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Self-Mutilation Wows Crowds In 2019 Veggie Fest

James_H

James_H

And I like to roam the land
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Self-Mutilation Wows Crowds In 2019 Veggie Fest (photos)

Headline of the year right there.

PHUKET — The purification week of 2019 vegetarian festival, or Kin Jae, entered its sixth day with parades of mediums channeling divine powers by shoving swords and blades into their bodies.
The iconic spectacle of Kin Jae returned to the streets of Phuket today, where dozens of the ma song, or spiritual channelers, walked in parades with swords, knives, needles, umbrellas, flags, and all kinds of imaginable pointy devices stuck in their faces, mouths, and torsos.
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ramonmercado said:
They probably use cacti as sex toys ...
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I was at a similar festival, though they didn't use quite as large objects for piercing. Lots of peacock feathers for some reason.
 
According to the wiki entry, it's a 9 day Taoist festival practised in many parts of Asia. All food is vegetarian & on the 9th day there's a procession with the piercings

This is done without anesthetic, always inside or near the temples surrounded by other devotees with only iodine, petroleum jelly and surgical gloves as precautionary measures. Despite this scenario, many of the people performing the rituals are also the people who will care for many of the people in their recovery.

To this effect few people ever need to have prolonged medical treatment, and although in the weeks after the festival many people will be seen covered in bandages, scarring is uncommon, stitching, even on individual devotees who impale their cheeks, is rare, and return to daily activity for the devotees occurs shortly after the completion of the ritual, frequently before the festival ends unless performed on the last days, much sooner than before the bandages themselves are removed.

The purpose of this practice is a mixture of veneration for their gods and ancestors, to display their devotion to their beliefs and the trance itself, which has a profound impact upon demeanour for days or weeks after, frequently with devotees appearing exceptionally calm and focused in their day-to-day activities after the festival is completed.
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Doesn't say when the tradition dates from.
 
Fairly standard fakir-stuff, Taoist here, but much associated with India in the past.

FT did at least one vivid spread on a similar festival a few years back.

Anyone else remember that video of the fakir's willy, flattened, stretched beyond belief, twisted around a twig and covered in grey ash?

I am pretty sure it was from one of Clive James's compilations of world weirdness and probably have it somewhere as a fill-up on a VHS tape.

Never indexed, alas. I would go looking on Youtube but God knows what that would throw up . . . :omg:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
Fairly standard fakir-stuff, Taoist here, but much associated with India in the past.

FT did at least one vivid spread on a similar festival a few years back.

Anyone else remember that video of the fakir's willy, flattened, stretched beyond belief, twisted around a twig and covered in grey ash?

I am pretty sure it was from one of Clive James's compilations of world weirdness and probably have it somewhere as a fill-up on a VHS tape.

Never indexed, alas. I would go looking on Youtube but God knows what that would throw up . . . :omg:
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No, I've never seen that & I'm not sure I want to. On the other hand if you can dig it up..
 
JamesWhitehead said:
Fairly standard fakir-stuff, Taoist here, but much associated with India in the past
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Though Thailand is mainly Buddhist, and has taoism from the Chinese community I think (and that part of Thailand has a lot of Muslims), it used to be Hindu and the Hindu substrate is very strong (I've seen Buddhist shrines honouring Ganesh, and the Thai national epic is a version of the ramayana). There are certainly magical traditions ongoing which date to the Hindu era.
 
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