Project Phongsali: Tai Deng villagers ask us to refrain from disturbing spirits during their annual festival. Out of respect, we comply.
Tai Deng women step lively between fast moving poles at the annual festival.
Day 62
The Tai Deng people in this village are celebrating an annual festival that doesn’t have an official name. When pressed, people simply refer to it as the “Support Your Village Festival”. All three dominant ethnic groups in Sop Houn, the Tai Deng, the Tai Dam, and the Khmu, are animists, not Buddhist. All three groups follow religious practices that, in large part, center on the presence of multiple spirits and caution against behaviors that might disturb or anger them.
It’s no coincidence that the Tai Deng festival this week and the Tai Dam festival planned for next week both occur close to Pi Mai, the Buddhist New Year. (A holiday that most people in Laos celebrate in mid-April.) Pi Mai and our village’s festivals all occur at a time of renewal, when people are anticipating the coming monsoon rains and the start of a new growing season.
Mr. Khammon, the village naiban, sent an emissary to our camp earlier in the week asking us to refrain from exploding ordnance during the festival, for fear of dampening the party mood of living residents and of offending spirits of the dead. His messenger explained that, in days gone by, the festival was a three-day affair. But this year, he stated, in a concession to the pressures of modern life, the celebration would be truncated into a single, event-packed day. Hence, we need only halt our noisy work on Saturday. On Sunday, like everyone else in the village, we could resume work.
However. Saturday was so satisfyingly festive that every Tai Deng man, woman and child decided to party on throughout the weekend. By unanimous consent the one-day festival became a two-day festival. The singing, the dancing, the drinking, the games of chance all continued. Little children romped and played throughout the village. Groups of school-aged kids challenged one another in soccer, volleyball or rattan ball matches. A robust team of women and girls challenged all comers to a tug-of-war and then proceeded to humiliate every team that dared lay hands on the rope. The happy atmosphere emboldened normally shy young men to flirt with the girls. The girls, usually reticent and never sassy, gave it right back. The boldest teens drank lao-lao, got silly, and used inebriation as an excuse to play the old slap and tickle. That was Sunday.
Boys in the village try hard but get dragged through the dust by the girl's team during the tug-of-war competition.
On Monday, acting as one, the Tai Deng community spontaneously decided to resurrect the old days and observe a third full day of celebration. Work was cancelled, schools were closed and festivities continued. People who were drunk on Saturday, who were very drunk on Sunday, got very, very drunk on Monday.
Today is Tuesday. Most Tai Deng adults around town are sleeping late; those who are awake are moving slowly. No one is working. In contrast, the children all look bright-eyed and bushy tailed, cheerful, probably, because their school remains closed. The naiban stopped by our camp to invite our entire team to a “festival wrap-up lunch” at noon. (The man looks like he was rode hard and put away wet. Apparently the burden of festival leadership weighs heavily upon his shoulders).
Fortunately for Project Phongsali, our team took only Saturday off. We worked quietly out in the countryside on Sunday and Monday while the Tai Deng section of town rocked. We deferred all demolitions but carefully marked all the ordnance that we found with warning signs. We plan to destroy those items after the Tai Deng festival ends. Hopefully, we’ll be able to bang the new stuff away before the upcoming Tai Dam festival begins.