Why traders go to Bà Chúa Xứ to 'borrow fortune': an anthropological view of Sam Mountain pilgrimage

Why did pilgrimage to Sam Mountain surge in the Đổi Mới era?

Short answer: according to years of fieldwork by anthropologist Philip Taylor, the pilgrimage boom to the Bà Chúa Xứ shrine on Sam Mountain is bound up with the market economy of the Đổi Mới era. Traders and small merchants come to the Lady to ask for fortune, treating it as sacred capital borrowed in advance in a business environment full of risk and thin on social safety nets. Taylor calls this phenomenon "the Goddess on the rise": precisely as the economy shifted to market mechanisms, folk belief did not recede but flourished.

One limit of the evidence must be stated at once: the cited materials contain no year-by-year visitor figures, so this article does not give visitor numbers. What can be asserted is the rising trend and its link to the Đổi Mới period, not a specific figure.

How do 'borrowing fortune' and 'repaying the vow' operate?

In the practice of pilgrims, "borrowing fortune" means asking the Lady to lend in advance a portion of luck, capital, or business opportunity; when affairs prosper, the person returns to "repay the vow" with roast pig, sticky rice, fruit, and donation money, sometimes a sum far larger than the original offering. This is a two-way exchange: pilgrims do not merely petition, they also commit to repayment.

Taylor analyses this logic as a kind of implicit contract: the loan carries no fixed interest but imposes a moral obligation to repay, and that obligation is what keeps the relationship with the Lady durable over many years. People do not come once and stop; they come, borrow, repay, then borrow again when they open a new venture.

A notable point: offerings carry clear economic weight. Some reference pages and folk notions in the South describe offerings to the Lady as including roast pig, chicken, sticky rice, fruit, and donation money, that is, things convertible into monetary value. Pilgrims believe that the more generous the offering, the more they receive back, and this is a real belief with real power over behaviour, not a mere formality.

How do researchers interpret the Lady differently?

In "The Goddess, the Ethnologist, the Folklorist and the Cadre" (2003), Taylor shows that the same cult of Bà Chúa Xứ is interpreted by each group through a lens tied to their social position. The ethnologist views the Lady through the lens of social structure and local belief; the folklorist seeks the origins of legend and folk motifs; the cultural cadre views the Lady through the lens of heritage, state management, and tourism development.

Taylor argues that each interpretation has its own value but none is absolutely "correct", because they arise from different positions of observation. This is an important point: rather than seeking one standard definition of Bà Chúa Xứ, one should ask who is speaking, from where, and to what end.

For the author, the interpretation of pilgrims themselves, that is, the traders who come to borrow fortune, is often ranked below academic and administrative interpretations. Taylor proposes placing the voices of practitioners on an equal footing, since they are the ones who give the cult its vitality.

How did Bà Chúa Xứ become a 2024 UNESCO heritage site?

The Vía Bà Chúa Xứ festival on Sam Mountain was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at its 19th session in 2024, under decision 19.COM 7.B.16. The nomination file of the Vietnamese State describes the festival as tied to the Bà Chúa Xứ shrine, a pilgrimage centre of Southern residents.

Earlier, research by Hồ Thị Đào and Nguyễn Quốc Bình (2021) showed that the cult of Bà Chúa Xứ has been exploited by leaders, managers, and businesses as a distinctive tourism product of An Giang. According to the authors, the spiritual life of An Giang residents cannot be complete without this cult, and it also contributes resources to the growth of the tourism sector.

In 2020, Phạm Xuân Hậu and Nguyễn Thị Diễm Tuyết surveyed visitor opinions on spiritual activities at the Bà Chúa Xứ shrine, and from this proposed solutions to preserve and promote cultural identity in spiritual activities serving tourism. On results, spiritual activities at the shrine require further investment, alongside upkeep and repair of facilities, if operations are to be sustained and visitors continually attracted. In addition, the authors point out that during peak periods, when large visitor demand creates pressure, some off-putting activities still occur and reduce the shrine's appeal.

Thus, from a small village shrine, Bà Chúa Xứ has passed through three layers: local folk belief, a regional-scale pilgrimage site, and internationally recognised heritage. Each layer adds a new functional stratum to the same place of worship.

How does Bà Chúa Xứ compare with Korea's money-demanding deities?

Anthropologist Laurel Kendall (2011) compared offerings consumption in Korea and Vietnam, and found a common pattern: as the market economy expands, relations with deities also become more market-like, with offerings, donation money, and expectations of return. In Korea, some deities are described as "demanding money", meaning people believe the deity can exert pressure to force larger offerings.

Kendall notes that this phenomenon is not "commercialisation" in a bad sense, but a way people bring economic logic into relations with the sacred. People do not stop believing; they restructure belief to fit the new economic life.

The scope of the data must be stated clearly: Kendall's comparison rests on observations in Korea and Vietnam, not a study representative of all Vietnamese. The result suggests a line of explanation, not a general rule.

What do studies of Bà Chúa Xứ pilgrimage show?

So does belief recede when the market economy arrives?

No. Evidence from several studies shows the opposite: folk belief flourishes precisely as the market economy expands. What changes is the function of belief. Previously, the Lady's shrine was tied to prayers for peace, harvest, and the wellbeing of an agricultural community. As the economy shifted to the market, the shrine became a place to pray for capital, for business opportunity, for luck in trade.

Researcher Nguyễn Hữu Thu (2019) also found that Mother Goddess worship in the Red River Delta shifted from being tied to the agricultural economy to reflecting a commodity economy, with the role of merchants increasingly clear. This is a pattern not only in the South but also in the North.

Two things must be distinguished: first, the belief of pilgrims; second, the economic effects of that belief. Anthropological research does not assert whether the Lady is efficacious, nor does it deny it. What research shows is that the belief is real, and that belief changes behaviour: people go to the shrine, make offerings, connect with a community of traders, build reputation, and from this may produce real economic results. This is a real effect generated by belief, not proof that the deity answered.

Where is the evidence still lacking?

There are no year-by-year pilgrimage visitor figures in the cited sources. Therefore, it is impossible to say precisely how large the increase is in percentage or in annual visits.

There is no large-scale quantitative study of the effect of "borrowing fortune" belief on the actual business results of pilgrims. Existing studies are mainly participant observation and in-depth interviews.

Kendall's (2011) comparison rests on observations in Korea and Vietnam, not a sample representative of all Vietnamese. The result should not be generalised to all Vietnamese groups without research on those groups themselves.

Further reading

• Bà Chúa Xứ of Sam Mountain: From Southern Folk Belief to Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
• Vía Bà Chúa Xứ Núi Sam Festival - A Cultural Heritage of Humanity