Lord of Death
Ntxwj Nyug is the grim ruler of death in Hmong cosmology, seated at the summit of a great mountain in the dark otherworld where he guards the gates through which the souls of the dead must pass on their way back to the village of the ancestors. He keeps registers of the living and issues each person a licence of life; when the licence runs out the person sickens and dies, and the soul comes before him to be judged and assigned rebirth as a human being, an animal or a plant. He works alongside the otherworld judge Nyuj Vaj Tuam Teem, who stamps the licences for rebirth, the two together being remembered as the lords of the otherworld who control life and death. Because he afflicts humankind with disease and shortens lives, the benevolent creator Saub entrusted healing powers to the first shaman Siv Yis, and every Hmong shaman since has fought to wrest patients' souls from Ntxwj Nyug's grasp, sometimes pleading at his court for a licence to be renewed. In funeral chants such as the Showing the Way and in the speech of the funeral reed-organ, the dead are instructed how to pass safely through his domain.
Domains
- death
- disease
- fate
Powers
- to grant and recall the licences of life that fix each person's span
- to afflict the living with sickness and death
- to judge the souls of the dead and appoint the form of their rebirth
Relations
- enemy: First Shaman
Sources
- Nicholas Tapp, 'Hmong Religion', Asian Folklore Studies 48/1 (1989), 59-94
- Catherine Falk, 'Hmong Instructions to the Dead: What the Mouth Organ Qeej Says (Part One)', Asian Folklore Studies 55/1 (1996)
- Jacques Lemoine, 'Shamanism in the Context of Hmong Resettlement', in Glenn L. Hendricks, Bruce T. Downing and Amos S. Deinard (eds.), The Hmong in Transition (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1986)