Hands Off the Head, Out of Respect for the Soul

In a special class that helps primary-school children improve their English-language skills, Alma, a substitute teacher, distributes work sheets with human figure outlines. She asks the children to identify different body parts by covoloring them with assigned colors, but the children decline to color noses, ears or any other parts located on the head.

What did it mean?

The children were Hmong, from the hill country of Laos, whose families had assisted American forces during the Vietnam War and emigrated here. As the other teachers later explained to Alma, the Hmong believe the head is sacred because that is where the soul resides. The children refused to color the heads because by marring them they might bring harm to the persons the drawings represented. The head must not be touched in reality, either. Alma and many other teachers had been accustomed to patting youngsters on their heads as a sign of affection. However, after distressed reactions from the children and their parents the instructors discontinued the patting.

The Hmong are noted for fine needlework. Collectors of arts and crafts and street fair shoppers may be familiar with their colorful story cloths depicting daily life in Laos or their painful exodus into Thailand. They often portray elephants, Thai soldiers and crossing the Mekong River.