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Songkran Festival in the Southern Region: Wan Wang 193
Songkran Festival in the southern region called โ€œWan Wangโ€ during 13th -15th April in the fifth month after the harvest season. Which year
had twice of leap months, Wan Wang was in the 6thmonth. The people stopped to do any activities of earning a living and not said the vulgar
languages. By this reason, the people cleared up to complete everything to have auspiciousness before Wan Wang such as harvested in the paddy
field, finished weaving and not left the undone clothes on the loom. People hoarded the foods and performed as the prohibition through 3 days;
disallowed to husk rice, kept the vegetables, catch the fishes. In addition, people openly placed the mortar and pestle in the house by fastening
the pestles with the white and red threads before immersing the water in the mortar called โ€œChae Khrok Chae Sakโ€. The people cleaned the
house, cut the hairs and nails, arranged the new dressing and prepared the new clothes to the respectful elders before an arrival of Wan Wang.
In the night before Wan Wang, the group of โ€œPleng Bokโ€ widely barnstormed to inform the schedule of Wan Wang and the annual
prediction; the character of Songkran Deity, Wan Athibodi, Wan Thong Chai, Wan Lokka Vinasa and Naga spouted the water, etc. The word
โ€œPleng Bokโ€ had two origins; 1) the pattern of playing a song to inform the common people 2) Pleng Kra Bog originated from the bamboo canteen
which contained the holy water. When the house-owner was sleepy and not waited to welcome the group of Pleng Bok which went around in
the night. They knocked the stair of house with the bamboo canteen to awake the house-owner. It was believed that which houseย the bamboo
canteen was broken while it had been knocked, the house-owner would
be out of luck through a year. The group of Pleng Bok had 6-7 play-
ers, consisted of head, chorus, musicians; small cup-shaped cymbals,
wooden rhythm clappers, flute, khlui, drum.48
The people offered the foods to the monks in the festival
of Wan Wang at the temple in the community and then invited the
monksย praying while they offering a merit and chantry to donate the
merit in memory of their antecedents to the relics which had been
maintained in โ€œBuaโ€ (mortuary urn). If some persons had not kept
the relics of ancestors, they wrote the names of ancestors on paper
to dedicate the merit to them. Subsequently, the people fastened
the ear of rice with red and white threads in three small bundles and
placed on the tray, the monks performed a ceremony to pay respect
the rice in the temple called โ€œTham Khwan Khao Yaiโ€. The bundle
of rice through a ritual had been kept on the granary, they were the
sacred objects and shrines for the goddess of rice.49