摘要：The flower tree of the Thái shaman, an artificial construction, is erected when
shamans hold periodic rituals of thanksgiving to the ancestors who give them
the power to heal. When the author commissioned a similar tree from a Thái
community in Thanh Hóa in 2000, she learned that a local performer rather
than a shaman had made the tree, and that shamans avoided the new tree
as a potentially dangerous object. After gaining general knowledge about
the construction and power of flower trees by doing fieldwork in other Thái
communities, the author returned to Thanh Hóa where she learned that the
simulated tree was intentionally made to suggest but not precisely replicate
the shaman’s ritual tree. The simulated trees are used in secular performances
and museum exhibits as a visual symbol of Thái culture in a compromise that
both shamans and performers accept.
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