Cultural schemas and folk-belief: an insight into the belief in worshiping the Mother Goddess in Vietnam

In 1973, Geertz argued that religious belief is a system of symbols through which humans interpret the world around them and orient their behavior, contributing to cultural identity. Durkheim (1912) asserted that religion manifests collective consciousness, expressing identity and community connection. Prior work (e.g., Dung, 2017) emphasizes that religious beliefs shape customs and festivals and reflect spiritual aspirations while preserving cultural values. In Vietnam, the divine world is expressed through many beliefs, prominently the cult of the Mother Goddess, which has been widely studied for its history, pantheon, rituals, festivals, and role in Vietnamese life. Studies such as Williams (2012) and Whitmore (2012) argue that worshipping the Mother Goddess is a cornerstone of Vietnamese folk beliefs, embodying deep-rooted cultural, spiritual, and religious values and contributing to national cultural identity. Research has characterized this belief as venerating female deities associated with natural phenomena and the universe, who create, protect, and shelter human life—linked to matriarchal influences in early agricultural culture. The belief is associated with festivals (e.g., Châu văn, Phủ Tây Hồ, Bà Chúa Kho) and has inspired artistic forms (ca trù, hát văn, poetry). Rituals, actions, and language in worship follow culturally patterned rules, which can be modeled as cultural schemas within Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017). Cultural schemas encode beliefs, norms, rules, expectations, and values and are shared yet heterogeneously distributed across community members. Based on Sharifian’s schema classification, this paper investigates the cultural characteristics of the belief in worshiping the Mother Goddess of Vietnamese people and addresses the following research questions:

1. What are the manifestations of the cultural schemas of the belief in worshiping the Mother Goddess of Vietnamese people?
2. How is the process of implementing the belief in worshiping the Mother Goddess of Vietnamese people shown through cultural schemas?
3. How are local cultural characteristics represented through the cultural schemas? By analyzing the basic cultural conceptualization of the Vietnamese people expressed through the cultural schema of Mother worship, the paper aims to clarify the human philosophies and indigenous origins of this belief across history.

The paper situates its inquiry within a broad literature on religion as culture (Geertz, 1973; Durkheim, 1912) and on Vietnamese Mother Goddess worship. Prior studies by Williams (2012) and Whitmore (2012) highlight the cult of the Mother Goddess as central to Vietnamese folk beliefs, embodying deep cultural and spiritual values and shaping national identity. Additional notable works include Thuy (2014) on theoretical and practical issues, Van (2014) on beliefs and festivals, and contributions by Dinh et al. (2022), Vu (2006), Ngo (2002, 2018), Salemink (2014), and Taylor (2004), which collectively describe the pantheon, rituals, development, and social roles of the belief. The paper also draws on Cultural Linguistics and schema theory (Bartlett, 1932; Cook, 1994; Nishida, 1999; Sharifian, 2001, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017), framing cultural schemas as shared mental models capturing beliefs, norms, rules, expectations, and values. Vietnamese syncretism and integration with Buddhism and Taoism are also recognized in the literature (e.g., concepts such as tien Phat hau Mau).

Analytical framework: Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian, 2001, 2011, 2017) and the schema typology (role, event, image; with attention to emotion schemas) guide analysis. Design and data: Qualitative methods were used to survey, analyze, and evaluate a linguistic corpus comprising eighty Chầu Văn songs. Sources include: Điện thân và nghi thức hầu đồng Việt Nam (Hiep et al., 2019; Hiep, 2019), Đạo Mẫu Việt Nam (Thinh, 2009, 2019), and video recordings of Hầu Đồng and shadow dance sessions on YouTube. Fieldwork was conducted at temples in southern Vietnam (the Miao of Wuxing in Nha Be District; the Miao of Thiên Hậu Mother Goddess in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City; and the Shrine of the Sam Mountain Goddess in Nui Sam ward, Chau Doc City, An Giang Province), photographing temples and rituals for documentation. Procedure: The corpus of eighty songs extracted from videos was compared with texts in the cited works to identify and interpret language used in rituals. Data were analyzed through Sharifian’s cultural schema types (role schemas, event schemas, image schemas; with observations of emotion schemas) to model roles, processes, and conceptual metaphors within the belief system.

