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Ye Arak: Montagnard Priestess in Cambodia

by

Patrick M. Hughes Ph.D.

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Ye Arak with Spiritual Weapons

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Chief Magistrate Cheung Pheav invited me to a traditional festival in his grandfather’s village. It was early morning when I drove into the small community of families living in bamboo huts loosely arranged in a circle around their temple. I was immediately introduced to Pan, Pheav’s father and village chief.

The whole village was abuzz with excitement; joy and laughter filled the air. It was the day when chief Pan was going to have a fine water buffalo sacrificed in thanksgiving for the soul power, productive power given to members of his family by the ancestors.

The children ran around the Arakaa trees. Each one had been planted by a family on the day it made a great sacrifice to the spirits of the forest. The trees are protected from the children and the animals by a chimrung, made of four stout stakes about four feet long above the ground. On tope there is a little altar, a bambood tray pierced with tiny pointed stakes on which to put sacred rice, bitter leaf and choice sacrificial meats that are then allowed to rot away.

The young men carried their new born on their backs supported by a roped papoose. The young girls sat on the front porches of their family huts laughing and chatting while

other ground the grain or cleaned the rice rollling it round and round in big bamboo trays. Mothers and fathers emerged from the hugs to see the new arrivals. Most of the villagers, males, females, old and young smoked their homemade pipes and

tobacco that might keep mosquitos at bay. Blackened teeth showed when they smilied or spat on the ground.

Pan introduced me to Ye Arak, the priestess. She was dressed just like all the other women, wearing a home spun sarong from the waist down. She looked to be in her 40’s.

Ye Arak is her priestly name. According to custom it is only women that can be a priest. There are ten priests for the Kreung and Tampuan of Ochum. Ye Arak serves many villages though she is the only priest in this particular community.

At one time her name was Rang Lao. She was married and had two chuldren. Her man died. She could have fallen in love, married again and even remain a priest but she is happy to remain single.

This is how she became a priest. When she was 32 years old she had a problem with her heart. She was very restless and disturbed for a period of three years. Then she had a dream. God came inside her body and made her happy. She could hear traditional music. Someone was playing a flute. Then she saw a flower, a kachuk dilating in a pond. It was wet and fresh. When she woke up she was cured of her disease and has never had a problem with her heart since then.

She told her community of this marvellous experience. It was decided that she should be their priestess. The whole village came together for one day and one night. They played traditional music on the wind instruments and sacrificed a cow.

She told me that everything in daily life is a ritual manifestation of spiritual power and meaning.

Sometimes she has to argue with angry spirits but flattery is her best weapon when a field is not productive, and the rice does not grow.

As priestess, her main role is to have dreams and get in touch with god or the ancestors, ghostly figures called pratt. When someone is sick, the family must put a string bracelet around that person’s wrist. That night Ye Arak has a dream. When she wakes up she will tell the famiily the mistake they have made and what they must do to solve the problem with the spirits.

Most often, she persuades the spirits to work with her, but sometimes in her dreams she

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often meets ancestors who are very angry. These ghostly figures are seen just as they were when they were human and alive. If Ye Arak saw some pratt killing a buffalo and eating it, the sick person will die once they finish eating the buffalo.

At times she must face her most powerful enemy among the pratt.He is called Aaptamuk, and is the source of black magic. He makes persons suffer and

often transforms into a tiger. The priestess must kill this tiger by waving her special stick convered with string back and forth against this ghost. Should Aaptamuk be cowed, the sick person will live. Then the famiily can make an offering of a chicken or food and the sick person will get better. If the sick person gets worse then she dreams again and the family must make an even greater sacrifice, for example a cow and a pig because otherwise the ancestors will remain angry.

Ye Arak does not kill the sacrificial animal herself. Any villager can perform this act.She told her story without affectation or show of arrogance, and then excused herself to

go into the temple at the center of the village. This is a rectangular bamboo structure maybe 15 by 25 feet. There are no religious artefacts inside even though it is used for prayer. It is also the place where young men gather in the evenings and where village meetings take place.

Beside the temple is a large banana tree. The tree is surrounded by a fence. It is a most sacred space. It is like god, Pan said. They do not know where god lives; he is everywhere, but the tree is special. When speaking withYe Arak, she had pointed to the banana tree beside the temple, and declared: “See! Though the same godly or spiritual reality is everywhere, this tree is god and these bananas have miraculous powers.”

The children must show it respect. When it bears fruit they can only take a banana with the permission of their parents because it is a medicine that is shared by all in the village.

If someone is sick they will pray to the tree for help. They beat their gongs and play traditional music to call on the spirits to listen to their prayer. Again, they may have to sacrifice a domestic animal. There is a high stand in front of the temple on which they put the meat so that the dogs cannot eat it. They pour the blood of the sacrificed animal on the hallowed ground and on the stout trunk of the Namva tree.

About 25 feet in front of the temple there stood a newly planted Arakaa tree. A water buffalo, chewing the cud was tied by a halter to the strong stakes of a chimrung. On top of the chimrung there was a large tray pierced from below with five pointed stakes, where the buffalo’s head would be offered up to the community’s Aranetha, or ancestral spirits.

Immediately in front of the temple there was a table with ceremonial equipment. Gongs, wooden flutes, a stick twisted round and round with string, a white robe, tiny bowls containing herbs.

The Sacrificial Ritual Begins

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Bare breasted and embellished with necklaces, brass bracelets and anklets, Ye Arak emerges from the temple. She strides out boldly, ready to confront the water buffalo, and any evil spirit that might be present. Her face is strong and noble, and she holds her body high in the proud pose of one annointed to do the work of the ancestral spirits.

