Tai Folk Religion

The Tai folk religion, Satsana Phi or Ban Phi, is a form of ethnic animist religious belief practiced by the Tai people. Tai peoples are populations who speak (or formerly spoke) the Tai languages. There are a total of about 93 million people of Tai ancestry worldwide who are scattered through much of South China and Mainland Southeast Asia, with some inhabiting parts of Northeast India. Tai peoples are both culturally and genetically very similar and are therefore primarily identified through their language. Tai folk religion was the dominant native religion of Tai people in Southeast Asia until the arrival of Buddhism. It is primarily based on worshipping deities called Phi, Khwan, and ancestor worship. Within the Tai folk religion deities called Phi can be the tutelary gods of buildings or territories, of natural places, or of things. Deities can also be ancestral spirits, or other types of spirits of seemingly supernatural forces. Such deities often interact with the world of the living, at times protecting people, and at other times causing harm. The Tai beleive that gods are ubiquitous, with some of them being associated with the universal elements of heaven, earth, fire, and water. All Tai people believe in Khwan as being the element of vitality and longevity. This belief system features thirty-two typically protective khwan in various parts of the body. Various rituals are performed by various Tai groups to worship the Khwan. Rik-Khwan, which literally means calling the khwan, is a ritual that petitions kwan for vitality as needed for villages and the countryside. Baci, or Su Khwan, is a ritual performed on certain special occasions in course of a person's life; before a pending marriage, a change of jobs, and at other times of uncertainty. Certain Baci ceremonies are sometimes performed for the benefit of an individual with the intention of re-binding khwan body-spirits back into a body. The unintentional loosening of such bonds is believed to possibly risk illness or harm. The baci rite calls on all thirty-two khwan to return, bestowing health, prosperity, and well-being upon the affected individual. During such ceremonies, cotton strings are often tied around a participant's wrists to keep the spirits in place. The baci ceremony can also be performed to welcome guests, before and after a long journey, and as a curing or recovery ritual for illnesses. Baci is also the central ritual for both the Lao Loum wedding ceremony and for the naming ceremony of a newborn child. Allied with the khwan are three words in the Tai language which add complexity to the nature of the khwan: ming, chetabhut, and chai. Ming, like the khwan, is an immaterial thing that also resides in a person. It gives a person good fortune and prosperity if it does not escape the body. Chetabhut is a word that loosely means "mind." The khwan will forsake someone only when the person is in great fear or is influenced by evil spirits, while the chetabhut will leave a person when they are in a state of apprehension, or during a dream. Chai also loosely translates as "mind," or "heart." Through magic, the chai can be removed from a person as if it was a physical object and hidden somewhere. If a stolen duang chai is discovered in its hidden place and crushed, then the person it was taken from will die.