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- Panel 6-3 Rice, Songs, and Vows: Women and Ritual Foodways in the Iu Mien Rite of Repaying a Vow to King Pan /Mei-wen Chen
Panel 6-3 Rice, Songs, and Vows: Women and Ritual Foodways in the Iu Mien Rite of Repaying a Vow to King Pan /Mei-wen Chen
Mei-wen Chen
Fu Jen Catholic University Department of Religious Studies, Assistant Professor
This paper examines, from a gender perspective, the symbolic and religious significance of rice-based offerings and women’s singing in Iu Mien vow-repayment rituals. It proposes the concept of “gendered ritual foodways” both to illuminate the diverse forms and meanings of ritual offerings in Yao religion and to argue that Iu Mien women establish forms of religious authority through singing and culinary expertise that differ from the authority constructed by men through written texts, ritual offices, and liturgical performance. The primary sources for this study are manuscripts used in vow-repayment rituals formerly held by the Iu Mien ritual specialist Li Decai (1944–2017) of Tianlin County, Baise, Guangxi. These textual materials are examined alongside ethnographic accounts from different Yao subgroups in a comparative analysis.
The rite of repaying a vow to King Pan is an important form of ancestral worship and vow repayment among the Iu Mien. Its origins are closely associated with migration narratives such as the myth of “the Yao crossing the sea,” in which the ancestors appealed to King Pan for protection during a perilous journey and promised to repay his aid through subsequent offerings and ritual performances. Focusing on the performance of this rite among Yao communities in Guangxi, this paper investigates women’s transformative roles and religious participation in ritual singing and food preparation, with particular attention to the female ritual singers known as singing mothers (geniang 歌娘). Rice-based foods and rice wine offered during the ritual are not merely sacrificial objects; they also embody vows, kinship relations, ancestral memories, and communication with King Pan. By approaching texts, voices, and food as an interconnected semiotic and ritual system, this paper explores how Yao women create and exercise distinctive forms of religious authority within a ritual sphere formally dominated by men.
Keywords: Iu Mien (Yao); vow-repayment ritual; ritual foodways; singing mothers; gender; religious authority
Fu Jen Catholic University Department of Religious Studies, Assistant Professor
This paper examines, from a gender perspective, the symbolic and religious significance of rice-based offerings and women’s singing in Iu Mien vow-repayment rituals. It proposes the concept of “gendered ritual foodways” both to illuminate the diverse forms and meanings of ritual offerings in Yao religion and to argue that Iu Mien women establish forms of religious authority through singing and culinary expertise that differ from the authority constructed by men through written texts, ritual offices, and liturgical performance. The primary sources for this study are manuscripts used in vow-repayment rituals formerly held by the Iu Mien ritual specialist Li Decai (1944–2017) of Tianlin County, Baise, Guangxi. These textual materials are examined alongside ethnographic accounts from different Yao subgroups in a comparative analysis.
The rite of repaying a vow to King Pan is an important form of ancestral worship and vow repayment among the Iu Mien. Its origins are closely associated with migration narratives such as the myth of “the Yao crossing the sea,” in which the ancestors appealed to King Pan for protection during a perilous journey and promised to repay his aid through subsequent offerings and ritual performances. Focusing on the performance of this rite among Yao communities in Guangxi, this paper investigates women’s transformative roles and religious participation in ritual singing and food preparation, with particular attention to the female ritual singers known as singing mothers (geniang 歌娘). Rice-based foods and rice wine offered during the ritual are not merely sacrificial objects; they also embody vows, kinship relations, ancestral memories, and communication with King Pan. By approaching texts, voices, and food as an interconnected semiotic and ritual system, this paper explores how Yao women create and exercise distinctive forms of religious authority within a ritual sphere formally dominated by men.
Keywords: Iu Mien (Yao); vow-repayment ritual; ritual foodways; singing mothers; gender; religious authority