Ye Arak waved her string covered stick as round and round the Arakaa tree she walked with the slightest suggestion of dance all the while leading the buffalo. Her eyes did not leave the sacred circle composed of herself, the buffalo and a few elders who followed her playing the traditional music that filled the air. It was soft, played on the wooden flutes by the elders. Gongs of various shapes were beaten ever so gently making a continuous rhythm that called god and the ancestors to attend their ceremony.

Ye Arak would turn around every so often to face the buffalo, and wave her stick to beat off every evil. After awhile the buffalo’s eyes flashed and his horned head moved slowly from side to side as if to accompany the sacrificial rhythm.

This is a happy day for Ye Arak and her community. It is the end of the monsoon season. Soon the fields with be fruitful, and the villagers can eat their fill and invite her over to their homes to say a thanksgiving prayer.

Today she will meet their happy ancestors associating freely with everyone in the village. In their dreamy neatherland Kreung ancestors are a happy people, hunting, fishing, chatting in their huts and laughing during their ceremonies. When the ancestors are happy, she knows that good things will happen. Once in a dream she saw a flower. She reached out and picked it up. Then she saw “big water that stretched far from the eyes and was blue”. Her soul had been taken to the seaside where a god was playing a wooden flute and dancing in the sand. There was a

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wondrous light in the sky and she knew the ancestors, the Aranetha were content with her actions.

Ye Arak continued her rhymic walk and dance of enchantment around and around the Arakaa tree for about twenty minutes. Then the small group of elders lined up in front of the temple.

Taking a lead from their priestess they prayed, holding hands together and raising them to the sky. They begged for all the blessings of god – a good harvest that would prove their soul power, an easy life and happiness for all “who are on the earth and under the sky”. They thanked the ancestors for the year that had passed, and asked forgiveness of the buffalo to be sacrificed since it too is part of the oneness of god, nature and the community.

The traditional prayer over, the priestess returned to the table and donned the white robe. Two men approached the buffalo from behind. Prepared for the sweaty task they wore a

police uniform with the shirt open in front. One carried a little hatchet by his side, the principal tool in highlander communities. The other had a big round log resting on his shoulder.

The great animal seemed to sense his fate and tried to walk away from them pulling at his halter and moving faster and faster around the Arakaa tree.

The highlander with the log taunted the buffalo on one side while the other moved in on the blind side. The hatchet was raised and brought down heavily cutting a great gash at the back of the knee on one leg.

The community gave a loud cheer.

The big animal fell but dragged himself around on three legs. Again the hatchet came

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down cutting the other hind leg. Now the buffalo dragged itself forward pulling with the two forelegs, pushing with the bleeding stubs behind.

Twisting his head, and stretching his neck backwards, he jabbed at his enemies with great horns but was fooled again and again. The man with the log taunted him again, and the hatchet came down once more, this time to cut a foreleg behind the knee. The buffalo was breathing hard through his nose and his eyes were wild with pain. His head twisted once more to gore his attacker, only to have his other foreleg cut out from under him.

Finally, ever so slowly he flopped down on his belly. His once strong legs were twisted under his body or sticking out awkwardly to the side.

His head continued to weave back and forth. His eyes rolled about in their sockets, his nostrils were spread wide taking in great amounts of air in anger and despair.

The buffalo was then struck on the brain with the great log, and when caught up in the horns it was released and the force merely pitched it to one side. Again the man approached and struck the animal with the log time and again until the buffalo was dazed.

The other man, who had thrown his hatchet to one side, reached in with a long pointed knife to stick it into the left side of the neck when the raging head was turned away. He struck again, plunging the knife into the animal’s heart area, jumping back in time to escape the horns.

With that knife still in place, he was handed another long knife as he circled to the other side. The other man stepped in to club the buffalo once more, and when he jumped back, the second knife was plunged into the right side of the heart area and twisted several times.

The creature was seen to lose all enegy as it collapsed internally. His belly was spread on the ground. His eyes closed and opened more and more slowly and were glazed over. His nostrils became less and less extended. His head weaved but without force.

He died. (see photo below)

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Ye Arak filled a bowl with the animal’s blood, poured it over the ground under the banana tree, and disappeared into the temple.

A few men and women began to cut up the meat, which according to highlander’s tradition would be divided up equally between the households.

Single girls went back to pounding grain in wooden vessels. Men and women sat down in the shade to drink rice beer. Young men, babies on their backs drank with their friends. Everyone smoked home grown tobacco.

I was taken to Pan’s hut. The old man took out a special black jar of rice beer prepared for this happy occasion. Like smoking, singing and chanting, drinking rice beer is believed to facilitate communication with the spirits. We all sat around the jar and Pan bent over to suck rice beer through a bamboo stuck into the top of a sacred black jar.

We all followed suit, and soon we were talking and laughing.Pan tied kapok string around Pheav’s right wrist and then my left one. Holding our

hands together in his he prayed that we might be strong in soul-power, have good health and happiness in our friendship.

I had become a blood brother of the Kreung and united with their Aranetha. Soon our share of the meat came, and we all had our fill.Lunch over, I went outside. A portion of the buffalo meat was on the raised dais in front

of the temple, agift to the ancestral spirits. Dogs fought over scraps scattered around the sacrificial circle. The priestess was nowhere to be seen.

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The buffalo’s head was stuck on the tray that capped the family Arakaa tree, where the birds would take it back to the spirits that abide everywhere and in everything and everywhere above the earth and beneath the skies of Ratanakiri. (see photo below)

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