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- Panel 6-1 From Hearth to Hillside: Food, Space, and Sociality in Hmub Sisters’ Meal Practices /Mei-Ling Chien
Panel 6-1 From Hearth to Hillside: Food, Space, and Sociality in Hmub Sisters’ Meal Practices /Mei-Ling Chien
Mei-Ling Chien
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
As the busy spring agricultural season begins, Hmub (a.c. Miao) farmers till fields, sow rice seeds, and transplant seedlings after sufficient rain. Approximately ten days after the initial planting, when seedlings reach about three cun (inches), young women prepare and share ‘sisters’ meals’ (Nenk ghait lingf), using leftover rice from the previous year. The three-cun growth symbolizes successful cultivation. Women bring rice to make wine and cook, sharing these with young men on designated courtship slopes. This practice highlights the cyclical relationship between agriculture and social interaction. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork from 1998 to 2000 in highland Hmub villages, documents the initiation and execution of the ‘eating sisters’ meals'’ tradition at the turn of the 21st century. It explores the communal culinary culture and the socio-cultural implications of the associated courtship practices. A key feature distinguishing sisters’ meals from other forms of courtship is the communal food preparation and ‘ffinal ties. Typically eaten at the village periphery, contrasting with older people’s domestic meals, this spatial difference emphasizes courtship’s liminal social sphere. The ritual begins with late evening or early morning cooking at home, transitioning to eating and drinking on the slopes at the edge of the village. This temporal and spatial arrangement aligns with nocturnal courtship, where elders’ domestic space becomes accessible to the young. Unlike older people’s culinary practices, sisters’ meals are consumed outdoors. While domestic cooking symbolizes family unity, the outdoor sharing at the village edge reflects courtship’s ambiguous nature, independent of marriage and at the edge of family norms. Thus, despite indoor preparation, sisters’ meals are necessarily eaten on the slopes to differentiate them from older people’s commensal practices. This ritual aligns with broader societal values. The specific combination of time, space, participants, communal eating, and indoor-outdoor interplay demonstrates how Hmub society provides young people a distinct social space for emotional expression, situated at the margins of the elders' dominant social world, revealing the institutionalization of courtship within Hmub village life.
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
As the busy spring agricultural season begins, Hmub (a.c. Miao) farmers till fields, sow rice seeds, and transplant seedlings after sufficient rain. Approximately ten days after the initial planting, when seedlings reach about three cun (inches), young women prepare and share ‘sisters’ meals’ (Nenk ghait lingf), using leftover rice from the previous year. The three-cun growth symbolizes successful cultivation. Women bring rice to make wine and cook, sharing these with young men on designated courtship slopes. This practice highlights the cyclical relationship between agriculture and social interaction. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork from 1998 to 2000 in highland Hmub villages, documents the initiation and execution of the ‘eating sisters’ meals'’ tradition at the turn of the 21st century. It explores the communal culinary culture and the socio-cultural implications of the associated courtship practices. A key feature distinguishing sisters’ meals from other forms of courtship is the communal food preparation and ‘ffinal ties. Typically eaten at the village periphery, contrasting with older people’s domestic meals, this spatial difference emphasizes courtship’s liminal social sphere. The ritual begins with late evening or early morning cooking at home, transitioning to eating and drinking on the slopes at the edge of the village. This temporal and spatial arrangement aligns with nocturnal courtship, where elders’ domestic space becomes accessible to the young. Unlike older people’s culinary practices, sisters’ meals are consumed outdoors. While domestic cooking symbolizes family unity, the outdoor sharing at the village edge reflects courtship’s ambiguous nature, independent of marriage and at the edge of family norms. Thus, despite indoor preparation, sisters’ meals are necessarily eaten on the slopes to differentiate them from older people’s commensal practices. This ritual aligns with broader societal values. The specific combination of time, space, participants, communal eating, and indoor-outdoor interplay demonstrates how Hmub society provides young people a distinct social space for emotional expression, situated at the margins of the elders' dominant social world, revealing the institutionalization of courtship within Hmub village life.