. Pu Sae - Ya Sae or Liangdong Festival at Wat Doi Kham
This festival is a old Lawa (lua) festival for the area. Legend has it to have started because the original people of the area were known to be cannibals and while the Lord Buddha was traveling in the area, he was being stocked by three Lawa people with the intend of killing and eating him. However the Lord Buddha stopped and talked with them and taught them not to eat humans or any living animals. They asked that if they might eat, for the souls of their ancestral spirits, the meat of the water Buffalo, but promised it would be but once a year.
So most of the Pu Sae Ya Sae festival is held once a year at the area of Doi Kham, which is still forested type area. It is a mix of the Thai Buddhism and the ancestral worship of the Lawa people that are the real indigenous people of the area. It is a local event with the locals collecting the funds to hold the event. It is the finding of a first rate water Buffalo the has the long horns and leading him to the area where he will be ceremonially slaughtered. Shamanism and Buddhism is some what mixed in this area and you will find monks actually attending this ceremony. There is will be the Shaman (Dong Hohfor) who will go into a trans like state and become processed by the ancestral spirit of the Lawa people. In this state he will eat the warm freshly killed meat of the water buffalo to appease the spirit not to take the people of the village.
This festival is held on the mid point of the ninth lunar period of the year.
For more details, contact the Mae Hia Tambon Administration Organization
Tel:053-805181 during government office hours.
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