Why does an anthropologist care about worship of the wrongly dead?
After the war, many families in Central Vietnam not only honoured ancestors but also set up altars for those who died incomplete deaths, died far from home, or died in massacres where bodies were never found. The anthropologist Heonik Kwon, in *Ghosts of War in Vietnam* (2008), calls these people war ghosts and argues that worshipping them is how a community handles memories of violent death. The key point is that the rite does not aim to prove whether ghosts exist; it aims to rearrange the relationship between the living and the dead.
According to Kwon, war ghosts differ from ghosts in ordinary folk tales. They are people who died without full funeral rites, without graves, or in circumstances that prevented the community from performing normal burial rituals. It is this absence of ritual that creates a gap the living must try to fill.
In folk belief common to many regions of Vietnam, people who die without full funeral rites are often thought to wander, unable to return to their ancestors, and may affect the living. This notion is not unique to Vietnam; it appears in many societies that distinguish between the properly worshipped dead and the forgotten dead.
How are war ghosts in Central Vietnam described?
Kwon observes that in Central Vietnam, especially in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces, belief in war ghosts is tied to specific memories of battles, massacres, and collective deaths. These ghosts are not abstract spectres; they are tied to places, to names, to stories that local communities pass on.
In *Ghosts of War in Vietnam*, Kwon describes how people in some Central Vietnamese villages recount seeing or hearing signs of the dead on dark nights, and how these stories pass from generation to generation. Notably, these stories do not necessarily lead to fear; they more often lead to setting up altars, making offerings, or seeking reburial.
Kwon argues that war ghosts in Vietnam have a distinctive feature compared with other forms of ancestor worship: they are people who died in circumstances where the community could not perform full funeral rites, and this is precisely what makes them the object of a special kind of ritual. The rite is not only meant to soothe the dead but also to re-establish order among the living.
Ha My and My Lai: worship, reburial, and shared shrines
The two sites Kwon analyses in depth in *After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai* (2006) are Ha My and My Lai, both in present-day Quang Nam province. These are two well-known wartime massacres, and Kwon focuses on how local communities commemorate and console the dead afterwards.
Kwon observes that in Ha My and My Lai, residents carried out many forms of commemoration, including building shared shrines, reburying remains, and holding regular offerings. These forms are not only religious activity; they are how the community asserts its continuity through the event.
According to Kwon, worship of the massacre dead at Ha My and My Lai shares one feature: the community does not distinguish which side the dead belonged to, but seeks to worship all the deceased in the same space. This differs from official commemoration, which is usually tied to a particular side or faction.
In many places, reburying the unidentified dead or those without relatives is considered a merit-making act, and local people may join efforts to carry it out. This notion is not limited to Central Vietnam; it appears in many other regions of Vietnam.
The role of ritual masters and mediums in worship of the dead
In rites concerning war ghosts, ritual masters and mediums play an important role. Kwon observes that in Central Vietnam, contact with the dead is often made through intermediaries with special abilities, and these people not only help families learn the fate of relatives but also help identify burial sites or causes of death.
Kwon argues that the role of ritual masters and mediums in this context is not only religious but also social: they help the community re-establish links with the deceased, and through that help the community continue living with wartime memory. This is especially important when the state and official organisations cannot provide answers for all cases of disappearance or death from unknown causes.
In folk practice, going into trance to ask the dead is considered a way to learn the wishes of the deceased, such as wanting reburial in the home village, wanting to be worshipped in a particular place, or wanting the family to do certain things. This information is usually passed orally and is not always verifiable.
Connection with the wandering souls offering on the fifteenth of the seventh lunar month
The offering to wandering souls on the fifteenth of the seventh lunar month, also called the rite of pardon for wandering souls (le xa toi vong nhan), is one of the most widespread rites concerning the unanchored dead in Vietnam. 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 labelsIt is usually held on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, and many families still make offerings to wandering souls outdoors or in front of the house. 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 labelsIn folk understanding, the rite feeds souls with no relatives to worship them, so they do not disturb the living, and it also accumulates merit.
In the lunar calendar, the fifteenth of the seventh month is the full moon at mid-month, usually falling in August or September of the solar calendar. This is the time many consider the month of the dead, when the gates of hell open and wandering souls are free to return to the world of the living.
In folk belief, the wandering souls offering is not only for those who died in war but for all who have no one to worship them, including those who died in accidents, illness, or far from home. In many localities, the offering is held at pagodas or communal houses, with large numbers of residents taking part.
You can read more about the meaning of this rite in Offering to wandering souls on the fifteenth of the seventh month: the meaning of the rite of pardon for wandering souls in folk belief.
How do rites help a community handle wartime memory?
Kwon argues that worship of the dead and offerings to wandering souls in Central Vietnam are not only religious activity but also a way a community handles wartime memory. Rather than trying to forget or to formalise memory, local communities seek to live with those memories through regular rites.
According to Kwon, one important feature of worship of the dead in Central Vietnam is its inclusive character: the community excludes no one, including those on the opposing side in the war. This allows the community to move past wartime divisions without directly resolving political disputes.
Note, however, that Kwon's conclusions rest mainly on fieldwork in a few localities in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, and few independent studies have tested them in other areas or with other populations. So these conclusions should not be generalised to all of Central Vietnam or all of Vietnam without further data.
Summary table of key studies
| Study | Author | Year | Field site | Main content |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghosts of War in Vietnam | Heonik Kwon | 2008 | Quang Nam, Quang Ngai | Belief in war ghosts and ritual as a way of handling memory |
| After the Massacre | Heonik Kwon | 2006 | Ha My, My Lai (Quang Nam) | Worship of massacre dead, reburial, shared shrines |
| The Coexistence of Natural and Supernatural Explanations Across Cultures and Development | Cristine H. Legare et al. | 2012 | Multiple cultures | Supernatural explanations are common on questions of death |
Limits of the available evidence
Kwon's studies are important works on worship of the dead in Central Vietnam, but they should be read with awareness of their limits. First, both books are by the same author, based on the same fieldwork, so they are not two independent sources. Second, the field sites are limited to a few localities in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, not representative of all of Central Vietnam or all of Vietnam. Third, the conclusions about the meaning of the rites for the community are the researcher's interpretation, based on observation and interviews, not measurable data.
Research by Cristine H. Legare and colleagues, published in 2012 in the journal *Child Development*, shows that supernatural explanations of death are common across many cultures, and that people often hold natural and supernatural explanations at the same time. This study was conducted in many countries and among many groups, not Vietnam alone, so it cannot be directly extended to Vietnamese people without research on Vietnamese people.
The real effects of belief and ritual
Belief in war ghosts and the performance of worship rites have real effects on the living, even if we set aside whether ghosts exist. Kwon observes that worshipping the dead helps families and communities feel more at ease, reduces anxiety about the deceased, and creates a space for sharing memory. These are observable psychological and social effects, independent of affirming or denying the existence of ghosts.
Kwon argues that precisely because ritual helps the living continue living with wartime memory, it becomes an important part of community life in places that have experienced violence. Ritual does not erase memory; it helps the living arrange that memory into an acceptable order.
Conclusion
Heonik Kwon's studies of worship of the dead and offerings to wandering souls in Central Vietnam show that ritual is not only religious activity but also how a community handles wartime memory. Worshipping the wrongly dead, reburying remains, building shared shrines, and offering to wandering souls on the fifteenth of the seventh lunar month are different forms of the same effort: to console the deceased and help the living continue. These conclusions rest on research in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai and should be read with awareness of the limits of the available evidence.
