ihung.org

This post is more or less a photo dump, but I’ll try to give at least a brief explanation of each picture. For back story, in 2007 I was invited by some friends to visit the Vegetarian Festival with them; Ron more or less picking up on the fact that I needed to get away for a bit and experience the world more, which he was certainly correct on. Ron and John had done the legwork to make friends with a mah-song (Medium/Priest) at a prestigious temple called Bang Neow, so the rest of the Westerners and I (there was a posse of around 8 or so of us) were their on the coattails of John and Ron. We were treated to a most prestigious and up close experience of the Festival, an experience I cherish and will never forget. I returned in 2008 and 2009, each year having a vastly different vibe from the previous and 2011 is no exception. Anyhow, this morning was Bang Neow’s street procession, so I was up at 5:00am to make it to the shrine in time to see the mah-song being entranced and pierced prior to the procession and here are a few pics.

This is one of the “spears” used for piercing the cheeks of the mah-song. This goes in as far as necessary in order to insert whatever burden the mah-song will bear.

A mah-song pierced with a long spear adorned with flowers (not visible)

These three are of various types of flagellants which are my favorite mah-song “type”. The first is offering blood at the shrine, the second is licking a giant saw blade while walking, and the third shows the aftermath of licking blades for a few hours.

Here we see an elder mah-song standing on a chariot carried by devotees as he blesses a small shrine. The second shot gives a decent idea as to the amount of firecrackers lit off.

Tomorrow’s procession is for Jui Tui shrine, which is a large shrine with many devotees and mah-song, with a strong female mah-song presence, so I’ll be certain to get lots of pictures from their ceremony as well. Tonight is firewalking (weather permitting) at many of the smaller shrines, so I’m hoping to get some pictures and videos from that to put up as well.