The Spirits of Angkor – Part One

ចេះឯងអោយក្រែងចេះគេ។
“Cheh eng oay kreng cheh keh.”
“You may know a lot, but also respect other’s knowledge”
(Khmer Proverb)

Siem Reap, Cambodia. © Ishu Patel

 

There are stories that fall into other stories.

They are lost in time, going up the decades like salmon in a river.

And it's precisely the rivers that connect the places and times of this story.

From the tortuous Siem Reap that winds around the magical site of the Angkor Wat temple, diving into the wider waters of the Tonlé Sap River which, with its 120 kilometers, crosses the heart of Cambodia, nourishing the great lake that carries the same name it with its fresh waters, making to marry with the King of rivers, the Mekong, and then move south to reach Kampong Chhnang, before reaching the capital Phnom Penh.

The story I am about to tell you is bathed in those sweet waters.

 

Ly Mut, sat on the ground with his 84 years of wrinkles and sunburned skin, near the ancient wooden house hoisted on the pylons, as he tuned the tro* Khmer every morning, with the case made of coated coconut snake skin.

He had been living for years with his whole family in the village of Prey Sak, not far from the city of Kampong Chhnang. He preferred the calm village life even though he knew well that having the city a few miles away was necessary for the work of the children and the school of the grandchildren; and in any case, even though it was a small province, it was only 90 kilometers from the capital Phnom Penh.

As they say, he was a man of yesteryear, but he was smart to understand the necessities of modern life.

It was enough for him to train with his instrument and drink his shot of sraa tram*, lulled by the sounds of the birds from the vegetation and the voices coming from his house and those nearby.

Bopha, his youngest granddaughter, approached as usual with her plate of baw baw*, barefoot in the reddish earth.

Bopha was ten years old, and she was very fond of her grandfather; every week she waited anxiously for Saturday to come in order to be with him. At first, she did not want to go to school, but the grandfather made her understand that she must consider herself lucky because even now many girls of her age could not attend school.

“Do you want to go to work in the fields tomorrow morning? And go home in the evening? Every day of the week?” Old Ly said to her one day with stern eyes.

Bopha shook her head so hard that Grandpa teased her. “Be careful that your name means flower, if you shake your head with such vigor then you will be left without petals!”

 

In the end, she didn't mind going to school too much either, on the contrary, it was the excuse to see the city. And on weekends she could stay with her grandfather.

She had thick black hair that was almost curly, and her lips were small and plump like a bud.

She could find her grandfather with closed eyes, he never changed places. Seated on the floor on a mat of bamboo threads, he spent the morning hours tuning and cleaning the instrument case with a cloth.

Bopha walked over to him.

“Chao*, good morning...” Grandpa said with a smile as he plucked the three strings of the tro.

The little girl put the plate on the ground next to Ly Mut and greeted him with a sampeah*, her hands joined with forefingers touching her lips and a deep nod of the head. Then she smiled at him and she sat down in front of him, returning to eat hungrily, her fingers dotted with white rice grains softened by the soup.

It was barely early in the morning but the air was already humid and clothes clung to the skin.

Bopha loved to see how lovingly her grandfather took care of his instrument. Now it was rare that he played it with his group, but there was not a day that he did not tune it and polish its body.

“Sounds good?” The granddaughter asked him without noticing any difference.

The old man nodded, ear close to his strings.

“Yes, chao, although these metal strings will never sound like ancient silk strings.”

“When will you play it again, tha*?”

Bopha asked with her eyes intent on following his grandfather's fingers on the instrument and forehead beaded with sweat.

“Well...” The old man put the tro between his legs and went back to sipping the rice wine with his back straight. 

“Now this music of ours is no longer in fashion,” he pronounced each word with a heaviness of his voice that contrasted with the placid smile on the face. “It is still used to play it in rural areas, but in the cities, the new generations don't even know the difference between Pleng Arak and Neak Ta anymore. When I was young this was one of the most popular music; people required it both in spiritual ceremonies and at weddings. Sometimes even for rain or to heal people.”

Bopha hung from his grandfather's wooden lips. “What's the difference between Pleng Arak and Neak Ta?”

Ly Mut smiled, delighted with his grandchild's interest.

“You must know that this is one of the oldest music in our tradition, dating back to even before the time of Angkor Wat!” Ly Mut said bringing his wrinkled face close to Bopha's to make her eyes and mouth widen. Then he came back with his back straight like a bamboo cane and took another sip of the sraa tram.

“Pleng Arak originates from the word Niot Lerng Rong, which means that spirits prefer to possess women while in Neak Ta spirits prefer men. We play for the spirits: we call them to us, we give them pleasure if they are traveling, we beg to abandon us if they cause us pain or illness. We are the players who perform the songs that the spirits like.”

Bopha couldn't help but smile. In fact, she covered her mouth with her hand and started laughing.

“Wuhhhh!!!!! The spirits!” She exclaimed smiling with her arms outstretched to the sides waving them like butterfly wings.

