'-':'.

',

ROY ALLY SPONSORED HUMAN SACRIFICES IN

NINETEENTH CENTURY CAMBODIA:
the cult of nak tii Me Sa <Mahisiisuramardini) at Ba Ph~om*
by
David P. Chandler

Toward the end of February, 1877, four columns of troops, including

French, Cambodian and pro-French Vietnamese elements, converged on
a low range of hills called Ba Phnom, approximately sixty kilometers
southeast of Phnom Penh.' Their objective was an earth and timber
stockade, measuring roughly a hundred meters by seventy-five, where a
rebellious prince named Siwotha had installed himself with an entourage
and had begun recruiting an army at the beginning of the month.z As
the columns approached the enclosure, Siwotha slipped away to the
north, on elephant-back, with, a few men. His 'army' surrendered soon
afterwards without firing a shot,3 and for the moment the revolt was
over. The Cambodian king, Norodom, declared a general amnesty and
on February 26, appointed a new royal delegate, or stac tran, to Ba
* In slightly different form, this paper was read at the XXIX Congress of Orienta-
lists in Paris in July, 1973. For their comments and assistance, I am grateful
to Charles F. Keyes, I. W. Mabbett, Uk Muntha, Eveline Poree-Maspero, Mak
Phoeun, Craig Reynolds, Pech Thinh, Michael Vickery and Hiram W. Woodward,
Jr.
1) For descriptions of the region in the late nineteenth century, see Etienne
Aymonier, I.e Cambodge, Paris, 1902, Vol. I, 283 andP. Peyrusset, 'Le chemin
de fer de Saigon a Phnom Penh' Cochinchine Francaise, Exczwsions et Recon·
naissances (E & R) l (1880) 186·187. The best description of the campaign is
France, Archives d'Outremer (FOM) Indochine A-30 (26), Despatch from
Duperre dated March 24, 1877. See also Jean Moura, Le Royaz1me du Cam-
badge, Paris, 1883, Vol. I, 182-183.
2) Moura, 18 3. Siwotha, a half-brother of thp Cambodian king, Norodom, had
family connections in the area. 'His mother's father had served there as a
royal delegate. See .Adhemard Leclere, Histoire du Cambodge, Paris, 1914,
449, and Eng Sut, Akkasar Mahaboros khmaer (Documents about Cambodian
heroes), Phnom Penh, 19 69, 1155.
3) FOM Indochine A-30 (26) refers to 'quelques se+viteurs et cinq e,lephants'
and says that the rebels were 'saisi de frayeur'. In the course of the cam-
paign, six French solrJiers died of fever,
208 David P. Chandler

Phnom;4 at about this time~ also, according to the printed version of the
Cambodian chronicle~ two prisoners-of-war were 'offered up' nearby.s
The reference is obscure. It comes in a speech by the Cambodian
commander, Prince Sisowath, to his followers at the end of the campaign.
'I have fought with Prince Siwotha's troops [be said] for a day
and a night. Many have fled, many have been killed, and
many have been wounded. Two ordinary soldiers have been
taken prisoner. One is named A Prak and one is named A
Som. I have ordered ... [an official] ... to put them in a
boat and take them to be offered up in the province of Ba
Phnom.' 6
The chronicle says no more about the matter. One purpose of
this paper will be to suggest that the men were beheaded on Ba Phnom
in April or May, 1877 in the course of a royally-sponsored ceremony
known as loen nak ta ("raising up the ancestors") that honored the new
stac tran, the agricultural year, and a local ancestor spirit (nak ta) known
as Me Sa~ the 'white mother'.
The evidence comes largely from a Cambodian text, composed in
1944 and printed in 1971 by the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh as
part of a collection of documents dealing with the cult of nak t"a
throughout Cambodia.? The. central portion of this text** quotes an
elderly resident ofBa Phnom, Dok Than, as saying that human sacrifices
took place on the northeastern slopes of the mountain when he was a
boy, and he describes one of these- perhaps the last, and perhaps the one
in 1877 involving A Prak and A Som-which be attended. 8
** A translation of this text appears on pp. 218-222, below.
4) There were five of these 'royal delesates' in nineteenth century Cambodia.
Their largely ritual responsibilities c~nnected them with the areas, or dei, of
Ba Phnom, Kompong Svai, Pursat, Treang, and Thboung Khmum. See Etienne
Aymonier, Cours de Cambodgien, Saigon, 187 5, 124-125; Adhemard Leclere,
'Sdach meakh', Revue lndochinois VIII ( 1905 ), 1378-1384, and also Institut
Bouddnique (ed.) Bram racbz'dhi dvad sam:ls (Royal Festivals in the Twelve
Months), Phnom Penh, 1969, 86-88.
5) Eng Sut, 1157.
6) The boat voyage suggests that the prisoners were not native to Ba Phnom.
7) Institut Bouddhique, Brajum ri~en breh (Collected Old Stories), Phnom Penh,
1962-, Vol. VIII, 81·88.
8) Dok Than dates the ceremonies from the regime of Siwotha's grandfather, who
had died by 1877; Eng Sut, 1155.
 HOYALLY SI'ONSOHED HUMAN S,\CRIFICES IN NlNETEi;;NTH CE~TURY CAMBODIA 209

The text begins by describing a small 'Chinese-style' cement tem-

ple that had recently been built against the northeastern slope of the hill.
In 1944, the temple housed broken statues of several Hindu gods,
including a damaged one of a female divinity identified by Dok Than as
'Me Sa'. Perhaps a hundred meters to the east he said, in what was by
then 'an ordinary rice-field', human sacrifices had once been carried out.
The statue is described as follows:
' .... an upright human female, approximately sixty centime-
ters tall, with her hair tucked up inside a diadem. The face
is well-rounded, even plump; the breasts are globular and
firm. The image [once had] four arms. The lower arm on
the right ... bears a rectangular object ... The upraised left
arm bears a wheel, while the lower one catches bold of the
tail of [an animal that resembles] a tiger or a lion. The
female presses against this animal with her feet ... [as if to]
lift it up ... and has a boastful expression.'
No photograph of the statue has been published, but this descrip-
tion matches earlier ones by Aymonier, who visited the site in the 1880s,9
Parmentier ( 1934) and Mme. Poree-Maspero, who saw the statue in
1941, and is clearly right when she says that it represents Siva's consort,
Ume Mahisasuramardini, in the act of subduing the demon-buffalo
Mahisa. Dok Than's identification of the statue as 'Me Sa' moreover,
supports Mme. Poree-Maspero's additional assertion that the short
name is a corruption of the longer one.I 0
Uma (or Durga) Mahisasuramardini· appears to have entered the
Indian pantheon, along with other consorts of Siva, toward the beginning
of the Christian era, as part of the exchange of religious ideas that took
place in India between its Aryan and non-Aryan populations. II Images
9) Aymonier, Le Cambodge., J, 235. . .
10) Eveline Por6e-Maspero, Les rites agraires des cambodgiens. Paris and the Ha-
gue : 1962, 8-9. · . ,
11) See R.C. Agrawala, 'The goddess Mahi.sasuramardi?.i i~ early .rndtan Art,
Artibus Asiae XXI (1958) 123-130; Sukimt BhattacharJ!, 7 he b1~1an Theogny,
Cambridge University Press, 1970, 167 and B.C. Mazumdar, Durga : her
origin and history', JouJ'nal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1906, 3 55-362. R~gard
ing lndianization, 1 am using the arguments advanced ,by lao .Ma.bbett, .sa~-
'i' t' r s th · t Asia' in press and Paul Mus, Cultes mdtens et tod!-
scn ou' , eaBsullet'm 'de l'E''col~ Francase d'Extreme Orient (BEFEO)
genestzaau!OnCoh ampa
210 David P. Chandler

