Loy Reua

Loy Ruea (Boat Floating Festival)

                  On the full moon nights in June and November, the Urak Lawoi sea gypsies inhabiting Lipe Island in Satun Province celebrate an important annual festival of putting spirit boats into the sea – the “Loy Ruea”. The festival is the occasion to pay homage to their ancestral spirits and to dispel bad spirits or misfortunes, in the hope to start anew in life. For tour operators in Lipe, the occasion marks the beginning of the tourist season. The festival lasts 3 days and 3 nights.

                   Preparations for the festival are the responsibility of the elderly folks who have good knowledge of how the rituals are to be conducted. They will prepare offerings of food and other stuff – chicken curry, 7-colored sticky rice, local sweetmeats, wax candles, areca nuts and betel leaves, etc. In the recent 4-5 years, it is said that most sea gypsies rather buy ready-made sacrifices than preparing them themselves. The job of procuring the ritual things therefore is taken care of by only a few elderly members. The ritual of the La Tuad we witnessed took place in the afternoon of 18th October 2013 (waxing moon of the 14th night of the 11th lunar month) at the Toh Khiri spirit house, which is in the community cemetery. Toh Khiri was a Muslim traveler from Aceh, Indonesia. He led the indigenous Urak Lawoi group to establish settlements on various islands in the Adang archipelago. The archipelago is in the Thai territory, as a result of the marking out of the Thai-Malaysian boundaries which happened in King Rama V’s time (Supin Wongbusarakum, 2007: 11). These nomadic seafarers were the ancestors of the present Urak Lawoi clan in Thailand. The La Tuad was participated by several parties: the devout community residents who insisted that the ritual was obligatory for all Urak Lawoi descendants, the people in the tourism industry who sought blessings for their businesses, tourists, as well as students and academics eager to learn more about this interesting cultural heritage.

                   On 19th October 2013 (waxing 15, month 11), they did the rite of erecting the masts and building a miniature boat to be the vessel that would take their ancestral spirits back to Gunang Jeria (the Kedah peak in Kedah State, Malaysia) or the land of their origin, according to the belief. In Lipe Island the ritual started with a procession in which they carried the ritual wooden poles and the boat frame from the village to the beach. Leading the procession was the elderly Toh Mor or ritual leader. The procession was accompanied by a folk dance and music performance – the rong-ngeng. The village folks joyfully joined the fun. In Adang Island there was another festive parade in which they carried the salacca wood that was to be crafted into the miniature ritual boat. Young fellows and gays in costumes made by themselves led the parade. The spirit boat, completely crafted by hand, was put on the beach. Offerings such as desserts, dried foodstuff and drinking water were put in the boat – to be supplies during their ancestral spirits’ journey. Some human hairs and pieces of clipped nails which symbolized misfortunes, were put in the boat too. In the past, the Chao Le of all age groups, said one elderly member, would gather at the beach site to keep watch of the boat. They would do the rong-ngeng dance until dawn.

                   The ritual of floating the spirit boat started at dawn of 20th  October 2013 (waning 1, month 11). The boat,  about  3 meters long, had 3 compartments: one for the crew, a kitchen, and the other for the captain or Toh Khiri. The prow was adorned with carved wood depicting sea turtles. Decorating the sides were spear-like weapons and 7 wooden oars. This year the boat builder also added, as the prow decorations, a few figures of men doing scuba diving, and fishing – with modern rods instead of the traditional larpoons pointing to the turtle heads. In the late morning, the villagers gathered again on parade. They walked and carried sacred wood pieces meant as tools for warding off evil spirits and which were to be put around the spirit pole. Then in another ritual, they made holy water with which they bathed and blessed themselves.

                   During this festive time there were many types of fun performance including the rammana in which the essential musical instrument used was the rammana, or one-sided drum with a shallow body. They did the rammana which they believed would help them to communicate with the holy spirits. The musicians played the instruments, also did the singing, for the other folks to dance around the Toh Khiri shrine. This was part of the La Tuad ritual. Then they danced around the ritual boat and around the wood pieces that would drive away the bad spirits. Another performance was the rong-ngeng, another traditional dance. The rong-ngeng band led the ritual procession, also kept company the elderly ones who did the vigil of the ritual boat. Rong-ngeng dancers were mostly senior folks. However, these days the rong-ngeng is not performed as a ritual only. Some elderly members say that they  themselves take some children around to do the rong-ngeng for tourists during the tourist season, in order to earn extra income for their families. Another popular form of fun is the ram-wong dance, a popular Thai folk dance done on the ram-wong stage. The ram-wong is very popular among young people. They can actually dance for  3 whole days and nights if they wish to. Thai country music, pop music and Indian music are played in the ram-wong.

                        The Loy Ruea festival was finished in the morning of 21st October  2013 (waning 2, month 11). This big event observed as a public ceremony obviously involved the various jobs of the people who had done the work: the preparation work, the La Tuad ritual, the parades, setting up the spirit poles, the process of transferring the ritual boat to the water, the rammana, the rong-ngeng and the ram-wong. Interestingly the ways the ritual was conducted manifested how each participating age group differently had interpreted and organized each activity. For example, the elderly were delegated the job of conducting the ritual. They made use of their knowledge and experience to gain respect from the younger ones, and also to earn some income as well, by preparing offering sets for sale. They made more money for themselves and the young rong-ngeng dancers too when the latter group performed to entertain tourists. However, what the La Tuad and the Loy Ruea mean to them above all was that they served to remind their own folks of their clan, their roots and ancestors, and their respects for the spirits in nature. The ritual also created some social space for many young groups to show their identities and the different ways they interpreted this old tradition observed by their clan. The boat builders, for example, in crafting the ritual boats demonstrated their creativity. The bi-sex group was apparently not barred from revealing publicly their true selves during the ritual processions. The fun performances such as the rong-ngeng were the venues where the elderly recollected the fun they used to have in former time. The young people, on the contrary, preferred modern things such as dancing the ram-wong to contemporary pop music.

                   The Loy Ruea is a type of cultural heritage (social customs, presentations, expressions, knowledge, skills as well as tools, artifacts, works of art, other associated cultural forums) (Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2003), which has been passed down by successive generations. However, this heritage that has been sustained by the people has also been  subject to some new meanings and social values and consequently different interpretations by the people themselves within the same community. The Loy Ruea is a “living” thing, very much related to the Chao Le’s lives. Therefore it would be a pity if we overlook the people who manage the various aspects of this traditional culture, resulting in its being regarded as a frozen culture or just as one still life picture.

The Chao Le Community

                   The Chao Le (people of the sea) were the ethnic natives who inhabited the coast and islands of the Andaman Sea for many generations, or at least for 300 years. They used to travel freely and maintained their nomadic, sea-based communities on the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia, Burma and India, having as their main source of livelihood the coastal resources. But after the marking-out of the international boundaries, they were forced to settle down in separate territories of each country. As a result, these sea gypsies have been split into 3 ethnic groups: the Moken, the Moklen and the Urak Lawoi. Theirs are very simple lives characterized by their inseparable ties to the sea. These people are freedom-loving, solitary and compromising. They have respects for nature, and worship spirits in nature as well as those of their ancestors.

นฤมล อรุโณทัย และคณะ. (2557). ทักษะวัฒนธรรมชาวเล ร้อยเรื่องราวชาวเล. กรุงเทพฯ: ศูนย์มานุษยวิทยาสิรินธร. (in Thai)