Nat Pwe

As the Buddha is not seen as a god, there’s no contradiction in respecting or even worshipping spirits, and every year around Myanmar there are festivals called nat pwe: spirit festivals with orchestras, dancing and present giving. The pwe may be both modern and religious. In some, modern music plays until midnight and then the players act out tales of the Buddha’s life.

The nat or spirit world is almost as central as Buddhism and certainly much older. Nats can be protectors of cities, houses, people, crops and land. But though nats may seem good and helpful, they need propitiation. Around every paya (pagoda) in the land - and there are thousands - nat shrines dot the perimeter. When people come to worship the Buddha, they also make offerings to the nats.

Yadanagu Pwe honours the most famous female nat, Popa Medaw. She was an ogress before she became a nat and now lives on the 737-metre high extinct volcano: Mount Popa, which is southeast of Bagan. Her main festival, on Mount Popa in December, is a hugely important affair.

Smaller pwe are doubtless of no less importance to people who hold them in their homes and a riot of decibels alerted me to one in a Mandalay quarter. Spirit nats have earthly wives called nat kadaw: men dressed up and often wildly made up as women. This nat kadaw wore a gold longyi (sarong), which touched the ground and had a trailing train that had to be flicked up (or tripped over). At some stage in the proceedings the nat kadaw goes into a trance and their particular nat speaks and acts through them.

Away to one side was the band: cymbals crashed, drums walloped, a xylophone pinged and bamboos clacked with short, sharp sounds. A horn completed the ensemble. There’s was unbelievable noise, which precluded all talking, all hearing and much thinking. The watching crowd included men and children, but by far the majority were women. One nat kadaw picked up fruit from the nat shrine and then from several dishes that women offered. She nibbled, or sucked, and then put each piece back. Perhaps the fruit was now considered sacred and those who ate it would get some sort of blessing (or a cold as the nat kadaw seemed to have one).

On a huge table stood various nat images in their specific costumes and with their specific attendants that watched the show. The nat kadaw took a rigid fish with its tail in the air (it was cooked) and presented it to the band. Perhaps they’d stop playing to eat it. (No, they didn’t.) Then two women held a cloth across the ‘stage’, which was really just a clearing in the crowd. Wildly waving bunches of Eugenia leaves, the nat kadaw, dressed in a gold longyi with pink accessories, ducked beneath the cloth and emerged on ‘our’ side. Maybe the cloth was the division between the nat heaven and the human world, I thought. Later I found I was completely wrong. The audience was enjoying the performance up to a point, but they also seem pretty scared at times. Now on ‘our’ side of the cloth, the nat kadaw lunged towards some people (including me, but I kept my eyes down writing). There was more touching of fruit and then wiping the hand that touched it over people who seemed curiously ungrateful. As the nat kadaw lunged at women (there were few men), they cowered away, but I did notice that some gave her small notes, which she sprinkled, along with flower petals, on a cushion and longyi laid out on the floor. Her attendants scooped up the longyi with the petals. I learned later that this, together with the money, went to the organizer of the pwe. She would distribute the petals. Suddenly, half the audience seemed possessed. There they all were in a circle: small old women and stout middle-aged matrons all swaying and stomping in time to the band.  

Whole hands of bananas and large green coconuts were thrown in the air (at which point I put my camera away). Judging by the amount of fruit on the table, if they were going to dance for each piece, this pwe was going to last some time. And there wasn’t just fruit and vegetables, there were two cooked chickens complete with heads (but no feathers). They looked more alive than many of the live chickens around here.

Later, I was disabused of my notions about nats. Apparently the people want the nats to leave them alone not, as I had thought, to encourage them. They must be propitiated at all times otherwise dire happenings happen. At times, the people make promises to the nats that if such and such good thing happened, they would give offerings to the appropriate nat. And I learned that there is no such thing as a nat heaven. No, the nat kadaw who crept beneath the cloth was a monkey nat. She was imitating how monkeys can get in anywhere. Her poking and pawing of the audience was for them to give her money. This might have been why some looked so scared: they probably didn’t have any.

There’s a story of a nat called Amay Ye Yin who was also known as the Western Mother. This nat foretold accidents and sickness and her predictions always came true. Then she met a monk who offered her his knowledge. He gave her a pair of slippers with which she could walk on water (sounds familiar?).  So now this nat takes care of people who live on or around water. Another nat kadaw who fell into a trance that day was inhabited by a snake nat. The people believe that when nat kadaw start shaking, this is when the nat enters into them. This may be why many of the women that day looked frightened. Perhaps they worried that they wouldn’t get them out again.