Laos Essential Artistry

Tai Daeng Funeral Shaman Videos

This last summer we were lucky to have been part of a process of interviewing several Tai Daeng shamans in Sam Tai and were able to purchase some of the textiles they used in their ceremonies, and in this video we visually explore one of the textiles set to an audio track of a Tai Daeng Funeral Shaman chanting at a funeral in Vientiane. The chanting you hear is part of the process of the shaman guiding the spirit of the deceased as they make their way up to heaven. This chanting can take days and the journey is long and sometimes dangerous, and on the textile you can see the shaman on the back of an elephant when journeying over land and naga boats set between the elephants that the shaman can use to travel up rivers.

In the video below you can see the actual Tai Daeng funeral ceremony we recorded the audio from which we included in the video above. In this video you can a man dancing with "wooden sticks that are symbolic of knives as a show of power to frighten any bad spirits (phi) from interfering with the shaman leading the deceased's spirit on the long journey to heaven.

Tai Daeng (Red Tai) Shaman in Ban Sop Hao, Huaphan Province, Laos

Tai Daeng Shaman in Ban Sop Hao in Huaphan Province, Laos from Laos Essential Artistry on Vimeo.

When we were researching with Elli last summer we met quite a few shamans and witnessed different ceremonies and blessings. Here, the shaman is performing a ceremony to bless a new house and rid it of all its bad luck and clear the way for good luck in the future. Part of a ceremony is often a display of "power" and in the video toward the end you will see the shaman balance a long candle on top of a knife he sets in a small bowl of rice. Pretty impressive!