Anant Inthayung’s face is heavily made up with blusher, blue eyeshadow and bright red lips and he bursts out laughing when asked what it feels like to be wearing make-up for the first time.
Each monk-to-be rides on an elephant during the mass ordination ceremony in Surin.
“It’s weird,” the 23-year-old man says. Anant is neither a performer nor a transvestite; he is about to join the mass ordination ceremony for Kui men in the Ban Ta Klang Elephant Village in Surin’s Tha Tum district. The event, “Buat Nak Chang”, is a monk ordination procession that takes place astride elephants. Nak means a person who is at least 20 years old, due to be ordained as a Buddhist priest.
The three-day event is organised every year during the Full Moon in May. This year, it fell on May 11-13. About 25 men joined the mass ordination ceremony.
A highlight of the ritual occurs on the second day when monks-to-be ride on elephants through the village, which according to Kui tradition brings fame and good fortune to their families.
The Kui people are an ethnic group whose roots are in Laos. They settled in this so-called elephant village during the Ayutthaya period (1350-1767). Their ancestors were well-known for their abilities to catch and tame wild elephants. Although most Kui people nowadays are farmers, elephants still play an active part in the community, with many enjoying pet status and living next to families’ raised-floor houses. The elephants in the village have been raised as an integral and valuable part of the community’s heritage. As a result, the Kui village in Surin has a large number of domesticated elephants.
“My father was one of the best mahouts in the village. We used to have an elephant that lived with our family for three generations before it died recently at an age of more than 100 years,” said Onsiri Chanla, the mother of Nak Anant.
“I am very glad that my son will be a Buddhist priest. It is our way of living that every son in our village must be in the monkhood once in their lifetime. They must come back home for the ordination ceremony,” she added with a big smile.
While she was watching her son dress and get made up, a mahout was also busy colouring the elephant that the monk-to-be was about to ride. Kham Ake is a 30-year old male elephant. It has joined the ordination ceremony every year for the past decade.
“My elephant is very kind,” said Jake Salangam, the mahout. He and his brother used coloured chalk to paint parts of the elephant’s face, ears, tail and body to make the dark grey animal look as festive as possible.
Around 11am, Anant appeared in
a long-sleeved white shirt with three pieces of differently coloured (pink, green and dark blue) clothes on top. Anant wore the traditional sarong favoured by Kui men and also a headdress with a high pointing pin in the middle, which very much resembles
a crown commonly worn in traditional Thai Nora dance performances. A beautiful gold necklace topped off the look.
“It is our tradition to dress him like an angel with colourful make-up and sparkling decorations so he will be reborn in a simple life of monkhood later,” the mother said.
Before mounting the elephant, Anant first pays respect to his ancestors at the family’s spirit house to request a safe elephant ride. Then loud music begins to play and neighbours, relatives and friends of the family of all ages join the parade and dance. Anant holds a large bowl filled with colourful small packages, each containing one or two baht coins inside. He occasionally throws out the coins as a form of blessing to those who joined the parade. Most of the time, however, it is children who scrum down for the coins.
All nak arrive at Chaeng Sawang temple around noon. They rest with their family members in the temple’s prayer hall and wait until the elephant parade begins at 2pm.
The parade starts at the Elephant Centre in the village. One by one, the elephants walk from the centre to Wang Thalu, a river bank where the Mun and Chi rivers meet. The area is about 4km away from the centre and used to be where Kui people performed the monk ordination ceremony before the temple was built. This setting was chosen because the area houses San Pu Ta, the spirit house of the village guardians.
The Kui people still preserve this tradition, so mahouts and the 25 monks-to-be ride the elephants to Wang Thalu. By now, the strong afternoon sunshine has baked the road surface and so the elephants walk quickly. When they approach Wang Thalu, they almost break into a run towards the river. Some elephants even take a quick dip in the water and make the monks-to-be and mahouts wet. After a short while, the mahouts drive their elephants back to the river bank to join the procession.
Parents of each monk-to-be pay respect and offer food and drinks to the spirits. After this, an “elephant whisperer” blows a horn and prays. Throughout the entire procession, the monks-to-be stay on the elephants until they return to the temple.
The mass monk ordination ceremony culminates on the third day in the temple where the 25 nak become monks and wear monastic robes. Locals also celebrate the event with a competition of home-made rockets at the temple.
Anant Inthayung gets in full dress before being ordained.
