Consoling Ghosts: Stories of Medicine and Mourning from Southeast Asians in Exile

Title Page, Copyright

CONSOLING GHOSTS This page intentionally left blank CONSOLING GHOSTS Stories of Medicine and Mourning from Southeast Asians in Exile Jean M. Langford University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London U Sam Oeur, “The Howling Dead,” “Water Buffalo Cobra and the Prisoner of War,” and excerpts from “Searching for Dad” are from Sacred Vows, translated by Ken McCullough (Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1998); copyright 1998 by Ken McCullough; reprinted with permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Coffee House Press. www.coffeehousepress.org. “What’s Written on the Body” from What’s Written on the Body (Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, 2007), copyright 2007 by Peter Pereira, and excerpt from “Litany” and “The Wages of Mercy” from Saying the World (Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, 2003), copyright 2003 by Peter Pereira; reprinted with permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press. www.coppercanyonpress.org. Excerpt from “D.C.,” by Mai Neng Moua, published in Bamboo among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002); reprinted with permission. Portions of this book were previously published as “Spirits of Dissent: Southeast Asian Memories and Disciplines of Death,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 25, no. 1 (2005): 161–76; copyright 2005 Duke University Press; all rights reserved; reprinted with permission. Portions of chapters 6 and 7 were previously published as “Gifts Intercepted: Biopolitics and Spirit Debt,” Cultural Anthropology 24, no. 4 (November 2009): 681–711. Copyright 2013 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401–2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Langford, Jean M., author. Consoling ghosts : stories of medicine and mourning from Southeast Asians in exile / Jean M. Langford. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8166-8717-6 (hc. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8166-8718-3 (pb. : alk. paper) 1. Laotian Americans—Death. 2. Cambodian Americans—Death. 3. Death— Social aspects—United States. 4. Terminal care—Social aspects—United States. 5. Spiritualism—United States. I. Title. HQ1073.5.U6L36 2013 362.17'50973—dc23 2013018889 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ...