Korb Siarn Khru Ceremony - 2015 (2558)

Korb Siarn Khru Ceremony In the Isaan Countryside

Ruesi Masks

In a Wai Khru ceremony, devotees pay homage and demonstrate their respect for their teachers and the deities associated with their art or practice.  The term, "teachers", is not restricted to the people who are employed to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Teachers in this sense of the word includes all those that have instructed, inspired, and trained others in a wide variety of matters.

Buddha is considered to be the greatest of teachers.  There are teachers of many things such as music, dance, martial arts, astrology, traditional healing, and magic.

The Wai Khru ceremony is not a Buddhist ceremony although Buddhism is often involved in the ritual.  The origins of the Wai Khru ceremony are in the Animist and subsequent influence of Brahmanism.  Animism was the original religious belief system of the native peoples of Thailand and in particular the inhabitants of the region referred to as Isaan (Northeast).  The history of Southeast Asia is fraught with migrations, wars, invasion, and subjugation. One of the consequences of the turbulent past was the spread of different religions and philosophies.  One of the religions that spread to Thailand was Brahmanism, the precursor of Hinduism, originating in Northern India but most likely spread in Thailand from Cambodia as part of the Khmer Empire.

Rather than eliminating the former Animist practices, beliefs and rituals with the arrival of Brahmanism, the old traditions were assimilated into the new system.  The same thing occurred later when Buddhism arrived from Ceylon.

This all makes for a very interesting and quite often confusing religious system which is practiced here in Isaan today.  Today, 95% of the Thai people are Theravada Buddhists but a vast majority of the Thai people's religious beliefs, practices, as well as rituals are vestiges or heavily influenced by Animism and Brahmanism.  The Wai Khru Ceremony is one example.

A Table of Offerings for May 1st's Wai Khru Ceremony

My ambition and goal in photography is "to show extraordinary people doing ordinary things.  In so doing, I wish to show how different people appear, to provide a glimpse of other cultures, to celebrate the diversity of mankind, and to demonstrate that despite our appearances, we are so much alike"

Attending large and well known events such as the Wai Khru Ceremonies and Korb Siarn Khru Ceremonies provide opportunities to meet my ambition and achieve my goals in regards to photography. I prefer the smaller, more intimate venues where there are not television cameras, reporters, or thousands or even hundreds of tourists.  These events and venues, where the people are conducting rituals for their own benefit offer much better opportunities to experience and better understand the event and its impact on the local people.

Living in Thailand and being married to an ethnic Lao, gives me many opportunities to experience and photograph "extraordinary people doing ordinary things."  Often I have opportunities to experience and photograph "ordinary people doing extraordinary things"  Often my wife, Duang, will get a phone call from someone in the extended family notifying her of some ritual, event, or thing that they believe that I would like to photograph.  Just as new religious systems have been assimilated, I have been assimilated into Duang's extended family.

Such an opportunity occurred once again on - May 1.  Duang had gotten a call earlier in the week that a Wai Khru Ceremony along with an associated Korb Siarn Khru Ceremony was going to happen at Wat Pha That Nong Mat, the "Outside" Wat in Tahsang Village.  We drove out to the Wat under the bright and hot sun through the parched sugar cane fields to the "Outside" Wat (the Wat outside of the village as opposed to the Wat inside the village).  The rainy season has not fully arrived yet so the farm land is dry and dusty

A Pig's Head Offering to the Spirits

At the perimeter of the Wat's grounds, near the small huts were the Monks sleep, we went to the small Ruesi shrine.  We had gone to the small shrine a few times for special rituals where Duang and her friend would be doused with buckets of water by the Monk in a special ritual and when Duang's youngest brother received some special blessing while wearing an ornate mask.  Visiting this shrine is not a common occurrence for us.

Three pavilions had been erected around the shrine with plastic chairs set up for people  to sit out of the strong sun light.  In front of the shrine a large folding table covered with a white cloth had been set up.  Upon the white cloth covered table there were many objects associated with the upcoming ritual.

There was a Pahn Sii Khwan, a centerpiece made by local women out of fresh banana leaves, jasmine buds and chrysanthemums, along with a smaller handmade arrangement on the table along with food offerings to the spirits and deities. The main food offering was a  cooked pig head.  Offerings of a pig head are not common and typically reserved for special occasions. There were also offerings of eggs, pineapple, cooked prawns, sweet potatoes, coconut, cooked duck, oranges, limes, bananas, mangoes, prepared bananas, sticky rice and coconut wrapped in banana leaves, apples and some bowls of special desserts.

