University of Virginia Library

THE FESTIVAL OF `BUNBANGFAI'

Bunbangfai means literally the `merit of (firing) rockets'. The rockets in
question are made locally in the village by packing `black powder' (nitre)
into bamboo sections, which are then reinforced with rope. A `tail' is
attached to the rocket which is ignited by lighting a wick. Each rocket is
decorated gaily with ribbons and streamers. The rockets go up a fair
distance and the mark of good craftsmanship is their straight upward
trajectory.

Bunbangfai is a ceremony of regional importance, and is directly
associated with the guardian spirit of the Byng Chuan swamp and the
guardian spirits of the village. The rocket ceremony, it is said, is addressed
to the powerful guardian spirit of the swamp, Chao Phau Tong Khyang
(or Tapu Byng); it is performed to pay him respect, and to request him
to confer prosperity and good health and to send rain (`tham haj ju dii mii
haeng, kho fa kho fon'). It is in fact primarily a rain-making ritual; if the
ceremony is not performed the swamp guardian spirit will be angry, rains
may not fall, and he may withdraw his protection so that both villagers
and their buffaloes will fall ill.

But unlike the propitiations to the guardian spirits before ploughing
and after harvesting, which are conducted both at a regional level in the
swamp shrine and in each village at the Tapubaan shrine (which I have
described earlier), the rocket-firing ritual is conducted by each village
separately. It is not merely a propitiation but is also a festival whose
proceedings take three days. It is comparable with the Buddhist Bun
Phraawes festival, which is conducted by each village separately as a post-harvest
thanks-offering (Chapter 10); in fact these two festivals are, as
we shall see, linked in a complementary fashion.

In Baan Phraan Muan, as in other villages, the ceremony is addressed
both to the guardian spirit of the swamp and to the two guardian deities

of the village (Tapubaan and Chao Phau Phraa Khao). I have already
expounded the logic by which the villagers sometimes merge the two
village guardians—of the wat and of the village—in the single concept of
Tapubaan, and the latter in turn with Tapu Byng, the guardian of the
swamp. Thus in each village it is the Buddhist temple (wat) and the
Tapubaan shrine (hau tapu) which are the foci for the rites. The bringing
together of the temple and the spirit shrine in a ritual sense is paralleled
by a spatial link between them. In many villages of the region the
Tapubaan shrine stands in the compound of the Buddhist temple, often
a few yards from the bood (or viharn). The shrine is simple, small, crudely
made of wood, and faces the village and thereby guards it; the bood in
contrast is the most imposing and magnificent piece of stone architecture
in the village, and faces east. What values are expressed in this juxtaposition,
which is at the same time a startling comparison? Traditionally, the
temple and the spirit shrine belonged together, like the vihare and the
devale in Buddhist Ceylon. Nowadays, some villages, Baan Phraan Muan
among them, have separated them, possibly under ecclesiastical pressure,
and have placed the shrine at the back of the wat compound.

One of the problems that the festival of rocket-firing poses is the pattern
of the complex integration of Buddhism and the guardian spirit cult in
the same ritual. There are two major sequences to the festival: first, monks
are ordained, and in some years a monk `promotion' ceremony is also
held at the same time (see Chapter 7); following this Buddhist sequence
is the ecstatic procession, the paying of respect to Tapubaan, and the
firing of the rockets. Superficially it looks as if the `opposed' sequences
have been tacked on together; yet the situation is not as simple as this
because the role of the monks themselves in the festival is complex—they
take part in some sequences and segregate themselves from others. This
fascinating festival has puzzled some observers. For instance, one writer
(Faure in Berval 1959) has called the festival, witnessed in Vientiane the
capital of Laos,

Although the festival performed in the village is not as grand as that
staged in the capital of Laos, its structure and pattern are revealed more
clearly in the village performance. Faure makes the oft-repeated mistake
of identifying only Buddhist rites as `religious' and the ritual sequences
directed to fertility and fecundity as `profane' because of their `excessiveness'.
Nor is it valid to describe the festival as `dichotomous', if by this
word is meant the tacking together of incompatible parts. I shall argue,
and such an argument is a central thesis of this book, that the festival
portrays a `necessary' linkage between Buddhism and the guardian spirit
cult and that it highlights how the two ritual complexes relate to one
another in a logical and orderly fashion. Before describing the sequences
of the rocket-firing festival as staged in the village it is necessary to comment
on two problems, one relating to the timing of the festival and the other
to its name, especially the prefix bun.

At the regional cult centre of village Napu it was reported that the
festivities were held every year in the middle of the 6th lunar month
(dyan hog peng) from the 14th to the 16th, with the 15th being the crucial
day. This coincides with the full moon of May. Faure (ibid.) reports that
in Vientiane the festival takes place on the 15th day of the waxing moon
of the 6th month. According to the Buddhist calendar this is the day of
Visakha Bucha, the day on which the Buddha was born, the day on which
he achieved nirvana, and the day he died. Because of this synchronization
of Visakha and the rocket festival, it can be argued that the first part of
the festival centring on ordination and promotion of monks is the Buddhist
part, for it is an appropriate day for glorifying the Buddha and his doctrine.

But this association does not appear to hold for Baan Phraan Muan,
where the date on which the rocket festival is held varies according to
the exigencies of the agricultural cycle. It is held at any time between the
6th and 8th lunar months, in theory on the 15th day of the waxing moon,
but in fact on any convenient day in the waxing period. (In 1966, for
instance, the rocket-firing was on the 11th day.) There is no recognition
in the village that the ceremony is in any way associated with Visakha,
which occasion we have seen is not important for the village calendar of
temple festivals (Chapter 10). The chief consideration for the villagers
in choosing the day is the calculation of when rains will fall so that the
rice agricultural cycle can begin.

However, the name of the festival, Bunbangfai, poses a linguistic puzzle;
it has the Buddhist concept of merit, bun, as its prefix. Villagers, applying

their usual category distinctions which separate Buddhism from the
cults relating to phii spirits, are explicit that `Bunbangfai has nothing to
do with Buddhist monks; it is not related to Buddhism; it is a matter
concerning phii'. We shall, however, see that the monks are both involved
and not involved in curious ways, and that what the villagers are saying
is that Bunbangfai is not a Buddhist festival at which monks officiate, not
that there is no link with Buddhism whatsoever. Furthermore, we have
seen that the Buddhist festival of Bun Phraawes which precedes Bunbangfai
is also to some extent concerned with rains and agricultural prosperity.
Indeed, there are some fascinating links between the two ritual complexes
which we must explore and illuminate.