Abstract
This paper focuses on a village festival in Southern Laos in which a water buffalo is sacrificed to the village guardian spirit. The village in which fieldwork was conducted in 1998-99 was established by six families from Ngae, a Mon-Khmer group. In 1966, they fled the bombardment around their village, which was located in a remote area, and resettled in their present location near a big town. Since the establishment of the new village, people with different religious customs, not only Lao, but other Mon-Khmer people from groups such as Alak and Talieng, have moved into the village. Younger generations of Ngae villagers have been influenced by Lao culture and are becoming less attached to the Ngae traditional customs. In this multi-cultural setting, maintaining the village's annual festival as one based simply on Ngae tradition has become difficult. In some respects, this festival has come to substitute for the Lao New Year festival pi:may. In addition, when the village elders and leaders mobilize the village to participate in the festival, they adopt the Lao word sa:makki. This term, meaning solidarity, was originally used by the government of the Lao PDR in the propagation of its socialist policies. Through the examination of these various aspects, this article discusses the complexities of traditional ritual and authority among minority groups living in multi-ethnic environments.
