Saek New Year, Jan 21–23, 2004
in Ban Asamat

Entrance to a Lane at Saek New Year

I looked for a likely place to buy a beer (to get in the festive mood) and saw none so drove past until I found one, about 6 klics down the road at a village called Ban Kluay. Stopped and bought a road-soda and entered into conversation with some women sitting under a tree outside the shop.

I hadn't at first noticed the cement add-on with a sliding glass door beside the wooden house and shop, typical of up-country karaoke joints. Several hostesses came outside to entice me in. I politely told them I was working, maybe some other time. Having been proposed to and interrogated thoroughly, I turned around to observe New Year in Ban Asamat.

At the first soi entrance I stopped at, women were cooking snails over an open fire. They told me the village had about 120 roofs, was almost 100% Saek, but knew nothing of their history or origin. They didn't know how to say hello or anything else in the Saek tongue. They said ask the elders. They did though know how to cook excellent hoi joob (pond snails boiled in herbs and spices).

Having shot a few pictures of the soi and children, I drove down the narrow lane to the river, parallel to which runs a narrow street bordered by a promenade, as do most riverside villages and towns in the area.

Street and Promenade Beside the Mekong

Next stop was at a small dusty soccer field upon which a stage was being decorated and amplifiers being set up while a few young men kicked a ball around without much conviction. Walking by a house, a vaguely familiar face peered out the window and greeted me by name: he was a van driver briefly in our employ. I sat in front of his house and tried to learn something more about the Saek people and their traditions. The cultural show had been in the morning, which I knew already, but had work to complete before I could leave the office. What remained still to come was at night: loud music, lamwong (circle dancing) and Thai boxing.

The mood of the village was festive; everywhere food was being prepared and copious amounts of liquor consumed. Everyone except the ladies I first talked to – and the children – seemed to be quite intoxicated, but very friendly. Next to me, one red-eyed, local was energetically but inaccurately hacking open the top of a boiled pigs head with a machete, missing his fingers only by lucky millimeters.

Another individual immediately declared he loved me in heavily accented 'pasa lao kao' (the language of too much moonshine) and kissed me on the nose. Little was learned about their heritage or language.

Another stop. More drinking. I walked on, politely refusing white lightning on the grounds that I was working. Not long after, I ran into Asger Mollerup, a Danish Thai/Lao speaking linguist, anthropologist and archaeologist, also interested in the Saek people. Asger is the author of the Thai-Isan-Lao Phrasebook, a comprehensive and indispensable tool for anyone living in the Thai-Lao border regions. For more information about this book and about archaeological sites in Isan (Northeastern Thailand) you can contact Asger at www.thai-isan-lao.com.

Asger Mollerup, Mountains of Laos in Background

I tried to learn a few words of Saek, which some of the men at the table knew a little of: beuk means big; eet means small. Both of these words have been incorporated into the Thai lexicon: Pla Beuk, the giant Mekong catfish weighing up to 200 kilos, is definitely beuk; Eet is a common Thai nickname for small girls. Asking of their cultural heritage, I was informed I should talk to one particular elder down the street about the history of the Saek people. He paused before saying, perhaps I should speak to him tomorrow. Why tomorrow, I asked. Because he's in an extremely festive condition right now I was told. Silly me…

Having accepted enough hospitality from the group of partiers and learning little, Asger and I went our separate ways. I next found myself invited to a home where preparations for dinner went on amongst much drinking – of beer this time, which I cheerfully accepted. This morning I woke up entirely sure that it was Chang Beer – the strongest and cheapest Thailand has to offer. Unfortunately, I don't react well to formalin-fortified beer.

That's Not Soda in the Cup

In a the village store I met an elder gentleman – somewhat sober – whose last name was Asamat, meaning his family in the past had been the officially appointed representatives for their district, the spokesmen for the Saek people. From him I concluded that the Saek people came to this area about 200 years ago, from the Hue coastal region of Viet Nam, whose inhabitants still speak a related dialect. Perhaps the Saek are of Cham origin. The Cham Empire, whose capital was near Hue, was totally sundered in the 13th century AD.

The Cham language, of Malayo-Polynesian origin, was the first written language in Southeast Asia. The Cham are descendants of an ancient people who built the powerful Champa Kingdom in what is now central Vietnam. The once great Champa civilization was one of the earliest Hindu states in Indochina. Some consider the Cham the original inhabitants of south-central Vietnam, while others suggest they're migrants from the Malaysian archipelago. From the 6th to the 9th centuries the Champa Kingdom expanded. With a powerful commercial fleet, the Cham exported sandlewood and enslaved prisoners of war in exchange for Chinese and Japanese silks. Over the next few centuries, the Cham were under constant threat from both the Annamites in the north and the Khmer in the south and east. It was the invading Mongol armies that led to the end of the Cham Empire and the ultimate triumph of Chinese culture over Hindu culture in Viet Nam.

The people of Ban Asamat are racially distinguishable from the neighboring villages in that they nearly all have very broad foreheads. Other than that they look very similar to other locals in all other respects. What little remains of their culture is mostly in the aged minds of a few village elders. New Years is the only time when they celebrate their own traditions, that they know so little about, now having been almost entirely assimilated into the Thai/Lao border culture.

Broad Foreheads Distinguish the Saek People from Their Neighbors

It was getting cold and I hadn't brought a jacket with me, so I headed back to Nakorn Phanom, and gave the overloud music, the drinking and dancing and Thai boxing at the dusty field a miss. Like any celebration here, it is a time for eating and drinking more than usual, a time to invite people into your home, a time to rectify the spirit.

It's not the best time for anthropological research however. Next year I'll try to catch the ceremonies and cultural show that I missed this time. In the meantime I will go back and try to find out more about this small ethnic minority – one of seven – in Nakorn Phanom Province, on a day when the spirits flow less freely.

The village of Ban Asamat Wishes One and All a Happy New Year