Ruesi (Luesi) Mask - "Siarn Ruesi"

The table also had a silver colored pressed metal ornate tray upon which rolled up sai sin (sacred) string, a tiger skin cloth and a full life sized Ruesi mask (Siarn Ruesi) and a pumalai of chrysanthemums along with jasmine buds.  These items all symbolize things for and in the ritual.

Pumalai symbolize and celebrate beauty of this life but as they age and deteriorate they remind people of the impermanence of this life as well as the fate that awaits all of us.  The tiger skin patterned cloth is symbolic of Ruesi, hermits of the forest some of who make Sak Yant (magical tattoos). In another  silver colored pressed metal ornate tray containing the sweet potatoes were lotus flower buds, white candles and joss sticks.

The young Monk of the Wat performed an typical offering ritual outside at the white covered table while devotees sat in chairs underneath the pavilions.  After completing this part of the ritual, he went inside of the shrine for the remainder of ceremony - the Korb Siarn Khru Ceremony.

Children Observing the Korb Siarn Khru Ceremony Outside of the shrine

The Ruesi shrine was very congested.  One wall of the room was covered with statues and masks related to Ruesi. High on two walls of the shrine panels with many Yant symbols - symbols thousand of years old.  Ruesi is a hermit sage that is prominent in several legends as well as stories in Thai folklore.

Ruesi were and are hermit sages who spend their time meditating and developing their psychic powers - sort of like wizards.  They collect magical herbs, and minerals.  Using magical ingredients they produce love charms, spells and powerful amulets. The goal of the Ruesi is to help others have a happier life by telling their fortunes, conducting rituals and making spells to reduce the effects of bad karma.  Ruesi also are able to ward off evil spirits.  They also help people by protecting them from enemies.  Certain rituals performed by Ruesi can bring good luck and fortune to their devotees. Some of the Ruesi make Sak Yants, the magical and powerful tattoos know throughout this world.

I was about to once again dip my toes, if not enter once again, into a new world, the world of the occult in Thailand - "Saiyasart" (waes -magical spells).

As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz - "Toto, I've a feeling that we're not in Kansas anymore" or at least any parts of Kansas that I visited some 21 years ago!

One of the most important Ruesi rituals is performed once a year is the Korb Siarn Khru - laying the Ruesi mask of the master teacher, Ruesi Por Gae, on the devotee  The Korb Siarn Khru is performed during the Wai Khru Ceremony.  The Siarn Ruesi mask is a full sized mask with head dress with an open mouth, three eyes, two teeth sticking out of the mouth, a moustache, and a beard.  There are also masks of other deities within the Ruesi pantheon - some of them being tigers, elephants, yaks (giants) and other creatures.

Siarn Ruesi As Part of Shrine

Inside of the shrine there was a matrix overhead formed by stringing sai sin  across the room in a checkerboard pattern.  Where the sai sin intersected, separate lengths of sai sin were coiled up.  As the devotees entered the shrine they uncoiled the sai sin and wrapped the free length around their head connecting them physically and spiritually to the Buddha image in the corner of the room, the Ruesi image and the items used by the Monk in the ritual.  A thick sai sin dropped down from the overhead grid just to the right of the Monk conducting the ritual.  He held the thick cord in his hand and several times during his incantations would violently pull on the heavy cord causing the entire grid to pulsate up and down in rhythm to his chanting.  It was at this time that things started getting intense and for many people - very intense.

A Devotee Exhibited the First Signs of Spirit Possession

As part of this initial ritual which involved all the devotees as a group of roughly 20 people, the Monk would sprinkle the crowd with sacred water that had been produced during his chanting by wax dropping from two lit horizontal white candles suspended over a metal bowl of water.

A sort of mass hysteria developed in the devotees as the volume, intensity, and rhythm of the Monk's chanting increased.  Some of the devotees would have their bodies stiffen and go into spasms.  They would begin to hyperventilate followed by roars, squeals, and animal sounds. Their limbs would start to flail about followed by the entire body going into convulsive spasms.  The devotees who have Sak Yant tattoos adorning their body, are now in the possession of their internal animal spirits - animal spirits associated with their Sak Yant tattoos.

It was quite an experience being in the midst of all this confusion and intensity.  Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If" comes into my mind after the event.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs ...
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!                        

