Vietnamese folk religion

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Vietnamese folk religion (Vietnamese: tín ngưỡng dân gian Việt Nam) is a group of spiritual beliefs and practices adhered by the Vietnamese people. About 86% of the population in Vietnam are reported irreligious,^[1] but are associated with this tradition.

Vietnamese folk religion is not an organized religious system, but a set of local worship traditions devoted to the "thần", a term which can be translated as "spirits", "gods" or with the more exhaustive locution "generative powers". These gods can be nature deities or national, community or kinship tutelary deities or ancestral gods and the ancestral gods of a specific family. Ancestral gods are often deified heroic persons. Vietnamese mythology preserves narratives telling of the actions of many of the cosmic gods and cultural heroes.

Đạo Mẫu is a distinct form of Vietnamese shamanism, giving prominence to some mother goddesses into its pantheon. The government of Vietnam also categorises Cao Đài as a form of Vietnamese indigenous religion, since it brings together the worship of the thần or local spirits with Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, as well as elements of Catholicism, Spiritism and Theosophy.^[2][3]