The rite called chae’ lau nwae tasae’ (literally, “tattooing down the ritual basket of the yam”) is performed at the end of the day when the work party has completed its task. It is a brief performance and the Palokhi Karen have virtually no explanation for the rite other than to say that it “makes the rice rise up” (ma thau by).

Nevertheless, this rite and the rite protecting swiddens (bghau hy’) when interpreted together (for reasons which I discuss later) are crucial for an understanding of how the agricultural process is conceived of in Palokhi Karen thought. They suggest that the symbolism of these two rites are expressions of the subliminal ideas and conceptual associations which make up what I called, in Chapter III, the procreative model of society in Palokhi, namely, the procreative roles of male and female, ritual heat and cooling, and the fecundation of land for cultivation.

The ritual owner first plants a yam tuber or a portion of it (of the species Dioscorea) in the ground next to a tree stump near the plot where the Old Mother Rice has been planted. A bamboo water vessel (thi toe) is next placed on the ground where the tuber was planted, and a long slim bamboo pole, split at its upper end, called a kra’ lau (“descending pole” or “descending stick”) is then placed in the water vessel with its upper end resting against a tree stump or on a forked stick. The bamboo pole is set in such way that it is oriented in the direction of the constellation Ursus Major (the Great Bear or Big Dipper) which is known to the Palokhi Karen as the “Elephant Stars” (Cha Koe’cau). When these preparations are completed, the ritual owner or head of the household pours water into the thi toe from another water vessel, saying as he does so:

As the water overflows from the thi toe, spilling on the ground, the members of the work party who have assembled around to watch the performance start shouting and hooting. As they do so, the ritual owner or head of the household splashes the water remaining in the water vessel that he is carrying over everyone. Usually, there are also men and women standing around with water vessels in hand waiting for this moment when they too then splash water over all those who are present.

The paucity of indigenous explanations for the performance of the ritual, the absence of myths which might suggest reasons for the role of yam in the ritual and the orientation of the kra’ lau in the direction of the Great Bear, as well as the brevity of the prayer which makes no mention of the yam all make it difficult to interpret the symbolic meanings of the performance when taken merely within the specific context of the rite itself. When, however, the rite is viewed in terms of the features and “idioms” of ritual performances recurrent in other rites, the meanings embedded in the rite become clear.

The purpose or function of the rite is by no means obscure. The prayer, for example, is clearly addressed to rice itself and it unambiguously expresses what is considered to be the desired outcome of the rite. This and the proximity of the material appurtenances of the ritual to the plot where the Old Mother Rice is planted indicate that the Palokhi Karen are, at one level at any rate, indeed correct in saying that the ritual is designed to facilitate the growth of rice or to “make the rice rise up”. In this respect, the ritual is consistent with the one performed at mid-day. The only difference is that in the mid-day ritual the conditions necessary for the successful growth of rice are obtained from the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land, whereas in this ritual rice is directly ministered to. The expressions in the prayer are, thus, “performatives”: but, they are not the most significant feature of the ritual.

Watering the Thi Toe and Kra’ Lau in the Rite of Planting the Ritual Basket of the Yam.

The distinctive feature of the ritual is the production of a cool state that is brought about by the use of water — quite apart from its obvious function in agriculture — as a cooling medium for the successful cultivation of rice. Although this is not mentioned in the prayer, the ritual sequel that protects swiddens is wholly unambiguous on the necessity for this cool state. The use of water in this context, thus, possesses the same order of symbolic meaning as the showering of water on people and the application of lustral water on newly-married couples during marriage rites, as well as the lustrations to the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land in the Head Rite. In all these cases, cooling is related to the creation of auspicious conditions. However, as I argued in Chapter III, cooling is none other than the management of “ritual heat” associated with the union of procreative males and females. In what sense, then, is “ritual heat” present in this rite?

The answer lies in the symbolism of the kra’ lau and thi toe. Although there are no means of ascertaining the significance of the Elephant Stars (for the Palokhi Karen have no explanation or myth which would account for their role), the name of the kra’ lau itself — descending pole or stick — is an important indication of the primary symbolism in the rite. It suggests that the kra’ lau is oriented from the Elephant Stars towards or, more precisely, into the thi toe. When viewed in these terms, the imagery of the kra’ lau and thi toe becomes transparent. They are an iconic representation of the quintessential conjunction of male and female in procreative mode, that is, sexual intercourse. And the heat that is implicitly managed in this rite is, thus, derived from this symbolic conjunction. Accordingly, the use of water takes on an added significance: it is as much a medium of cooling as it is a medium by which the fecundating properties of this iconic union are transferred to land. The rite therefore may well be regarded as a “fertility” or, more aptly, a fertilising rite. This, moreover, would explain why the rite is conducted when it is — after the rice has been planted in the swidden at which time the growth potential of rice may then be activated.

It is, however, more difficult to determine the significance of the yam in the rite. In the absence of Palokhi Karen explanations, myths and other ritual uses of yam which might inform an analysis of the role of the tuber in the rite, I therefore propose a deductive, rather than an inductive, interpretation.

In the context of the performance of the ritual, only two kinds of crops are planted which are directly relevant to the performance: rice and yam. Rice, as the term for the crop grown for ritual purposes (“Old Mother Rice”) indicates, is “female”. Given the primary symbolism of the rite in which male and female are conjoined, I would suggest that the yam is “male”, representing the complementary, botanic “sex” (or “gender”) category of rice.

It is important to note that the symbolism of the ritual is based on a logic of human sexual difference. It will also be recalled that when the Palokhi Karen wish to make their fruit trees (for example, papaya) bear fruit, they tie the skirts of married women to these trees. These are applications of conceptual associations derived from the human domain to the botanic domain. Although the Palokhi Karen may be aware of the fact of sexual dimorphism in certain plants (of which papaya is one), I have no reason to believe that this fact occupies an important place in their schemata of cognition beyond the attribution of female gender to rice which is, in any case, an extrapolation from the human domain. It is, on the contrary, human sexual difference that is important in the schemata of cognition of the Palokhi Karen. The point to note is that this difference and related processes in the human domain provide a model for processes in cultivated crops. The validity of this model in Palokhi — the procreative model of society extended to the cultivation of crops — is based, as we have seen in various other contexts, on a similarity and contiguity between the human and the botanic which is established through relationships of equivalence such as homology and analogy. In general belief and in the particular context of the rite of planting the ritual basket of the yam, “female” rice is such a relationship of equivalence. Given the primary symbolism of the rite and the logic of equivalences which guides the botanic extensions of the model of human society and processes, “male” yam therefore must be the other relationship of equivalence.