To be honest, I had anticipate a certain degree of this when I first entered the shrine.  I positioned myself between the two stations where the Monks were situated. I was just to the right of the young Monk that conducted the ritual.  I was also next to a huge young man, a Thai man, perhaps the biggest Thai I ever saw - I estimate that he was 2 meters tall (6' 3") and 135 KG (300 pounds) and muscular - he looked like an NFL player!  He and about 4 other young men were responsible for controlling the people who had gotten out of control due to spirit position.  They would restrain the people, talk gently to them and as a last resort lift the people off of the ground.  It is widely known that to bring someone out of spirit possession you need to get their feet off the ground - it works about 95% of the time.  If it does not work - you get the possessed to lay flat on the ground and ride out their possession.  I have also used the technique of pulling on their ear lobe three times (signifying the three gems of Buddhism) to bring people out of spirit possession.  Perhaps it was really the realization that a falang (foreigner) was trying to bring them back that actually snapped them out of their possession.

For additional protection I had one of the shrine's structural columns at my back and a Rusei shrine also on my back.  That was one direction that I did not have to worry about.  I did not have to worry about in front of me where the Monks were.  I figured that the huge Thai guy had my left flank covered leaving me to only worry about my right flank.

To be honest, there were moments when I felt very uncomfortable with all the screaming, growling, screeching, and  growling along with the highly unusual movements of the possessed people about me. Once or twice I thought about bolting out of the shrine - but it was just too interesting to leave.

Lan Sai (Grandson)  Peelawat Enthralled By the Ritual

The intensity quickly diminished once the young Monk sprinkled the devotees with the sacred water.

Sprinkling Devotees and A Falang With Sacred Water

The devotees then scrunched forward to the Monk with their pre-prepared offering plates (candles, joss sticks, flower buds, three cigarettes and sprigs of leaves) along with their money offering.  The individual plates were gathered and placed first on a gold colored pressed metal tray and then transferred to the raised platform where the Monks were seated.

Monk Accepting A Batch of Offerings

As their turn arrived the devotees, who had not made their offerings previously, would place themselves in front of one of the two Monks involved in the ritual.  Once in place they would make an offering and give it to the Monk.

A Lady-Boy Makes Offering to the Monk

After accepting the offering and placing them on the raised  area off to the left from where he was seated, the Monk would start chanting.  It was a special chant called a "Kata".  Chanting a Kata is necessary to cast a spell.  As the Monk was chanting, he selected a Ruesi mask and placed it over the face and head of the devotee.  As the Monk's chanting became louder and more animated, the devotee tensed up with his arms and hands becoming rigid as if going into a catatonic state or becoming possessed - for some ; once again.

Placing A Ruesi Mask On the Devotee's Head

A Devotee, Wearing A Siarn Ruesi, Tenses As He Becomes Possessed

The devotees would grunt, howl, and screech the sounds of the animal or deity that was possessing them - their spirit.  The devotees would then start to writhe, crawl, jump, and hop as the spirit took control of their body.  To prevent damage to the devotee, Monk, observers and the shrine, layperson assistants flanking the devotee, would restrain the devotee as the possession reached its apogee.  The Monk would then blow upon the devotee to energize the Sak Yant tattoos and to complete the transference of the spell.  The Monk would then remove the mask.  The devotee, physically and emotionally spent, would then perform a wai (bowed, raised hands clasped in prayer position - the Thai demonstration of respect and gratitude) before leaving the shrine.

A Possessed Devotee Being Restrained

Monk Using A Walking Staff to Help Break A Particularly Strong Possession

So what was that all about?

In the Korb Khru ritual, devotees believe that they receive very powerful blessings, are rid of evil influences and black magic is eliminated,  In addition, the merits and strengths of the ancient Ruesi Por Gae, the master teacher of all Sak Yant practitioners.  The Master Teacher, Kroo, protects devotees of his teachings that have passed through the ages amongst the teachers from word of mouth.

I learned from Duang that the young Monk at the "Outside" Wat had studied under the very famous Sak Yant master - Luang Pi Nunn at the famous Wat Bang Phra near Bangkok..  People often remark that it is a small world obviously referring to this physical world but apparently the spirit world is also somewhat finite.

A Devotee With Sak Yant Tattoos Receives A Spell

The Korb Siarn Khru and subsequent Wai Khru Ceremony at Tahsang Village lasted from 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M.  People, all of them from local villages, arrived by motorbike or pick up truck. There were five waves of roughly 20 devotees at a time undergoing the the laying of the mask and white magic spell.

There were no tourist vans or tour buses. It was a event for ordinary people - local people.  It was an extraordinary event - a great opportunity for photography and a special opportunity to experience a unique aspect of Thai culture.

Although I did not participate in the ritual, just experiencing and photographing it, Duang told me that I had earned merit as well as she because we had purchased and distributed soft drinks along with drinking water to the people.  Her cousin had prepared a big pot of food - Pad Thai that we also distributed.  Another family donated and distributed ice-cream - earning them their merit for the day.


This was just a glimpse into the realm of the occult here in Isaan.  Interestingly the occult here is related to doing good and benefiting people whereas my previous view of the occult in the West was that it was related to doing evil.

There is always something to learn and experience no matter where you are or how old you are if you are only willing to get off the beaten track and interact with the ordinary people.

If you have seen it before, there is always the opportunity to better understand and gain greater knowledge.

Mushroom Farming in Isaan

This blog was a long time in coming.  I started to write the blog eleven days ago, but I was not certain regarding the facts and details of the process for cultivating mushrooms here in Northeast Thailand.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and Google, I found some excellent information related to how mushrooms are supposed to be grown here. An excellent source was the "Mushroom Grower's Handbook" 2004 by MushWorld (if some one knows about how mushrooms are supposed to be grown is has got to be these guys!)

The sugar cane harvest is winding down now, but outside of the Kumphawapi Sugar Cane Company, there are huge mounds of waste - "bagasse" - a waste product that Duang and I refer to as "key oi" (sugar shit).  Bagasse smells sickening  - a combination of extremely smelly feet and overpowering sweetness.  Bagasse is composed of fiber, moisture, and soluble solids.  It is roughly one-half cellulose, one-third carbon, one percent nitrogen, with some potassium and phosphorous.

Often during our travels out to Duang's village we see people picking through the fresh moist mounds of bagasse seeking out mushrooms.  Local farmers also purchase truckloads of the waste to add to their  land as a soil conditioner.

My research indicated that sugar bagasse is used as a substrate for cultivating oyster mushrooms.  I became comfortable in my belief that Duang's relatives were growing oyster mushrooms.  Delving further into the handbook, Chapter 5, I started to have my doubts regarding the mushroom process in Isaan that I had observed previously. The handbook showed substrate being made and placed in small plastic bags that would then get inoculated with spawn. It outlined spawn preparation. The chapter also discussed incubation as well as pasteurization.

Duang's Aunt Preparing Mushrooms

I asked Duang what kind of mushrooms were the people growing.  She replied "Hed Fang"

With that information, I returned to my Internet research, this time- Chapter 2 of the handbook. Lo and behold, there was a table, Table 1, that was a list of commercially cultivated mushrooms in Thailand.  In addition to the common name, and Latin name the table provided the Thai name for the mushroom.  The last entry in the table was "Hed Fang" - Straw mushroom.  Things were starting to make more sense - I had seen rows of straw mounds where underneath I knew mushrooms were growing.

The remainder of the chapter provided details that confirmed some of my observations, straw mushrooms being grown from December to April  but a great detail of information no where near what I had seen on my trips out to the family mushroom plot.

It turns out that mushroom cultivation here in Isaan is another example of "The ways that things are supposed to be and the way that they really are."

I have written several times about the duality and dichotomy of life here in Isaan, I now realize that it also applies to matters other than religion, morality, ethics, and politics.

Aside from the way mushrooms are supposed to be cultivated, I will now share how they are cultivated by Duang's family along with several other villagers that I have observed.

Duang's Aunt Processing Straw Mushroom Spawn

One morning when we drove out to Tahsang Village, we saw Duang's aunt, Kwan's grandmother, sitting on the raised rustic platform located outside of her house busily working.  It turned out that she was preparing to grow some mushrooms.

Placed on the ground off to her right, were several large Kraft paper bags each packed solid with several clear plastic bags.  The plastic bags were stuffed with a moist organic mass and the ends were secured with PVC plastic collars.  The bags looked exactly like the bags used to grow mushrooms the way that they are supposed to according to the handbook - but not the Tahsang Village way.

Duang's aunt was busy removing the PVC collar from the bags and pulling the compressed organic cylinders from the polypropylene bags.  A large plastic tub, in front of her, rested on the platform. The tub had seen better days - about 50% of its rim had become detached from the thin walls of the container.  However the tub still was fit for many purposes, just not as many as previously.

