| caption: |
initiation of boys into morung |
| text: |
Towards evening I then walked through the village and spent some time sitting on Shankok's platform. I heard some details from him about the initiation of boys. When he was about ten years old his father offered ten pigs which were killed by the clan elder. Only one was slaughtered for his younger brother. Chinyak, the Neang-ba of the Au-kheang morung, also came to the celebration and he was the first to eat and drink. He gets the head of one pig no matter how many are killed altogether. He also says a blessing. "Become like the rubber tree, like the ficus tree become". Then he tells the boy "kill wild animals, kill enemies, bring vegetables, bring rice". (217) From this day on the boy sleeps in the morung. In the morung itself there seems to be no ceremony connected with the entrance of a new member. This ceremony of slaughtering the pigs and the blessing of the boys by Chinyak is held by everyone in the village simultaneously. |
