AKHA CEREMONY - APPEASING THE SPIRITS

The day before we visited this village, a bamboo had fallen onto the spirit gate, which is a bad omen to the Akha.  They believe that this signifies a spirit's displeasure with them and that bad luck is about to befall them.

The ceremony is only attended by men.  They allowed me to stay and watch as I was a tourist.  There was a little girl running around for some of the time, but she was pre-pubescent, so I suspect that made it okay.

The first thing the men did was to remove the fallen bamboo.  Normally they are not allowed to cut any of the trees directly surrounding the spirit gate as that is where the spirits live.  However, during this ceremony they are allowed to do so and the men cut away quite a few of the bamboo trunks, as well as some other overhanging branches.  They were allowed to use this wood, so one man dragged his bamboo pole off to be used as fencing for his livestock.

Usually a new gate is added on once a year.  However, because of this ceremony, the gate could not be added to this year.

The main part of the ceremony was the slaughter of a pig in sacrifice.  The pig is purchased by the whole village, as the bad luck affects everyone.  This was a small pig and cost THB1,500.  The pig was removed from the sack it was in and taken to be washed, squealing away like anything.  For any of you who have seen Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lector's "Did you hear the lamb's bleating Clarissa?" sprang to mind.!!!  

The whole operation was overseen by two elderly, pipe smoking men, who were described as 'witch doctors' by the guide.  They didn't join in the talk amongst the other men, just sat and smoked.

After washing, the pig was carried back to near where the elderly men sat and its neck was slashed.  The blood was drained into a large bowl.  

After the pig was slaughtered, his innards were quickly scooped out by hand (I will NEVER eat any innards, EVER again!).  Above you can see the pig's liver spread out on the leaf in front of the elderly men.  The man in the red cap was the chief 'doctor'.  He and the other man examined the liver, which shows the reason for the spirit's displeasure.  They then pronounced that the spirits were not too angry and they would accept the slaughtered pig as a just sacrifice.  

The pig's body was taken to a fire that the men had built, using some of the wood they had chopped down.  Here it was charred black to remove the hair.  

The pig was taken over to the hosepipe, washed off and the skin scrapped to remove the hair.  They repeated this several times until it was hairless.

Part of the ceremony is to drink the local 'whisky' made in the village.  We contributed a bottle.  Alan was offered a glass, which he accepted, always eager to try a local moonshine!

Apparently the whisky was very strong (I could smell it from where I was standing), but he finished it all the same.

Once the pig was hairless, his body was cut up.  From every section of the body a very small bit of meat was cut and put into a bowl (the small white bowl by the man's knee).  This meat was used to make a special soup for the spirits.

Above you can see the bowl of blood used in the sacrifice.

The man above is carrying the spirit's soup.  Nobody can eat any of the meat until the spirit's have been served.

In this huge wok, the pigs intestines were cooked.  Meat was definitely off the agenda for me that day!

Whilst the chief doctor looked on, the man in the cap performed the rites.  He is the only man in the village allowed to do so.  Honestly, blink and you would have missed it!  At the foot of the gate, he put some of the spirit's soup in a bowl.  He placed a cup of whisky alongside it and poured the blood into a small bowl I think.  Being a woman, I didn't want to get too close and upset what was happening.

The men continued to cut up the pig, into ever smaller bits of meat.  I thought they would have chunks of meat, but the whole pig was chopped into small bite sized pieces.  I think it was going to be cooked into a soup in the wok.

The meat is only eaten by the men who performed the ceremony.  If there is any meat left over, it has to be thrown away around the spirit gate.  We left at this point, having spent over an hour watching this take place.

It was absolutely fascinating to have been able to see a genuine, not for tourists event like this.  We just could not believe our luck.  The men were very friendly, explaining to the guide what was going on so that we understood what they were doing, tolerating the presence of a woman and letting us take photographs and film.  One of those once in a lifetime events.