Questions Linger as Hmong Mourn Slain Hunter
By GREGG AAMOT
Associated Press Writer
ST. PAUL (AP) -- Maikue Vang's sadness was laced with anger and frustration as the funeral began Saturday for her uncle Cha Vang, the Hmong hunter who was slain in the Wisconsin woods earlier this month.
"A lot of people are confused and wondering, `Why did this happen to him?'" said Vang, who traveled from Fresno, Calif., for a three-day, traditional Hmong funeral for Cha Vang, a Hmong refugee who came to the United States two years ago and lived in Green Bay. "It's really sad, because he really just came here."
Vang's body was found partially covered by leaves and debris Jan. 6 in a wildlife refuge near Green Bay, and last week authorities charged James Nichols, 28, with murder after an autopsy showed Vang had been stabbed several times and shot in the head and torso.
Nichols, who is white, has told police he was acting in self-defense.
The slaying, coming two years after a Hmong man from St. Paul shot and killed six white hunters in Wisconsin, has rekindled racial tensions on Wisconsin hunting lands.
"I don't think this was self-defense, at all," St. Paul resident Pao Vang, who is not related to Cha Vang, said as he left the funeral service. "We want the justice system to work so that this doesn't happen to anyone else."
By 8 a.m. on a frigid Saturday morning, dozens of Hmong residents were streaming into the funeral home on the east side of St. Paul.
As family and friends formed a half-circle, a shaman knelt beside Vang's body, his chants asking Vang "for permission to send his spirit back to his ancestors," funeral home director Kou Vang said. Nearby stood a money tree in front of a hanging quilt of gold symbols - both items are currency for the afterlife that would be burned later, Kou Vang said.
Cha Vang's wife, Pang Vue, sat in a chair by her husband's body, staring straight ahead and wiping her eyes as other mourners wailed. The couple had five children.
In the entryway to the funeral home, mourners grabbed copies of the newspaper Hmong Today, which had a headline across the top reading, "Wisconsin Hunter Killed: Hate Crime or `Accident'?"
For Joua Vang, the answer was evident. The autopsy showed that a wooden stick had somehow become clenched in Vang's teeth, protruding into his throat. Graphic pictures of Vang's body, stitched up after the autopsy, hung on a wall at the funeral home.
"It seems to me that this is a hate crime, just because of the way he died," said Joua Vang, of Fresno, whose husband was a cousin of Cha Vang's.
Wisconsin and Minnesota, along with California, are home to the largest populations of Hmong, an ethnic minority that fled Laos after the Vietnam War.
Said Maikue Vang, "Hmong on the West Coast are wondering, `What is happening in the Midwest?'"
In a statement released through the funeral home, the family said, "We do not and will probably never know what happened that afternoon. The only thing that we know for sure is that Cha Vang is murdered and is no longer with us."
Cha Vang's confrontation with Nichols, who is from Peshtigo, Wis., came as the two were squirrel hunting.
According to a criminal complaint, Nichols gave several versions of what happened, saying at one point that Vang told him he was going to kill him. Vang's wife, however, has said her husband spoke no English.
In the November 2004 slaying, which happened in Sawyer County in western Wisconsin, Chai Vang, who is not related to Cha Vang, shot six hunters after being accused of trespassing during a deer hunt. He said the white hunters shouted racial epithets and shot first, but survivors testified that he opened fire on the group. Chai Vang was sentenced to life in prison.