Once upon a time, of the Hmong people

How one story relates to another

Another story leads us Hmong people to where we also begins as the root. A couple came out from the mountain side wearing Hmong clothes and they brought along a small plant also known as the flower seed. The couple was best known for leading animals to the Earth and plants. The plant that they both brought were a gift from Shao and was to be planted. It have so many flower seeds, one day the seeds flew to other areas due to the heavy wind. The seeds grew in different places and have different plant origins. The crops then grew and progressed to other regions. They would walk home and not even be picked from their owners. One day the crops walk home and the couple was still sleeping they said kindly, " We have come home. Please set up the fireplace and tools to lay us down so you can eat." The couple was really tired and responded back cruelly, " No, we are too tired." This makes the crops sad and they have waited. The couple didn't woke up so the crops said, " We will go back to where we have came from. You people will have to pick us up from the fields and work harder from now on." The couple didn't respond. Now, farmers will have to go and harvest the crops seasonally from the fields back to home.
Mythically, the animals can talk and speak with the humans because they were just a particular specie that lives in Earth, too. When there no animals yet, there were the vegetables. The vegetables or what I called every living things in Earth can speak to each other in one language. Everyone lives a life they considers to and it was fairly equal to every each of them. Unlike now, the 21st century where we lives as the high class, middle class and poor class.
It's not like the animals can't speak, they still do! They make sounds that we hear, just that we don't understand. For some elders or some Hmong people, they can still communicate with the animals adapting to the animal's environment and by listening to the sounds that the animals make. They make the sounds out, and the animals talk back to them. Being a part of animal's life is also very important. Like the disney movie, Tarzan who lives with the animals, spoke with them and adapt to their environment. Eating meat is an old saying that, those who eat meat of another specie is known to be cold-hearted and eat ones lives to fulfill theirs. Instead they will die poorly and dreadfully. Meat doesn't make you live long and kills your inside guts easily.
I used to live in a world where ancestors, language, family, siblings and culture comes first and is most respected to our Hmong people. I don't see any of these applying today. Our culture will be lost forever. For us Hmong people to have a land is to have wars again, water to overtake Earth and our tears shed blood. I feel like we have not gotten enough more than enough to lose what we have built. How are we going to gain and love each other? Why are we in this situation?
We don't baptize our people nor sacrifice them to the God. We value and respect them when they died and leave their formal body behind in the mortal world. I don't call it God, I call my father Shao. They are different immortal lords. The Hmong people strongly have the most powerful beliefs in the beginning of Earth, but it was long gone. Everything about one's life and human body like personality, acts, face impressions and mental thinking defines who they are. I still believe that one day Shao will give us a Hmong leader to lead us where we have lost. We have not come to the land of richness and freedom, but we've come to the lost land. Where our souls and beliefs were sucked up by the giants. Money then becomes so important and was valued more than our religion and culture. Our ancestor and elders back then fight for love and frightened of losing our land, but now we fight for money. This was never resolved, the same thing repeats on as money was valued over minor objects and personal stuffs. We still fight for the rights, but less have been changed over the few decades. This is the 21st century where money was the first priority and education becomes success for all genders.

It is good being born into Hmong because the Hmong name refers as the innocent people who lives on mountains. In the mountains, the Hmong people ate pepper with rice and
drink water from the waterfalls. They even work in the fields high in the mountain in the morning of the day until afternoon night. They would walk home carrying the fresh and ripe crops and vegetables in their basket on the back with weight. The Hmong people not only farm, but they also do chores at home, cook and sew clothings for their sons and daughters. They do chores such as cleaning the house, sweep the mud floors, feed the animals such as chickens and pigs. The Hmong people were always busy and they multitask more than anyone by repeating this daily. When the mother and grandmother sew clothings for their son and daughters, nieces and nephews, it is only temporary when the child's clothes were old or ripped. Another fact is that the Hmong clothes were only sewed seasonally when New Year comes. New Year was celebrated in November during the time where crops were picked up from the fields so there's lots of food set on the tables and sold. During this time of the year, the Hmong people have lots to celebrate. New clothings for their kids so they can go and meet new people, have fun and spend time with their friends and get to know more about what happens at a New Year festival. The Hmong people, also do shaman for the New Year although it doesn't required for people to be sick. It is a ritual to send the bad stuffs away and make new and only positive stuffs coming into life later on. Even the crops and vegetable in the fields needed to be farewelled, too. If the family has always been in a negative situation in their life this is the chance to say what stuffs needed to be fixed and toss away so life can be better. To do this occasion, the family woke up really early in the morning when the sun has just rise above the horizontal line to get ready for the ritual ceremony.

For preparing in this ceremony, the family cooked chicken, which is the most valued animal in our culture. We don't sacrifice the chicken to our ancestors, we valued the chicken and wanted our ancestor to eat the good only so we send the chickens to them to a better place. They not only cook, but every little amount of money they have saved up was to purchased fruits, drinks, candies and incense. Incense needed to be burned and smoke would rise from the incense into the air sending off words that are being delivered from the shaman to its ancestors. Sticks has a great fragrance for the spiritual way of chanting the name Shao and distressing negative energies. The aroma is used to enhance the chanting and purify negative consequences along the way of spiritual healings and ceremony held like the New Year. Rice were also part of the incense team. It is a placeholder for the incense to stand on tightly. Candles were also lit for the shaman to think and sense as if the candle lights the way to the spiritual world. When I was still young my parents told me that, gold papers were to believe it is lit for our ancestors so they have money to used in their own world. After the chicken is cooked, it's feathers were used for hanging with the gold papers on the house wall. It is to protect any bad spirits without having the permission of the spirit guards to enter the house. Gold papers were also an important artifact to be purchased and valued. Some gold papers were lit for the ancestors, some hang on the walls as protectors and some were cut into small human beings which will defend the shaman's altar. Red corn also plays an important role as a spiritual protector of the door's entrance. The red corn is harvested from the farm fields from each and every family. Every family should have one and to have one they planted the red corn crops in the beginning of the cultivation. Agriculture is a very important terrain to the Hmong family because they can't survive without one. It gives them food and pride.