Short answer: three recorders, three lenses
A century ago, fortune telling, day selection, and spirit mediumship were not the preserve of one class of people. All three early 20th century recorders found them present in marriage, funerals, house building, trade, healing, and lawsuits. But the way each looked at them differed sharply.
- Phan Ke Binh wrote as a reformist Confucian scholar, recording customs while also commenting on them and trying to separate what should be kept from what should be discarded.
- Edouard Diguet, a French colonial officer, observed the Vietnamese from outside, recording many details but reading them through the lens of a ruler.
- Nguyen Van Huyen was the first Vietnamese ethnographer to graduate from the Sorbonne; he observed with scientific method and wrote from the position of an insider.
These three lenses yield three kinds of sources, and today's reader needs to know which kind they are reading.
Phan Ke Binh 1915: customs, commentary, and the advice of a reformist Confucian
Phan Ke Binh published a series of articles on customs in Dong Duong tap chi in 1913 and 1914, printed as the book Viet Nam phong tuc in 19151. The table of contents includes a whole run of entries on this subject: divination, physiognomy, sorcery, mediumship, spirit possession, wandering souls, methods of prognostication, methods of observation, choosing days and hours, taboos, ritual techniques, and temperament1. The list alone shows he treated this as a large part of life, not an isolated matter.
Kind of knowledge: Folk beliefFolk belief. What people believe, avoid or pass on by word of mouth, recorded as a belief, not as a checked fact. The five labelsHe recorded that people chose days for weddings, ground-breaking, travel, and starting a business; read faces to judge character; and called spirits and entered trances to ask about affairs, to heal, and to find missing persons.
But Phan Ke Binh did not merely record. He commented. His tone is that of a Confucian scholar influenced by modern learning, who saw many customs as old habits in need of correction rather than truths. He distinguished between wholesome customs worth keeping and superstitions to be gradually abandoned. This was the reformist attitude of the early century, neither outright rejection nor defense.
A point worth noting for today's reader: Phan Ke Binh wrote for Vietnamese readers, assuming they already knew these customs, so he explained little in detail and focused on description and commentary. To reconstruct the details of practice, one must read outsiders as well.
Diguet 1906: an outsider's record, and the ruler's gaze
Edouard Diguet, a French colonial officer, published Les Annamites: societe, coutumes, religions in Paris in 19062. In his preface he states plainly that this is not a full scientific study but the result of daily observations recorded over fourteen years in the Far East, drawing also on the works of predecessors such as Luro and Dumoutier2.
Kind of knowledge: DocumentedHistorical record. Backed by a document, a date and a source; the note number beside it points to that source. The five labelsHe also states his purpose: if the work draws a few of his compatriots to take an interest in the people whose destiny France had taken responsibility for guiding, the author would consider that enough2. That sentence places the book exactly where it belongs: descriptive material serving the colonial enterprise.
Diguet recorded the life, customs, beliefs, and religion of the Vietnamese of northern Vietnam, and the chapters on pagodas, rituals, and devotional practice are praised in the prefatory correspondence2. On fortune telling and sorcery, the book offers descriptions valuable as an outsider's record, at a specific time, in a specific place.
Kind of knowledge: SchoolSchool's interpretation. How one school or one book reads it; other schools may read it differently. The five labelsBut the reader should know: Diguet wrote within a colonial frame of mind, using words for the Vietnamese that read heavily today. Quoting him requires accompanying context so the reader knows who is speaking, to whom, and where. The value of the record lies in observed detail, not in judgment.
Dumoutier 1891: a catalogue of ritual objects and offerings in the late 19th century
In 1891, in Paris, Gustave Dumoutier published Les symboles, les emblemes et les accessoires du culte chez les Annamites3; he was a contemporary and was cited by Diguet. This is not a book about fortune telling but a descriptive catalogue of Vietnamese symbols, altar objects, and ritual implements, with drawings by Vietnamese hands3.
Kind of knowledge: SchoolSchool's interpretation. How one school or one book reads it; other schools may read it differently. The five labelsIn the preface, Dumoutier writes that the ethnography of religion must be the first chapter of the history of every Asian nation, because no one can understand a people without understanding their religious spirit and traditions3. This is a serious framing, but still a text by a Frenchman for late 19th century French readers.
For today's reader, Dumoutier is useful elsewhere: he helps reconstruct the material setting of ritual, things like the characters for Phuc and Tho carved on objects, dragon images on mandarins' coffins, and the implements accompanying altars3. Without that setting, descriptions of divination and mediumship float free.
Nguyen Van Huyen 1944: an insider with scientific method
Nguyen Van Huyen published La civilisation annamite in Hanoi in 1944, with a Vietnamese translation, Van minh Viet Nam, following later4. The Sorbonne trained him as the first Vietnamese ethnographer, and his work surveys the ethnography of Vietnamese civilization4.
In the chapters on beliefs, worship, and festivals, he devotes a section to sorcery and fortune telling4. The difference from the previous two: he writes from inside the culture, with an ethnographer's method, neither as a reformer wanting to correct customs nor as a ruler wanting to understand a people in order to govern them.
