2018 Volume 17 Issue 2 Pages 227-257
This paper reports the findings of field studies in China, Vietnam, and Australia into the gods worshiped by the Hoa Nung people. The Hoa Nung are a group of ethnic Chinese who migrated from southern China in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and settled in Hai Ninh province (the present Quang Ninh province), northern Vietnam. The settlement’s central religious facility in Ha Coi (the present Quang Ha) was the temple of the Goddess of Mercy, Wu Guo Guan Yin Miao (Mieu Quan Am Ho Quoc). In 1954, when the communist government led by Ho Chi Minh occupied their autonomous region, the Hoa Nung undertook a massive migration from northern to southern Vietnam. During this migration, the temple gods also migrated to the south. In addition to many places in southern Vietnam, branches of worship were also established in Australia after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Politicians that have been important to the people in the borderland between China and Vietnam throughout history are included among the gods.
