Abstract

This paper investigates the Vietnamization and Huế-localization of female deities of Cham and Chinese origin in Huế through belief legends, focusing on two cases: Thiên Y A Na (adapted from the Champa and Cham goddess Yang Po Ina Nagar and Po Inâ Nâger) and Thiên Hậu Thánh Mẫu (adapted from the Chinese sea goddess Mazu). The dataset comprises 89 legend variants and ethnographic materials from Huế and related Cham and Minh Hương communities collected between 2021 and 2024. Cases were selected based on textual circulation, ritual salience, and provenance diversity. By analyzing narrative variants of these legends, symbolic systems, worship configurations, and ritual practices, the study demonstrates how these divine figures have been reinterpreted and indigenized over time, particularly through the selective reaccentuation of their symbolic valences across Champa, Cham, and Vietnamese cultural contexts. This process exemplifies the concept of intertextual transposition and reveals the active Huế-localization of micro-level religious meaning within the broader macro-level trajectory of Vietnamization in response to local cosmology and shifting socio-political contexts. By employing an analytical framework that integrates intertextual transposition into Turner’s theory of ritual process (liminality, communitas, and anti-structure), this study extends Turner’s model from oral to literate contexts. The study argues that legends function as "cultural scripts" that provide symbolic source codes, while ritual enactments serve as the processing mechanism through which these codes are processed. Through the liminality of the ritual space, exogenous textual elements are deconstructed and structurally reintegrated into the local belief system. This approach reveals how ritual performance actively reaccentuates textual meanings, allowing for the Huế-localization of exogenous symbols.