Yong-speaking people celebrate the Salak Yorm Festival at Wat Phrathat Haripunchai.
The Yong communities of Lamphun prepare to celebrate Salak Yorm
This weekend, the Yong-speaking communities of Lamphun province celebrate the annual Salak Yorm Festival at Wat Phrathat Haripunchai in a colourful ceremony that sees that offering "trees of rite" in a unique contribution to Buddhism.
Every September and October, says Yong history, young Yong women had to offer Salak Yorm trees while the men joined the monkhood for three months, to make the greatest contribution to the Buddhism.
Time flies and traditions die. The ritual is no longer practised by young women, who these days are busy studying and socialising.
But this little known rite made its return to Lamphun a few years ago, as part of an attempt to lure tourists to the sleepy northern town. As unique as it's colourful, the Salak Yorm has drawn more than 10,000 visitors in recent years.
Wat Phrathat Haripunchai, the city's main temple, which is renowned for its 46-metre-tall golden pagoda, is where the modern-day Salak Yorm ceremony takes place.
There, in the temple grounds around the main chapel, the representatives of Yong-speaking communities plant 20-metre-high bamboo tubes, leaving one end open to the sky. The teams of Salak Yorm makers are recruited from all walks of life, varying from small Buddhist novices to old, wise abbots, and from fine carpenters to witty storytellers.
"Each community might need two days to set up the high tree of Salak Yorm, but there's painstaking preparation earlier," says the abbot of Wat Pratupa. "They have to make more than 10,000 pieces of bamboo, and thousands of other small decorative pieces that cost time, labour and money."
It's fun to walk around the temple and watch Yong people setting up Salak Yorm trees.
The temple ground is a bustling scene, with monks and men working together, racing against time. On the ground, the old abbot uses a megaphone to direct the young monks and novices, as they negotiate their way around the 30-metre-tall scaffolding and plant the sticks around the naked tower.
The closest Bangkok equivalent of the Salak Yorm trees at Wat Phrathat Haripunchai is probably the tall Christmas tree at CentralWorld at Ratchaprasong Intersection.
The colourful trees stand about 20 metres. With the umbrella on top, the tree is pinned around with red, yellow and green strips of paper. At the bottom, devotees place bananas, sugarcane, cooking ingredients and everything the monks could ever need, and quite a few other things - like fish nets and fish containers - that they probably don't.
"In the old days, when a Yong woman offered the Salak Yorm tree, they would hang strings of gold and precious stones around the umbrella," says local writer Nares Panayaphoo. "The monks needed them when they constructed a pagoda."
Once the Salak Yorm trees are completed, the communities leave the temple to enjoy a one-night celebration. The storytellers and folk singers take turns reciting Yong verses that narrate how the beautiful Salak Yorm trees are made.
"When the celebration is over, the offering ceremony takes place the following day," adds Nares. "The communities write down the number of their Salak Yorm on a piece of paper, and put the papers in one bowl.
"You cannot dedicate your Salak Yorm tree to any particular monk. You don't know where it will go until the monk picks up your number."
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Source: http://www.news.thethailandlinks.com/2012/09/27/trees-of-tribute/
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