• Identified cultural schemas: The study finds four cultural schemas reflected in language and ritual practice: role schemas, event schemas, image schemas, and emotion schemas (per Sharifian, 2011, 2017).
• Role schemas (divine hierarchy and regional variation): In the Four Palaces (Tứ phủ) system, Mẫu Thượng Thiên (Mother of the Sky) is supreme, with Mẫu Thượng Ngàn (Mother of the Mountains), Mẫu Thoải (Mother of the Water), and Mẫu Địa (Mother of the Earth) governing respective realms. Temple placement reflects hierarchy and cosmology (e.g., Mẫu Thượng Thiên central/top; left-right gendered arrangement nam tả, nữ hữu). Syncretism appears in the conception tien Phat hau Mau (Buddha in front, Mother Goddess behind), showing co-presence of Buddhism and the Mother Goddess belief. Northern pantheon roles include Chầu Bà (young princesses), Vương Cô (great female mandarins), Vương Cậu (great male mandarins), Quan Lớn (princes), Ngũ Hổ (Five Tigers), and Xà Thần (Snake Goddess). In the South, role schemas emphasize localized Mother Goddesses (e.g., Chúa Xứ, Linh Sơn/Bà Đen, Thiên Hậu) with less rigid hierarchy and strong links to local histories and Chinese diaspora maritime protection.
• Role schemas in ritual mediation: In the North, Đông (séance/medium) embodies the Saint during Hầu Đồng, supported by offering assistants and a Chầu Văn orchestra, interacting with disciples and guests (giving blessings, scolding/praising, distributing wealth). In the South, Bóng (spirit medium) represents rather than embodies Saints, performs dances to confer blessings, with the Saint witnessing the ceremony.
• Event schemas (ritual sequencing): Preparation includes choosing an auspicious time, preparing offerings, turbans and robes, setting music/oration, and medium purification. Northern Hầu Đồng stages: (1) Opening (offerings, incense/candles, kowtow), (2) Release (veil as boundary between worlds; donning and later removing the khăn chầu, transition to spirit embodiment/communication), (3) Farewell (opening veil, changing clothes, kowtow, dancing, listening to Chầu Văn poetry, bestowing blessings; Holy ascended). Southern sequence: Buddhist praying/chanting followed by a festival performance with opening by orchestra, inviting Saints, offering through danced movements, dances by Bóng, blessings, peace of mind announcement, and closing with the Chập Địa song.
• Image schemas: Conceptual linkages between Mother–Nature–People depict nature as maternal (e.g., Mother Nature, Mother Earth) who creates, protects, and nurtures; spatial schemas position sky and forest above rivers and ground, aligning with cosmology and naming of the Four Mother Goddesses. Object schemas associate roles/props and movements (e.g., hand/foot dancing; sword/knife/halberd dancing; towel/wine/offerings dances; tiger imagery as fierce/brave) with social categories (mother, princess, prince, tiger, bureaucrat) and expected embodied performances.
• Practical, present-oriented religiosity and syncretism: Language and ritual emphasize present-life benefits (health, wealth, fortune), with practices like seeking blessings and borrowing fortune money from altars. The belief system exhibits harmonious, integrative thinking, absorbing values from Buddhism, Taoism, and local/neighboring cultures (Hoa, Cham, Khmer), enriching ritual forms and linguistic expressions.

The findings address the research questions by demonstrating how Vietnamese cultural schemas structure the pantheon (role schemas), ritual processes (event schemas), and conceptual metaphors (image and object schemas) of Mother Goddess worship. These schemas, encoded and transmitted through Chầu Văn and ritual language, reveal a syncretic, hierarchical-yet-flexible system that varies regionally (North vs. South) and integrates Buddhist elements (tien Phat hau Mau) while maintaining indigenous cosmology (Four Palaces). The ritual role differences between Đông and Bóng clarify how embodiment versus representation mediates human–divine communication. Significantly, the schemas show that belief practices are oriented toward immediate, practical concerns—health, prosperity, protection—highlighting a culturally grounded, present-focused spirituality. The modeling of spatial and maternal imagery elucidates how Vietnamese conceptualize nature as nurturing and sovereign, aligning cosmology with social organization and ritual performance. Overall, Cultural Linguistics provides an effective lens to interpret how language stores and transmits cultural knowledge, norms, and expectations within this belief system, explaining the belief’s persistence, adaptability, and cultural resonance across regions and communities.

Analyzing eighty songs and associated ritual language, the study shows that the language system used in the belief in worshiping the Mother Goddess is diverse and culturally sedimented, reflecting the central role of spiritual life in Vietnamese thought and perception. Using Cultural Linguistics, the belief is shown to be organized by cultural schemas—role, event, and image (with emotion present)—that shape how Vietnamese categorize colors, numbers, gender, family, and court ranks, reflecting hierarchy and reverence for the female divine. Cultural metaphors such as Mother Nature and admiration for the Mother Goddess are salient. In the South, communities received the belief from the North and adapted it through interactions with Hoa, Cham, and Khmer groups, enriching spiritual life via localized rituals and forms preserved in language. More broadly, these cultural schemas illustrate Vietnamese indigenous culture and the exchange/acculturation with Eastern and local traditions. Vietnamese culture’s openness to external quintessence aligns with contemporary trends. Adopting a multicultural perspective enables comparison with other cultures’ rituals. The results provide a Cultural Linguistics-based resource for scholars of Eastern folk beliefs and religious language, underscoring how language functions as a repository and conduit of cultural cognition.