIMON and SIMON BAROUH 1973, 73) 
            The presence of so many types of thay mediating the relations 
            between humans and the world beyond, as well as their participation 
            in so many facets of everyday life, clearly illustrate the 
            incomparable richness of traditional Vietnamese spiritual life, 
            especially in the culturally rich and geographically central region 
            of Hue. They also testify to the involvement of the people in an 
            all-embracing system of individual, communal, and cosmic references. 
            
            It is intriguing to note that interest in these traditional 
            practices is experiencing a revival, and this at a time when acute 
            cultural and social change is combining with an opening of the 
            country to greater access to the scientific and materialistic 
            modernity of the West. 
            NOTES 
            * This research was made possible by a Lavoisier grant from the 
            French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
            1. This is the case in many Asian countries, where the calendar is a 
            complex affair and the days are classified according to how 
            auspicious they are. 
            2. The word sampanier comes from the type of boat known as a sampan 
            in Chinese (sampan means "three boards," which is what the boats are 
            said to be made of). The sampaniers are a Vietnamese population that 
            lives a seminomadic existence on these boats. They are so marginal 
            that a rich body of traditional beliefs has been preserved among 
            them. 
            3. The Jade Emperor is assisted in this task by the South Star (Nam 
            Tao) and the North Star (Bac Dau), which presides over the destiny 
            of human beings and holds the Emperor's register of fate. 
            4. The Taoists, for their part, do not acknowledge the thay phap. 
            According to the priest of the local Taoist temple, "The thay phap 
            are misguided. They do not maintain tradition and are unaware of the 
            theory behind their practices. Expounding on the Tao is quite 
            difficult since its rules are strict and rigorous. If someone is 
            sick, one must respect the rules of Tao in order to know which 
            illness it is and look it up in the collection of books. To regard 
            the thay phap as Taoist priests is incorrect. The right titles for 
            Taoist priests are phap su, or dao su." 
            5. The three religions are Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. 
            6. As mentioned by Nicole Louis-Henard (in PHAN Ke Binh 1980, 
            2:149). 
            7. Known in Vietnamese as so. A placet is a liturgical text written 
            or printed in black ink on a yellow piece of paper and addressed to 
            the representatives of the other world, both as a request and an act 
            of reverence. 
            8. "We call everyone except those of the hoi dong," a thay phap 
            commented. "When reading the placets we call the spirits and beg 
            them to cure the sick." The hoi dong is an ensemble of people of the 
            other world that the mediums refer themselves to. 
            9. Spirits are said to dwell in the trees. 
            10. Ngai literally means "he." It is a way to refer to the spirit 
            without having to use its name. The designation indicates both the 
            people's respect for and ignorance of this spirit. The mediums 
            always told me that "He" acts as a beneficial being only, perhaps 
            because they are always careful about what they say. The sampaniers 
            did not always share this viewpoint. 
            11. I propose "master servant protector" as a preliminary 
            translation. I have been unable to find the term in the literature 
            available to me. 
            12. The tiger also has an altar and a statue at the Hon Chen temple. 
            This temple is dedicated to the Mother of the Sky, who is highly 
            venerated by the mediums. 
            13. The practice called len dong (to mount the servants [dong]) 
            exists in other forms that are not systematically therapeutic but 
            comprise a kind of collective seance. 
            14. I had no chance to meet a thay phu thuy during the time I did 
            the research for this report. People always refused to lead me to 
            the mountains, and I did not insist since such a visit would have 
            been bothersome both for them and for me. Because this part of my 
            research was not officially approved, my information on the thay phu 
            thuy remains somewhat limited and "secondhand." 
            15. The information about these traditional medical practitioners 
            comes from the academic literature on Sino-Vietnamese medicine 
            published in Europe. 
            16. During my research I heard no mention of the thay tiep (master 
            of lethargic sleep). The thay tiep is a type of hypnotist who in 
            other regions puts subjects into a hypnotic sleep in order to 
            exorcise them. People nonnative to Hue told me that the practice of 
            hypnosis is used as a means to communicate with dead ancestors, who 
            manifest themselves to the hypnotized person and allow him or her to 
            find relief from certain difficulties attributed to the activities 
            of the family dead. 
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