Nine Emperor Gods

[Ivan Garcia]

Nine Emperor Gods Festival
Thailand’s celebrations of this chinese religious event is particularly spectacular.

Celebrated by Phuket’s and Krabi Chinese community, the event marks the beginning of the month of ‘Taoist Lent’, when devout followers of the Tao abstain from eating all meat and animal products. Participating street vendors and restaurants display bright yellow banners .

The festival begins with processions, religious offerings and cultural performances, centred on five Chinese temples. The most significant location is Jui Tui temple, the modern annex of Put Jaw, the oldest Chinese temple in Phuket Town.

The religious fervour culminates with incredible acts of self-mortification – walking on hot coals, climbing knife-blade ladders, piercing the skin with sharp objects.

Devotees participating as mediums bring the nine Taoist emperor gods to earth by entering into a trance state and piercing their cheeks with all manner of objects: sharpened tree branches, spears, slide trombones, daggers.

 

[Ivan Garcia]

Some even hack their tongues continuously with a saw or axe blade.

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Shopkeepers on central streets set up altars in front of their stores, offering incense, fruit, candles, flowers and nine tiny cups of tea to the deities invoked throughout the festival.

During the street processions, mediums stop at the altars and pick up the fruit, which they add to the objects piercing their cheeks or pass on to bystanders as a blessing.

The mediums also drink one of the nine cups of tea and grab some flowers to stick in their waistbands. The shopkeepers and their families look on with their heads lowered and hands together in a prayerlike wâi gesture, out of respect for the mediums and the deities possessing their pierced bodies.

The deafening firecrackers, ritual dancing and bloodied shirts create an atmosphere of religious frenzy. Strangely, there is no record of this kind of activity associated with Taoist Lent in China.

 

[Ivan Garcia]

Some historians have concluded that Phuket’s and Krabi's Chinese community was influenced by the Thaipusam festival celebrated in nearby Malaysia. The Hindu festival features similar acts of self-mortification.

The folk clutching the saws and axe blades, however, have another explanation. They say the festival was started by a Chinese theatre troupe that stopped off in Kathu, northwest of Phuket Town, around 150 years ago.

According to legend, the troupe fell ill because its members had failed to propitiate the nine emperor gods. The nine-day penance they performed included self-piercing, meditation and a strict vegetarian diet.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Some even hack their tongues continuously with a saw or axe blade.

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Shopkeepers on central streets set up altars in front of their stores, offering incense, fruit, candles, flowers and nine tiny cups of tea to the deities invoked throughout the festival.



Ivan,

It's commendable to document this behavior. Interesting that this is, on a horribly gruesome scale, nothing more than flesh piercings seen in the west, although the later are not intended for pain, just decor! Still, the purpose of body modifications is to impress their society. It's often sign of belonging and worth and to get some kind of peer approval. It's seen in other societies:

• to create pain: by Shia by self-flagellation with spiked chains and similarly in certain rare sects of penitent catholics, mimicking the suffering of their savior. This practice is not allowed in Saudi Arabia, a mostly Sunni country.
  
• to decorate: the body with piercings for ear, nose tongue and other metal decorations, or in the lip to hold decorative plates!
  
• for health/religious reasons: circumcision of male infants by Muslims and Jews
  
• to limit sexuality in females: crude genital mutilation of female info ants or young girls in some cultures, involving remove of the clitoris, a center of arousal and pleasure. It's supposed to ensure better standards of family purity.
  
• and prove one's valor and tribal identity: tribal markings of many native peoples in Africa. One can, for example, identify different African tribal members by their distinctive facial scarring.

We're pretty complex primates, aren't we! When do we call this religious expression which should be a protected right, and when should it be termed cruel imposition of primitive cultic behavior? I think that it the above case, it's so extreme that we from the West and likely those from the middle East too will view these pictures with horror and regret!

Asher

 

[Ivan Garcia]

Hi Asher.
Thank you for taking the time to comment.

The seven stars making up our Big Dipper constellation plus two unseen stars are considered to be the nine emperor gods being celebrated.

Also known as the Kin Jay the Festival runs for nine days. It is the most extreme and bizarre festival I have ever witnessed (and I have seen the famous Easter flagellation processions in Spain). Celebrated primarily by the Chinese community in Thailand and around Southeast Asia, devotees are expected to wear white and keep pure thoughts; they give up meat, sex, alcohol, stimulants, and strong foods such as garlic.

The chosen Mah-Song -- always unmarried men and women -- ask the gods to enter their bodies. They wear elaborate costumes and pierce their bodies in an entranced estate.

People in mourning and pregnant or menstruating women are not supposed to attend the ceremonies.

The Festival begins on the first day in the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, so dates change annually. Typically the festival is held in Autumn, near the end of September and beginning of October. This is no sombre temple experience! The Festival is lively, chaotic, and loud.

Tourists are invited to attend the procession and take photographs. But, be aware... Although the Festival seems like a bizarre carnival, it is a deeply religious event; show respect and stay out of the way!

Most tourists simply attend to see the extreme piercings but, excellent vegetarian food can be enjoyed by all. Participating restaurants and food stalls fly a yellow flag with red Chinese lettering.

The vegetarian food found at the festival looks identical to meat products such as pork and chicken, however, it is vegan -- even eggs and dairy products are not used during the festival. Special care is taken to give food the same texture and appearances of the meats they mimic.

Asher, the difference with the cultures you have mentioned is that all Mah-Song claim to feel no pain and few have residual scaring!

That young boy hacking at his tongue can't be more than 15-16 years old and he has cut his tongue to the point I can no longer see any taste buds on it... The sobering thought was, he still had 4 more days of "hacking" to go through!

Asher, these still images can't convey the sheer horror of the scenes I witnessed. The constant drumming and firecracker explosions together with the loud frenzied chanting performed before every cut was, at times, incredibly intoxicating.

Still, my constant thought was: how can they allow these young people to do this to themselves?

They are not yet mature enough to understand the nature of what it is they are doing and, in my humble opinion, the self sacrifice should, by all means, be restricted to adults only.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Still, my constant thought was: how can they allow these young people to do this to themselves?

They are not yet mature enough to understand the nature of what it is they are doing and, in my humble opinion, the self sacrifice should, by all means, be restricted to adults only.

Ivan,

I'd like to reserve the term "cult", just for the extremes like this, where folk are hurt or else hurt others. I see religion as ennobling for many peoples, providing social glue and moral values to look to. I do not think it matters who did what miracles for them when good actions are promoted! But when it advocates and organizes such violence from the upper echelons of a religious way of life, the spell and magical veil of theology just gets blown away and all I see is cruelty that cannot be tolerated! I'd love to see parliaments and courts address such extremes.

Asher

 

[fahim mohammed]

Asher, you forget to mention the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. Thaipusam, as an example of a Hindu festival in parts of SE Asia...and specially in Malaysia, involves piercing of the flesh amongst other practices.

The practice of a Hindu widow throwing herself on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband was only abolished during the times of the British Raj. Whether it has been abolished as a part of the Hindu faith, I don't know.

Self immolation within Hinduism and Buddhism is well know. Witness the monks setting themselves on fire. Besides a political protest, this is something that is condoned by their faith.

Are such practices right or not is something I do not want to get into.