of the goddess were widespread in eastern and southern India during the
Pallava period in the second half of the first millenium AD.t2 A tem-
ple at Mahaballipuram near Madras, for example, is dedicated to her.ll
This was the era, too, of the most intensive 'Indianization' of much of
Southeast Asia, and it is not surprising that images of the goddess are
plentiful in the art of early Java.14
During this same period, Uma Mahisasuramardini was a popular
subject of Cambodian sculpture. Over twenty free-standing statues,
and half a dozen bas-reliefs of her have been noted, IS ranging in time
from the seventh to the tenth centuries AD and over space from the
Camau peninsula in southernmost Vietnam (then populated by Khmer)
to a brick temple about thirty kilometers north of Angkor. By and large,
XXXIII (19 33) 3 67-410. For Indian myths surrounding Mahisasuramardini,
see P. V. Kane, History of the Dharmasastra, Poona, 19 58-1969, Vol. V. 157-
163; F.E. Pargiter (trans.) Markandeya Pnrana, Calcutta, 1904, 473-488; K.
van Kooij, Worship of the Goddess according to the Kalikapurana: Part I,
Leyden: 1971, 94 ff. and W.C. Blaquiere, 'The Rudiradaya, or sanguinary
chapter, translated from the Calica Puran', Asiatic!~ researches V (1799) 369-
391.
12) See A. Coomaraswami, The Al't of India and Indonesia, New York, 1965, 103
and Odette Viennot, 'The goddess Mahisiisuramardini in Kushana art', A.rtibus
Asiae XIX (1956) 360-373.
13) See Heinrich Zimmer, The Art of Indian .1sia, New York, 1954, Plates 210,
· 234, 284 and 288.
14) J. Knebel, "De Dorga-vorstellung in de Becldebouwkunst en Literatur der
Hindoes", Tijdscrift voor Inclische Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde (TBG) XLIV
(1903) 213-240 lists over thirty Javanese images. See alsoP. Pott, Yoga and
Yantra, The Hague, 1966, 86: "The number of representations of Durga
Mahisasuramardini in Javanese sculpture is incredibly large. In Java, this
is the form par exellence of Devi.'
15) For a description of the cult in pre-Angkorean Cambodia, see Kamalswar
Bhattacharya, Les religions brahmaniqu1,s dans ['ancien Cambodge, Paris, 1961,
91-9 2 and 155-15 6. Pierre Dupont, La statuaire j)re-angkoriemze, Ascona,
19 55, 139-140 argues that the cult developed among the Khmer in the seventh
century AD, and Jean Boisselier, Le Cambodge, Paris, 1966, 293 agrees. For
notices or plates of the free-standing representations of the goddess, see Ay·
monier, Le Cambodge, II, 359; BEFEO XXXIV (19 34), 746 and XXXVII (1937)
62 7; Boisselier, loc. cit.; R. Dalet, 'Quelques nouvelles sculptures khmeres,'
BEFEO XXXV, (1935), 158; Dupont, Le statuaire, Plates 25B, 28B, 31B, 32,
38A, 38D, 39,43 A-C; Sherman Lee, Ancient Cambodian Art, New York, 1970,
Plate 15; Louis Malleret, L'arcMologie du delta du Melwng, Paris, 1959-1963,
I, 67, 159, 432-433 and figure 96; IV, 39, 56, 84 and plate 12; Henri Parmen-
tier, !}art khmer primiti.f, Paris, 1927, 313 and H. Parmentier, 'Complement
a l'art khmer primitif' BEFEO XXXV (193 5), 35.
 HOY ALl. y SI'ONSOI\Ell I-lUMAN SACRIFICES IN NINETEENTH CENTUHY CAMBODIA 211

the statues arc of an earlier date than the bas-reliefs,t6 and all but two
of them come from southern and southeastern Cambodia and Vietnam
rather than from the neighborhood of Angkor, where all but two of th;
bas~relicfs have been found.

The statue at Ba Phnom seems to be in a transitional style, and

resembles another image of the goddess discovered in Kompong Cham
province in 1934 by R. Dalet.t7 Both depict the goddess mounted on
an unrecognizable animal carved in the round while other statues show
her standing on a square base where the head of a buffalo has been car-
ved in bas-relief. The livelier pose is popular in the generally later
bas-reliefs, like those from the temples of Bakong and Banteai Srei.
Tentatively, the statue of "Me Sa" can be dated from the second half of
the eighth century AD. There is no written evidence that the statue was
in situ earlier than the 1880s, when it was described by Aymonier.
However, the statue may well have been on Ba Phnom for
hundreds of years, for the mountain is an ancient inhabited site,ts and
George Coedes argued in 1928 that the capital of the early kingdom
known to Chinese travellers as 'Funan' was located at its base.t9 Al-
though this view was later modified20 a city was nearby in the tenth
century AD.2t The earliest inscription found on the mountain mentions
a devotion to Siva, and dates from 629 AD. 22 In the tenth century.
another inscription refers to Ba Phnom as a 'holy mountain'. 23 The
16) For bas-reliefs, see Bhattacharya, Les religions, Plates 9-11 and Parmentier,
'Complement', 35.
17) Dalet, 'Quelques nouvelles sculptures',loc, cit. . .. , . . .
18) For a discussion of the terms ba and me, see Francots Martlm, De la stgntft·
cation de BA et ME affix~ aux noms des monuments khmers', BEFEO XLIV I 1
(1954) 201-210 andL. Malleret, L'areheologie, I, ~56 ff ..
19) G. Coedes, 'La tradition geneologique des premters rots d'Angkor', BEFEO
XXVIII (1928), 124-144.
20) G. Coedes, 'Quelques precisions sur le fin du Funan', BEFEO XLIII (19.43-
1946), 4; Malle ret, L'arch6ologie, I, 423-425. On the absence of ar:heologtc.al
sites on Ba Phnom see Dupont, Le statuaire, 17-18 and the plates tn P. Pans,
'Anciens canaux ;econnus sur photographes aeriennes', BEFEO XLI (1941).
365-373. . · · 937 1966 VI
21) G, Coedes (ed.) Les Inscriptions du Cambodge, HanoL and Pans, 1 • , ,
115. 53 · ·
22) R.C. Majumdar, lnscdptions of Kambuja, Calcutta~ 19 , mscnp ton
r 1
25 cas- c
sified by Coedes, Inscriptions, VIII, 84 as K. 60). ·
23) Aymonicr, Le Cambodge, I, 283.
212 David P. Chandler

