Spirit map and medium’s message: Searching for war dead in Vietnam

Abstract

Popular religious practices such as communicating with the deceased take place in many parts of the world. In cases of death through violence, as in warfare, the living worry about the dead bodies of their loved ones as the lack of bodily remains makes it impossible to perform a proper burial. Vietnam is a valuable case study because it has experienced terrible violence in the 20th century. This article explores the pilgrimage of a group of brothers who searched for the bodily remains of their father in the late 1990s. He operated as a secret agent and was killed in 1957 when he crossed the border into South Vietnam. In their quest, the brothers consulted a ritual expert, who guided them from a distance. Drawing on this case study, the paper argues that filial piety, spirit mediumship, technology, and political history are deeply intertwined in post-revolutionary and late socialist Vietnam.