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

The khuan
The belief in khuan has long been a strong element in Lao culture. The word ‘Lao’
used in this text describes the people of the Lao Loum group. The Lao still retain what
most people consider as a pre-Buddhist belief in khuan or soul. Written material on
this is very limited as books and were burnt during the Revolution of 1975 (pers.
comm., Bounmihang [Lao National University]).
The Lao people originated from southern China. Phya Anuman Rajadhon (1968)
linked the word khuan with the Chinese (hwun). The concept of hwun is similar to
those of khuan. For instance, in both cases, the absence of hwun will make one
vulnerable to sickness and misfortune. In order to call one’s lost hwun, a (Chao
Hwun) ceremony is performed. For thousands of years, calling the soul back to the
body has been a custom in China (Terwiel,1978:13). Ch’un Yuan wrote a poem
sometime in the early third century B.C. called Chao hun or “summons of the soul”
(Hawkes,1959:100). It is evident that the ritual is still performed now (Terwiel, ibid).
Chao Hun was used in ancient China to call the wandering soul of a sick man back to
his body and also to summon the souls of the dead (Terwiel, ibid). When a baby is
sick, a mother “hastens up to the roof of her house and, waving about a bamboo pole
to which is affixed a garment belonging to the little one, exclaims several times in
succession:
“My child …. (child’s name), come back, return home! In the interim, another inmate
of the house beats a gong loudly to arouse the attention of the soul. After a while, the
vital spirits are expected to recognize the garment and slip into it; and so, along with
it, they are taken back to the sufferer and placed either upon or at the side of his bed”
(De Groot, 1892:243).
This Chao Hwun ceremony for the sick child is similar to the Wankhuan ceremony
performed by an elderly woman for her grandchildren as described in the following
section. Although the paraphernalia of the ceremony is different in both cases, there is
a similarity between the Chinese and the Lao practices. The Chinese perform the soul
calling with the child’s garment while beating a gong, where as the Lao uses a fishing
cage and a piece of smoldering wood. Both are used to call the return of the lost soul.
The Lao ritual is a close resemblance to the Chinese one.
The word ‘khuan’ means ‘soul’. Clearly, any researcher who is keen in Lao culture
could not help but be fascinated at how the social and religious belief of the Lao and
their outlook on health and happiness are governed by the belief of khuan. Such belief
is not restricted to the Lao; the Thai, the Burmese and other Tai-Lao speaking
minorities occupying the Mekong Delta region also hold such belief. In fact, this
belief could be traced to other races in Southeast Asia as well, for example, the Iban,
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