A grating, perhaps a recycled oven rack or part of a display case covered part of the black tub.  After freeing the cylinders from their confines of the bags, Duang's aunt broke them up with her hands along with the action of running them back and forth across the grating.  Broken organic matter accumulated in the tub beneath the grating.

When the black tub was filled with broken organic matter, Duang's aunt added some handfuls of a prepared powder (special super secret powder?) using her hands to thoroughly mix and blend the contents of the tub. I suspect that the prepared powder contained nutrients and chemicals to assist the bloom and growth of the mushrooms. She then placed the loose mixture into the empty Kraft paper bags.  Later that day, at 4:00 P.M. the mixture would be used at the site of the family mushroom plot.

We dropped by the mushroom plot at 4:00 P.M.  The sun sets around 5:30 P.M. so the temperature was more bearable.

Kwan, Pare, and Their Grandfather Arrive to Work On Mushrooms

Duang's uncle arrived with his two granddaughters to work the mushrooms.  The plot consisted of several rows of plastic covered mounds.

The first task was to remove the polyethylene plastic sheet covering each row. Removing the sheeting carefully off to the side of each row revealed a line of compacted rectangles of what I assumed to be sugar bagasse for the substrate to grow the mushrooms.  Wrong!  I checked with Duang's uncle and it turned out that the blocks were actually formed out of cassava waste from the local mill.  I asked about what layers of other components did he use to make the rectangular blocks - the handbook had listed the layers and components to construct blocks.  Oh I forgot ... that is the way that they are supposed to be constructed.  The way that they are actually constructed, at least in Tahsang Village, is to put cassava processing waste in a wood form and compact it to form the free standing substrates.

Once the substrates in a row had been uncovered, Duang's uncle walked down the row sprinkling by hand the material that his wife had prepare earlier in the day.

Sprinkling Spawn on Substrates

Once the spawn material had been distributed along a row, the row was sprinkled with water from a watering can.  Once a row had been watered, the plastic sheet was then carefully placed over the substrates.  The free ends of the plastic sheet were held down with loose soil that bordered the rows.

Three days later the plastic sheet was removed from the rows and after hand made home made bamboo strips where installed to form hoops along the row, the sheeting was placed over the row of substrates.  A thick mat of rice straw was placed over the tent row formed by the hoops and plastic sheet.

Mushrooms Ready For Harvest

After three days, the straw was removed and the plastic sheeting was pulled to the side to expose the first harvest of Hed Fang.  Using ordinary kitchen knives, the women carefully cut the mushrooms ensuring that a portion of the stem remained on the substrate.  After harvesting of the crop, the sheeting was returned and then covered with straw.

Three separate crops of mushrooms are produced from a row - each crop about 3 days apart.

Preparing Harvested Mushrooms for Market.

The family receives roughly 70 baht a kilogram ($1.06 USD/pound) wholesale for their mushroom crops.  The family also enjoys the mushrooms in their cuisine.

I am continually impressed in the ability of the Lao Loum people here in Isaan to do what is necessary to care for themselves and family.  I have seen them grow rice, cultivate corn, sugar cane, peanuts and cassava.  They weave their own fishnets, and  baskets.

The people are very resourceful and self-reliant.  I consider myself very fortunate to be able to observe and document this way of life.  I consider it to be my responsibility to share this way of life with others if for no other reason than to educate others as to how others live.

Planting Cassava



Planting Cassava In NE Thailand

My last blog entry was about harvesting cassava (manioc, tapioca, Brazilian Arrowroot) on Duang's aunt's land eleven days ago, so it is logical that my next blog entry would be about replanting the cassava crop.  Replanting?  Yes.  As part of the harvesting process, the long slender stalks of the cassava plant were saved.  The stalks stripped of branches and leaves were gathered up from the field and transported back to the family home.

Back at the farmer's home or at a willing relative's home, the stalks are stacked like cord wood.  The stalks are then cut into 8 to 9 inch long pieces with a heavy cane knife - one stalk at a  time - a job performed by both men and women.  The short pieces of stalk are collected in woven baskets.  The pieces are then brought over to a tub of water where they are washed and wet down before placing them into recycled fertilizer or rice bags.  The stalk sections remain in the bags for three days, after which they are transported out to a prepared field and planted by hand.

