Rice Pounder

Rice has a long history within the Hmong community. In many story cloths, it can be seen that women and men are harvesting rice even through the war. A part of this process includes the rice pounder which cracks the hulls of the rice. With the size of the rice pounders, it became difficult for them to move with the Hmong people as they moved away fleeing from the Communists during the Secret War. Alterations to this included creating a similar rice pounder contraption in the soil to create a “bowl” where a cloth lays. A wooden pounder would be used to crack the hulls in the ground. These changes through war similarly demonstrated other adaptations needed by the Hmong community for survival. When it was available through war, Hmong people continued to grow and harvest crops to support their families.