“But tha, do you really believe in spirits and ghosts?” The little girl said trying to hold back her laughter so as not to offend the elderly man too much.

Ly Mut let out a long, velvety sigh of sweet alcohol with the eyes turned to the bottom of the empty shot glass.

“Of course I believe it. Spirits exist...” Grandpa said in a more tired tone of voice.

Bopha felt guilty, looked at the glass beside her feet, and said trying to get up: “I'll go get you more sraa tram, tha, and some baw baw...”

But Grandpa grabbed her by the arm and held her in front of him.

“Don't worry, stay here. I'll go get it afterward.”

 

Choeung Ek village, Cambodia. © Ishu Patel

The little girl sat down again, pushed away the empty plate with crow's feet and a few chopped leaves of vegetables at the edges, and crossed her legs with the elbows on her knees and chin resting on the palms like a precious stone set in a ring.

“Listen to me well. Traditions are the backbone of a nation; they are the sap of a people as for a plant. The new generations tend to forget, to ignore. They mock at what is sacred. This is the prelude to ruin, to oblivion.

Everything is tradition. We are surrounded and innervated by it. Look! Why do my teeth have silver plates and betel red?”

And with his index finger pulled down one side of the lower lip to show the teeth to the girl.

Bopha looked at his grandfather's dark teeth and shook her head.

“Because in our culture, white teeth are considered bad auspice. You understand? Everything has a reason. Of course, not everything that identifies us as a Khmer people originated spontaneously: take the sampot*! It seems that it was K'ang T'ai, the first ambassador from China to visit Angkor who asked the King of Fuan, our first empire, to cover up the men who were still completely naked.” The old man said with a smile, but he immediately became serious, still staring at the two big black eyes of his granddaughter, framed by the hair.

“Don't smile when mentioning spirits. My music is a tribute to the deep spiritual belief that each of us has for our ancestors. And do not believe that the spirits are only the khmoc*,” and he added counting with the fingers of the hand raised to each name he pronounced, “...there are the prets and the besachs, the evil demons of those who have died in a violent way, premature or unnaturally, the arak, the female evil spirits, the neak ta, the tutelary spirits residing in inanimate objects, the mneang phteah, the guardians of the houses, the meba, the ancestral spirits, the mrenh kongveal, the guardian elves of animals...”

“Enough! That's enough, tha!” Bopha exclaimed hugging herself with a shiver running up her spine.

Ly Mut smiled tenderly as he saw the little girl look around her with worried eyes.

“Don't worry, spirits rarely come to harm us. This is why we continually offer them food and prayers, or our songs.”

Bopha seemed to calm down. With the tip of her finger, she picked up some rice and a vegetable leaf from the edge of the plate and sucked it almost to chase away the bad thoughts.

Then the old man took hold of the tro again, put the round sound bowl between his legs, and began to pinch the ropes with the gaze that crossed the whole village until it was lost in the vegetation in front of him.

“But there are also stories that are like shadows that stretch on the ground until they touch our feet...”

Bopha came back with the chin between her palms and stared at his grandfather: “Really? What story, tha?”

“Oh... It's a story that goes back in time before Cambodia knew the nightmare of Pol Pot and his criminal delirium. It even reaches the beginning of the century and features two women, a girl and a child almost your age.”

Bopha's eyes widened. This was one of the reasons she waited every week for Saturday, not so much to not go to school but to be able to spend these hours with her grandfather and his incredible stories.

Meanwhile, the village was coming to life around them, among the children running and playing and the women talking among chickens, dogs, and some monkeys. But Bopha didn't care, she was wrapped in a soap bubble in which there were only her and the grandfather.

 

Village life near Angkor Wat, around 1919-1926. Unknown photographer

Ly Mut rolled a cigarette, inhaled with his eyes closed, and released the smoke that rose into the sky and disintegrated into white wads.

“This story happened at the beginning of the last century, in a small village in the forest next to Angkor Wat, when Cambodia was a peaceful country surrounded by greenery and watered by its great rivers. In the Kouk Chak district, there was a small village not far from the waters of Siem Reap.

I guess you know the wonderful story of Angkor Wat, chao?” The grandfather asked the little girl, who swayed her head as if to confirm but with hesitation.

“What you see now, and which they come to visit from all over the world, is only an abandoned chrysalis of the imposing and majestic masterpiece that it once was. Ours is a long epic born on the foundations of the kingdom of Funan, the first great Indo-Chinese state, whose capital was Vyadhapura, 'the City of Hunters', built on the banks of the Mekong. Do you know where the name of our town comes from?”

Bopha, enchanted by her grandfather's words like a cobra from flute, shook her head.

“Eh, what do they teach you at school?!” He blurted out in a cloud of thick smoke.

“Cambodia was the ancient Khmer state of Chenla, of the ancient Mon-Khmer dynasty, called the 'solar dynasty', founded by the union of the mythical ascetic Kambu and the apsaras*, or celestial nymph, Mera, for which his people were called Kambuja, 'the sons of Kambu'."