After harvesting the field eleven days ago, Duang's family waited a few days before preparing the stalks from the harvest.  Yesterday they called to let us know that they would be replanting the field that had been previously harvested.  I grabbed my camera bag and we headed out to Tahsang Village - arriving at 10:00 A.M.

Although the cassava was being planted by hand, the actual preparation of the field is performed by a tractor.  Our weather has turned hot ... eleven days of heavily overcast grey skies with high temperatures around 38 degrees ... 38 degrees Celsius (centigrade) - 100F!  Upon our arrival, the temperature was already 34C  (94F).  Besides the heat, there was a great deal of dust.  The rains just before the harvest eleven days ago were just a tease.  The monsoon rains have not returned yet although the weather is more unsettled.  The ground is now very dry.

The heavy furrows created by the tractor plowing the ground were bone dry - fine particles of clay and slightly larger grains of sand without any organic matter or moisture to bind them together.  I placed the cover to a piece of my photo gear on a fertilizer bag laying flat on the ground.  When we packed to return to our home 30 minutes, I was stunned at the amount of dust on the cover.  I was glad that I had decided not to change lenses in that environment.

Loading Up Basket With Cassava Stems

Workers were kept busy loading up woven hand baskets with cassava stalks from the recycle fertilizer bags containing the processed stems from the house.  After loading up their baskets, the workers walked along the dusty furrows across the field.  At set intervals along the furrow, they tossed one of the 6-9 inch long stalks on top of the raised mounds bordered by the furrows.

Distributing Cassava Stalks Along the Furrows

While half of the crew distributed the stalks, the other half of the crew followed along, sticking the short stalks into the soft mounded earth.

Another Stalk In the Dirt

There was a rhythm to their labor - the work proceeded at a rather quick pace - a choreographed series of movements developed and fine tuned over many years of toil.

A Busy Morning In the Fields Outside Tahsang Village

The parked farm truck offered a little relief to the workers - a jug of cool drinking water with a common cup, a couple recycled fertilizer bags placed on the ground to sit upon, and just a tiny bit of some shade.  Things were so bad that the family dog spent all his time underneath the truck.

After one-half hour, I started gathering up my gear.  I walked over to my wife and asked her if she wanted to go home.  She quickly nodded "Yes" and actually got back to the truck before I did.

I could not imagine spending another 6 to 6-1/2 hours out there photographing let alone planting the cassava.  I could not imagine, but for the workers, it was their reality, their life.  I am impressed with people that I refer to as survivors, people who do what is necessary to support themselves as well as their family.  For many people surviving requires efforts and a life that many people can not imagine.

However, seeing and learning how people survive provides inspiration and admiration of what people are capable of.  It also demonstrates how much that we take for granted is not necessary to survive or to be happy.

Cassava Harvest In Isaan

Harvesting Cassava In Northeast Thailand

These are busy times once again in the fields of Northeast Thailand, a region known as Isaan (Isarn, Esarn, Isan).  The sugar cane harvest which started in December continues albeit winding down.  The weather is changing headed towards the rainy season.

The sugar cane harvest that commenced in December continues albeit tapering off and will be over in the middle of next month. In addition to the cutting of cane, workers are busy planting the next crop of cane.  Some of the cut canes are reserved and not sent to the local refineries.  The reserved canes are laid flat in narrow shallow trenches across the fields. After being sprinkled by hand with dry commercial fertilizer, the canes are covered with dirt.  In short time especially with the return of the rains new canes sprout up from the old buried canes.

In anticipation of the full return of the monsoon rains in the next one to two months, farmers are preparing their rice paddies.  Dikes are being built and maintained as necessary.  The land bounded by the dikes are being turned over to bury vegetation, aerate the ground, and prepare it to receive and hold the rainwater to come - water necessary for the wet cultivation method of rice cultivation.

Now is also the time for harvesting and selling sweet corn along the side of the road.  Unlike the USA, sweet corn is sold cooked and not raw at roadside stands.  Next to the stand you will typically find large pots or kettles filled with salted water and husked corn.  On the shelf of the primitive stand recycled plastic shopping bags of cooked corn are displayed for sale.

Two weeks ago we had some rain 6 out of 7 days.  The rain was not a great deal, roughly six millimeters each day, but it was significant in the sense that it allowed activities related to local agriculture to commence.

