OF SOUKHUAN AND LAOS Elena Gregoria Chai Chin Fern Faculty ...

The smoldering wood was waved in a sweeping motion towards the direction of the
kerng. That was done to direct the khuan into the fishing cage. Mae Thao then walked
around the mango tree several times and then made her way home. The villagers who
witnessed this did not utter a word to her. She continued to call the khuan back. The
villagers would give way as she walked as they believed that any disturbance or
obstruction would result in the khuan ‘held’ in the kerng, to flee again. When she
reached the front gate of her house, she covered the kerng with a clean piece of cloth.
Before stepping onto the staircase of the house, she asked loudly, “Has Bak Kok come
back?” The mother and sisters of Kok answered simultaneously “Yes! He has already
returned.” Then Mae Thao left the smoky wood behind, on the foot of the staircase
and walked into the house. She went to Kok’s bedside, lifted the kerng, took the cloth
away and ‘poured’ the khuan over Kok’s body. The rite then ended. As the word
‘wan’ means ‘to find’, Wankhuan therefore is a generic term used to find the khuan
which has been frightened off from the body. If one’s health does not improve within
a few days of a Wankhuan, a more elaborate soukhuan rite will be performed. In this
case study, Kok got well the next morning and everyone in the house thanked Mae
Thao for finding Kok’s khuan back.
The sornkhuan Ceremony
In other villages, the Sornkhuan method is used (pers. comm. with Mae Thao). ‘Sorn’
means ‘catch’, and therefore Sornkhuan means catching the khuan which has
wondered away from the body. It is performed for the same purpose, for people who
has fallen after an accident. Similar to Wankhuan, the kerng, this time filled with a
handful of cooked sticky rice and a hard-boiled egg. Yet again, the person who
performs such a task is an old person like Mae Thao (grandmother) or Pho Thao
(grandfather). Upon reaching the place where the accident occured, Mae Thao or Pho
Thao will try to capture the lost khuan as if catching fish in the river, simultaneously
calling, “Ma yer khuan er! Ma yer!” After sometime, when the khuan is presumably
caught, Mae Thao or Pho Thao will go back to the house and feed the sick person with
the sticky rice and egg.
It must be noted that an older person performs both khuan “finding” and khuan
“catching” rites. Similarly, an older person summons the khuan to return in a
soukhuan ceremony. This is because older people are believed to possess stronger
khuan because of their age. Their khuan are stable and firmly attached, unlike the
young. The younger a person is, the more vulnerable the khuan is and the tendency to
lose the khuan when frightened, is high. The khuan of children under the age of ten
are considered very weak.
When a young child cries in the middle of his/her sleep, it is believed that his/her Mae
Kaw, (his/her mother from a previous life) has returned to play with him/her. When
the crying continues for several nights, it is said that Mae Kaw has brought him to a
far away place and some of his khuan have gotten lost and could not return home. In
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