Dr. Pollavat Prapattong and Dr. Cherdchat Hiranro
School of Liberal Arts, Mae Fah Luang University
Animals have been widely used in various forms and methods for predicting, including the use of bones. For example, in China, animal bones were used after being burned, with characters written along their cracks that were then used as a medicine mixture called “dragon bones”. Animal bone prophecies were retrieved from various parts. The objective of this study was to explore the content of scripts of chicken bones prophecies in aspects of ethnic illnesses from the scripts of chicken bones divinations of the groups of Plang people – Tai lauy, /Lua/Kha See San Mauk. These scripts exist in three areas in Bann Huay Num Khun, Mae Fah Luang district, Chiang Rai province, and two villages in Myanmar – Bann Yak, Keng Tung city, Shan State and Bann Nong Luang, Mah city, the 4th Autonomous Region, Mong La city, Shan State. The methodology used in this study was documentary research by interpretation of three prophecy scripts using application software to organize data and a database for comparison purposes. The cultural space of Henri Lefebvre conceptual framework was applied for data analysis.
The study reveals that, according to the evidence appearing in the three scripts, there have been differences in the causes of illnesses and the remedial rituals because of three different levels of society and cultural development. Bann Yak was considered a community of hunting and gathering materials from forests, along with crop rotation. There are sacred spirit ceremonies and ritual practices for wellbeing. At Bann Nong Luang, the community was considered a crop rotation society and, existing at an early period of being a Buddhist society, there was some practice of making merit and bad luck removal. Huay Num Khun was considered an urban society whose ritual and performing practice was raised to the city level.
(Presented in the 2017 Chulalongkorn Thai-Tai Heritage Forum: Healing and Herbal Medicine (การรักษาโรคกับการใช้ยาสมุนไพรในวัฒนธรรมไทย-ไท), 22-23 June 2017, Le Meridien Chiang Mai Hotel, Chiang Mai, organized by the Empowering Network for International Thai and ASEAN Studies, Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Lanna Studies Center, Faculty of humanities ,Chiang Mai University and Thai Language Department, School of Liberal Arts Mae Fah Luang University)