Kind of knowledge: SchoolSchool's interpretation. How one school or one book reads it; other schools may read it differently. The five labelsThat position has strengths and weaknesses. Strong because he understood context, knowing what was a local variation and what was widespread. Weak because an insider can also overlook what an outsider sees at once.
Dao Duy Anh 1938: divination in a cultural overview
In 1938 in Hue, Dao Duy Anh published Viet Nam van hoa su cuong; the book outlines Vietnamese culture in three aspects: economy, society, and intellect5. It includes a section discussing religion, beliefs, divination, and the superstitious customs of the early 20th century5.
This is one of the earliest cultural surveys written in Vietnamese, placing fortune telling and divination within the broader picture of intellectual life rather than isolating them as superstition. That framing influenced later writing on folk beliefs in Vietnam.
Comparison table: who recorded, when, what, and with what attitude
| Recorder | Year | Work | What was recorded | Recorder's attitude |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phan Ke Binh | 1915 | Viet Nam phong tuc | Divination, physiognomy, sorcery, mediumship, spirit possession, wandering souls, prognostication, choosing days and hours, taboos | Reformist Confucian: records then comments, distinguishing customs to keep from habits to drop |
| Edouard Diguet | 1906 | Les Annamites: societe, coutumes, religions | Life, customs, beliefs, religion of northern Vietnamese | Colonial officer: observes from outside, ruler's frame of mind |
| Gustave Dumoutier | 1891 | Les symboles, les emblemes et les accessoires du culte chez les Annamites | Symbols, altar objects, ritual implements | French researcher: descriptive catalogue, with Vietnamese drawings |
| Nguyen Van Huyen | 1944 | La civilisation annamite | Beliefs, worship, festivals, sorcery, fortune telling | Insider ethnographer, scientific method |
| Dao Duy Anh | 1938 | Viet Nam van hoa su cuong | Religion, beliefs, divination, superstitious customs | Cultural scholar: places them in a three-part overview of economy, society, intellect |
Why were fortune telling and day selection everywhere?
The question is not whether divination is correct, but why it was so deeply embedded in life. The records of the three writers suggest a few readable reasons.
First, an agricultural society needed a calendar. Planting, marriage, house building, and trade were tied to weather and seasons. A system of choosing days and hours gave people a way to organize time even without a widely available printed calendar. Day selection, from this angle, was a form of scheduling in the language of the sexagenary cycle.
Second, when formal sanctions were not strong enough for every matter, the community needed ways to adjudicate. Day selection, physiognomy, and consulting a medium could act as a third party offering an opinion, helping reduce dispute.
Third, illness and loss in that era often had no answer. When medicine was insufficient, when the cause of death was unclear, finding some way to understand, even unverifiable, was a way for people to keep living.
These three reasons are not mutually exclusive, and they do not make divination correct. They only explain why it was widespread.
Reading colonial sources without borrowing a colonial voice
This is where writing on this subject most easily goes wrong. Diguet and Dumoutier are valuable sources, but both wrote within the frame of mind of the French in Indochina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Diguet himself calls his book daily observation, not full scientific study2. Dumoutier wrote for French readers, even while framing his subject seriously3.
The right use: take the descriptive detail, drop the value judgments. Do not borrow the source's derogatory words. Do not turn a colonial officer's observation into truth about the Vietnamese.
Where the evidence is still missing
The records of all three writers focus on northern Vietnam. Phan Ke Binh wrote in Hanoi, Diguet served in the north, Nguyen Van Huyen worked in Hanoi. Southern and central Vietnam are nearly absent from detailed descriptions of fortune telling, day selection, and mediumship.
This does not mean southerners did not do these things. It only means the available sources do not allow any firm statement about the south. Anyone wanting to reconstruct the full picture must find other sources, and until then, any generalization for the whole country is inference.
Kind of knowledge: UnprovenNot enough evidence. Someone has claimed it, but no source or study is strong enough to confirm it. The five labelsIt should also be said plainly: these sources contain no quantitative data. No one counted what percentage of Vietnamese consulted fortune tellers, or how many households had a medium's altar. Any figure about proportions is guesswork, and this article offers none.
Real effects arising from belief
One thing should be stated correctly: when a person believes they have chosen a good day, they may be calmer, more confident, and therefore act differently. Belief changes behavior, behavior changes outcomes. This is a real effect, and it does not prove that a divination system predicts correctly. Nor is it something to deny.
Distinguishing these two things is the condition for reading sources on fortune telling without falling into two extremes: treating every prediction as efficacious, or treating every believer as inferior. Neither is a way to read sources.
Rereading the three recorders today
Phan Ke Binh, Diguet, and Nguyen Van Huyen offer three kinds of sources that complement each other. Phan Ke Binh gives the view of an insider who wanted reform. Diguet gives the view of an outsider with power. Nguyen Van Huyen gives the view of an insider with method. Dao Duy Anh places it all in a broader cultural picture5.
Read together, we can partly reconstruct the early 20th century picture: fortune telling, day selection, and mediumship were widespread practices, present in the major events of a person's life, and contemporary intellectuals viewed them through many different eyes, from reformist to colonial to scientific.
What the sources do not tell us is whether divination is correct. That is another question, and it lies outside the scope of these books. For broader context on these customs, see the article What are Vietnamese customs and practices?.