The recent rains have allowed the harvest of cassava to proceed.  Cassava, also known as Brazilian Arrowroot, Manioc, and Tapioca, is one of the important crops here in Northeast Thailand.  Cassava is drought resistant and can grow in poor soils - two conditions that Isaan has in over abundance.  The rains end in September and do not resume until April or May.  The soil of Isaan is a combination of sand and clay with very little, if any, organic components.

Cutting Cassava Stalks

Cassava is a woody shrub that has tubers that are a source of carbohydrates.  Thailand is the world's greatest exporter of dried cassava.

Here in Isaan, the cassava is harvested when the stalks are about two meters (six feet) tall.  The plants achieve two meters height about six months after being planted.  Besides being drought resistant and capable of growing in poor soil, cassava presents other advantages to the Lao Loum farmers of Isaan.

First of all, it is not always necessary to purchase seeds, or cuttings to plant a crop of cassava.  If you harvest a crop of cassava, the stalks are kept, processed, and replanted to produce a new crop.  If you do not have a crop to process for the next crop, you can purchase cuttings for 2,000 Baht (approx $66 USD) for one rai (0.39 acres) of land.

Secondly, it is not necessary to purchase fertilizer for the cultivation of cassava. There is also no need to purchase insecticides to apply to the crop.

Thirdly, once the crop is planted, no additional labor is required until the crop is ready to be harvested.

The market price for cassava today is 60,000 Baht (approx $2,000 USD) for 5 rai of crop delivered to the processor in nearby Kumphawapi.

Cassava is harvested by hand,  Duang's Aunt had called to let us know that they would be harvesting 5 rai of her cassava crop the following day.  The harvesting crew was comprised of 3 hired hands and 3 family members.  It would take 4 days to harvest the crop and an additional 2 days to process the stalks for replanting with one day to plant the stalks for the next crop.  The hired help receive 300 baht ($10 USD) and two meals for an 8 hour day.

Duangchan Cutting Cassava Stems

The harvest crew was split into two groups, each with distinct tasks to perform.  The women, whom Duang joined in working, used sugar cane knives to cut the tall slender stalks about 25 cm (10 inches) above the ground. They then skillfully used the knives to lop off the branches and leaves.  They walked along the rows of stalks continuing this process until their non-knife hand could no longer hold anymore stalks at which point the bar stalks were placed in a neat bundle on the ground to be collected later.

Duang Trimming A Cassava Stalk

In the meantime the men were occupied extracting the tubers from the ground.  The men used a special tool to pry the tubers from the ground in which they have grown deeper and bigger over the previous six months.  The tool was a simple tool based upon the engineering principle of the lever. The tool was a stout bamboo pole, about 2.5 meters long (8 foot) with a chisel point on one end.  About 76 cm (28 in) from the chisel tip there was a metal collar around the pole with a stepped metal plate extending from the collar.  The function of the metal plate is to grab and secure the stem stub sticking out of ground to convert it into a fulcrum necessary to create the mechanical advantage associated with a lever for pulling the tubers out of the ground.

Base of Cassava Tuber Extraction Tool

To extract the mass of tubers, often entangled together, the worker positions the pole so that the stub of the plant stem is grabbed and captured by the metal plate of the extraction tool.  Once the stem is secured, the worker lifts the free end of the pole as high as is necessary or as high as he can to pull the tuber roots out of the ground.  This is physically demanding work since the tubers are large, deep, entangled, and have not been disturbed since they were planted six months earlier.

Pulling Cassava Roots Out of the Ground

Once the majority of the plant's tubers are pulled above ground, the worker uses his hands to completely break them free from the Earth's grasp.  Many times the worker has to bend down or kneel on the ground so that he can remove any broken roots still embedded in the ground.

The masses from several plants are stacked together to await loading into a farm wagon or truck to then be transported to the local commercial processor in Kumphawapi.  Soon the field is dotted and lined with mounds of cassava roots and stacked  stems.

Stacking Cassava Tubers

Unfortunately with the anticipated return of the seasonal rains, the temperatures are increasing.  Our high temperature for the past week has been in the high 30's ... that is high 30's Celsius ... 38C - 100F.  Mid-April is our hottest time of the year with highs of 100 -105F and lows at night of 85-90F.  The high temps and rainy weather are part of the cycle of life here in Isaan.  They are necessary for life to continue.  They are necessary to nourish the people with their staple rice for the up coming year.

The cassava harvest is a milestone along the cycle of rural life here in Isaan for the Lao Loum people and those who choose to live amongst them.