“Forget it,” said the grandfather, chasing a fly in front of his face.

“However, according to the Hindu cosmological myth, the abode of the gods was located on the top of Mount Meru, at the epicenter of the universe, so all the places of worship were built on the heights. Each king wanted his temple-mountain to enshrine his power and his tomb when he died, so subsequent kings could not enjoy the same temple but had to build another one, that's why our land has more temples than trees.”

Bopha smiled and brushed her hair out in front of her eyes, wiping the sweat with the hem of the shirt.

"Angkor Wat was the temple-mountain dedicated to Vishnu of the devaraja Suryavarman, the only one facing west where the sun sets, dedicated to death and darkness, that's why it was built on the outskirts of the city, in the forest, because the dead did not have to dwell where the living was,” Ly Mut continued

Another shiver went through Bopha and, with small movements, she moved closer to her grandfather's feet.

“Thousands of cutters worked there to build it, first roughing the stones, then master builders, architects, draftsmen, and Hindu scholars. It was impressive and wonderful. It goes without saying that after the glories of the first king's empire, the largest temple in the world survived until King Suryvarman II in 1150, then was sacked by our historical enemies Chams in 1177 and by the Thai army in 1431, to be abandoned and swallowed by the forest.”

 

Bayon Temple. Angkor, 1998. © Steve McCurry

Ly Mut paused for a moment and asked Bopha to get him another glass of rice wine; the little girl jumped to her feet like cricket and disappeared into the house to return in less than a minute with the glass in her hands. 

The old man took the glass with a smile: “You are faster than the flapping of a mohary's wings*!”

“Let's go back to our story,” Ly Mut said, taking a sip of the drink.

“A young woman named Mony lived in this small village. She was just a few years older than you and she was pregnant with her first child.”

Bopha interrupted him: “Why, so little she was already pregnant?”

Grandfather smiled at his granddaughter's naive question.

“Do you know what the Chinese envoy Chou Ta-kuan wrote about Khmer women while he was staying in Angkor in the late 1200s?”

Bopha shook her head again.

“That at twenty or thirty they looked like Chinese women of forty or fifty. Because at your age they were already married and with children. Sure, it was centuries ago but, trust me, it wasn't all that different in Mony's time.

"Life in the village was similar to when I was a child. All we needed was in the forest and river. So every morning Mony went to the nearby Siem Reap River to wash clothes and fetch water.

"Until the day of the eclipse.”

Ly Mut stopped and looked sternly at Bopha: “I guess they didn't even tell you about the eclipse at school? Its origin...”

Bopha spread her hands in front of her face as if to say it wasn't her fault that she didn't know.

“Poor us ...,” the old man sighed, shaking his head with his hand intent on caressing the snakeskin that covered the tro case.

“The ancient Khmer legend tells that the solar eclipse began when three brothers made an offering of rice to the monks. The first brother who offered it in a bronze bowl was turned into a black monster called Reahou. The second made his offering in a silver bowl and was transformed into the moon. The third offered the rice in a golden bowl and was transformed into the sun. Since then the lunar eclipse occurs when Rehaou swallows the moon and the solar one when he swallows the sun. Hence our way of saying kreas konlong, of someone who is crazy, which means 'Rehaou jumps on you.'

"Well, it was believed at the time, and every one of my generations still believes it, that a woman should never have been caught out of the house by the solar eclipse if she was pregnant, otherwise the misfortune would have marked her. And so it was...”

 

Bopha swallowed a lump of saliva and braced herself for the worst...

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

* The tro Khmer (Khmer: ទ្រខ្មែរ) is a traditional bowed string instrument from Cambodia. Its body is made from a special type of coconut covered on one end with snakeskin, and it has three strings. Instruments are not standardized, and coconuts vary in size; however, the instrument's sound bowl may have dimensions 16.5 cm by 14 cm. In the past, the strings were made of silk. By the 1960s, metal strings were in use, and the sound of the instrument changed, becoming sharper.

* Sraa tram, an alcoholic drink made with rice.

* Baw Baw, rice porridge usually eaten for breakfast in rural areas.

* Sampeah, a typical Cambodian greeting that differs according to the person you meet, slightly changing the height of the joined hands and the nod: from younger people to the elderly, to monks or important personalities.

* Chao, the name with which grandparents address their grandchildren (male, female)

* Tha, the name with which grandchildren address their grandfather.

* Sampot, a fabric with which both men and women cover their legs.

* Khmoc, a term with which ghosts, spirits, or demons are generically called.

* Apsaras or apsara is a type of female spirit of the clouds and waters in Hindu and Buddhist culture. They figure prominently in the sculpture, dance, literature, and painting of many South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures. Apsaras are widely known as Apsara (អប្សរា) in Khmer, and also called as Accharā in Pāli, Hapsari/Apsari or Widadari/Widyadari (Javanese) and Apsorn (Thai: อัปสร). English translations of the word include nymph, fairy, celestial nymph, and celestial maiden.

* Mohary, little bird.

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