Вьетнамские информанты об опыте взаимодействия со сверхъестественным: лексика, функции, культурный контекст

Кунсткамера. 2024. № 3(25). С. 134–150.

Minina Y.

The paper analyzes a number of verbal reports from Vietnamese informants about their contacts with
the world of the supernatural, collected in 2013–2021 in Vietnam and Russia. Ethnographic methods are used to
interpret narratives about interaction with the spirits of the dead in the space of dreams and in reality, about visits
to mediums and fortune-tellers, the consequences of disregarding the rules of ancestor worship, etc. This approach
makes it possible to study contemporary Vietnamese people’s beliefs about the nature of non-human agency and their understanding of such categories as fate, soul, the afterworld, etc., and thereby come closer to assessing the current state of Vietnamese religious culture. The study focuses on the cultural, historical, and social context of spontaneous and initiated messages, their functions, and the key vocabulary used for describing various aspects of informants’ experiences. A large part of the material presented in the paper deals with deeply intimate human experiences, the very way of conveying which through linguistic and non-verbal means of communication can be of interest to religious scholars, ethnographers, cultural anthropologists, and linguists.

Keywords: Вьетнам, South-East Asia, Vietnam, культ предков, этнография ЮВА, духи предков, ancestor cult, mediums