Honouring the dead for a better
life
PHOOWADON DUANGMEE THE
NATION September
9, 2015
According to traditional beliefs, the seventh
month in the lunar calendar is when restless spirits roam the
earth. That seventh month usually falls around August or September
and all over Asia, communities mark the festival of the hungry
ghost in their own fashion.
Chinese-speaking communities celebrated the festival last week,
burning paper money and papier-mache iPhones so that these will
travel to the afterworld where they can be used by the spirits, as
well as offering boiled chicken and sweets to appease the hungry
ghosts. The Khmer, too, killed chickens, leaving small portions of
food at crossroads to feed the dead.
The Mon people in the western district of Sangkhla Buri, however,
organise a much more festive occasion in memory of departed souls.
They build a boat and load it with food then celebrate for two
nights before tossing it into the water. This Mon ceremony is very
rare, and draws both the curious and the culture buff to Thailand's
western frontier for the rite.
Known as the Mon Floating Boat Festival, this year's festival is
being held over the weekend of September 26 to 28.
"The ritual is known to the Mon as Pohamord, which roughly
translates as the Boat of Offerings," says Arunya Chareonhongsa, a
Mon resident of Kanchanburi's Sangkhla Buri district, as she
recounts the origins and purpose of the Mon Floating Boat
Festival.
The annual event sees Mon communities towing a full-sized,
hand-crafted boat laden with food to the river, The food is left
out to sate the appetites of the departed. Once a private and
deeply religious ritual, today the festival brings in much-needed
tourist revenue to this quiet area.
Thousands of visitors turn out every year during the rite to
witness the boat being built, decorated then towed to the
water.
The Floating Boat Festival not only commemorates departed Mon
pilgrims but also banishes evil and brings luck to those still
living. It’s a ritual that dates back to the Mon Hanthawaddy
Kingdom (1369-1539) and marks the journey of a high-ranking monk
and several Buddhist pilgrims across the Bay of Bengal to fetch a
set of Buddhist scriptures in Sri Lanka. On their return trip, one
boat capsized in rough seas and the pilgrims inside it
drowned.
Every year since, the Mon have built a large boat and piled it high
with offerings before sending it out to sail on the river to feed
those departed pilgrims.
For the Mon who live outside the district, the festival is a
home-coming and a chance to mix with friends and relatives in one
of the largest and most rustic Mon communities in
Thailand.
On the first day locals and visitors surround the Chedi
Phutthakhaya at Wat Wang Wiwekaram to watch as the men shape long
bamboo poles into a boat, a process that usually takes a full
day.
While the men are building the bamboo boat, the women busy
themselves cooking and preparing the offerings, which mostly
consist of popcorn, ripe bananas and boiled rice in banana leaves,
candles, honey, water and sticks of
sugarcane.
When the boat is ready and decorated with colourful paper flags, it
is moved to the front of the huge pagoda where it serves as the
centrepiece for the celebrations that follow on the next two
nights.
The highlight is the series of cultural shows that showcase the
distinctive ways of the Mon. Whether old or young, they dress in
beautiful traditional attire - red sarongs and white shirts - and
move towards the boat holding trays. Young men, with mouthfuls of
chewy betel nut and winning smiles, try to lure the girls who
carrying baskets of food on their heads.
"In the olden days, we also made a lantern and would load it with
yellow string and the necessities for entering the monkhood before
releasing it into the sky," Arunya explains. "Whoever got the monk
set would be ordained.
"If a woman found it, she would make a great contribution to the
Buddhist temple."
The ceremony culminates in the boat being towed to the riverbank
and pushed out to the water where it begins its slow journey to the
spiritual world.
IF YOU GO
Sitting on the large reservoir created by the Khao Laem Dam,
Sangkhla Buri is a home to one of Thailand's largest Mon
communities as well as to Karenni and Bangladeshi populations that
add to its ethnic diversity.
It draws visitors for its Mon Wood Bridge and Mon temple with a
bronze pyramid-shaped Chedi and is a good starting point a day trip
to the Three Pagoda Check Point, where visitors, provided they
bring a passport and photo, can get a day pass to Payathonsu inside
Myanmar.
Mini-buses depart from Kanchanaburi's bus terminal at regular
intervals.