latest inscription there was carved toward the end of 1877; this inscrip-
tion celebrates Buddhist ceremonies sponsored in a local wat by the newly
installed stac trlin, and mentions the reassertion of Norodom's control
over the region.24
The phrase me sa, with the meaning of guardian spirits in general,
occurs in two nineteenth century Cambodian texts preserved by the
Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh. One describes ·a purification
ceremony, sponsored by King Ang Duang, which was held at the royal
capital of Udong in July-August 1859.25 The other is an oath used in
Cambodian civil trials, known as the Pranidhan.26 Both texts contain
long list.s of me sa, associating each one with a particular site. The text
from 1859 begins its list with the me sa of Udong. The me sa of Ba
Phnom is not mentioned in this text, but the Pranidhan opens its list
with the me sa of Ba Phnom, putting the guardian spirit of Udong in
second place.27 Since Udong was abandoned as Cambodia's royal
capital in favor of Phnom Penh in 1866, the Pranidhan (which makes no,
mention of Phnom Penh) is probably at least as old as that. Both texts are
interesting in their own right, and would reward comparative analysis. 28
What is important for our purposes is that the phrase me sa meant some-
thing like 'guardian spirit of Udong', if not of the whole kingdom, as
24) Aymonier, Le Cambodge I, 234; numbered by Coedes asK. 59. In the rubbing
of K. 59 in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the personal name of the stac
tl'aiZ is illegible.
25) Institut Bouddhique (ed.) Bram 1·ac pidhi dvad samas II, 172-179. For an in-
complete and often inaccurate translation, see Adhemard Leclere, Cambodge:
fetes civiles et religieuses, Paris, 1916, 8 1-9 5.
26) The text is numbered MCC 56.036 in the archives of the Institut Bouddhique
in Phnom Penh and dates from 1941. I am grateful to Pech Thinh for provid-
ing me with a typescript. Leclere, Cambodge: fetes civilrs 6 34 ff. has a tran-
slation of another version of this oath, from Kampot in the 18.90s.
27) In the list translated by Leclere (note 26, above), the first me sa is associated
with 'Phnom Bat' .
. 28) The toponyms in the 1859 text, many of which were identified by Leclere in'
his translation, include archaeological sites like Phnom Krom and Phnom
Bakheng near Angl<or which, in 1859, had not yet been 'discovered' by the
French. as well as places like Nakorn Ratchasima (Korat) which had not been
under Khmer control for a century at least. The toponyms in the Pranidhan
seldom overlap with those in the document from 1859, and seem to have been
chosen in many cases to meet the exigencies of rhyme.
 HOYAJ.LY Sl'ONSOHEO HUMAN SACHIFICES IN NINE1'EENTH CENTURY CA~1DOOIA 213

Guesdon suggests, 29 less than twenty years before the sacrifices recalled
by Dok Than in 1944 allegedly took place. The importance of Ba Phnom
as the central locus of the cult can be inferred from the fact that only
two small villages (and not hundreds) in Cambodia are called 'Me Sa'
and there is no evidence, from the printed corpus of Cambodian legends,
that a nak ta of this name was worshipped anywhere but on Ba Phnom.30
To this cluster of associations between Uma (Durga) Mahisasura-
mardini, human sacrifice, royal patronage, purification, Ba Phnom and a
species of guardian spirit known in the nineteenth century as me sa, a few
supplementary points can be made. One is that the goddess Mahisasura-
mardini was sometimes associated with ritual suicide, and perhaps with
human sacrifices in Pallava India-that is, at the time when Indianization
was most extensive in Cambodia and when images of this goddess were
most popular there. 3' Another point, reinforcing the links between royal
patronage, mountains, and human sacrifice comes from Wat Ph'u in
southern Laos, where a twelfth century inscription incidentally refers to
an image of Mahisasuramardini. 3 2 The site was the center of q cult
honoring Siva in very early times, and a Chinese visitor around 600 AD
reported that
•on the summit of the hill there is a temple, guarded at all
times by a thousand soldiers, This is dedicated to [Siva] and
human beings are sacrificed there. Each year the king goes
to the temple and makes a human sacrifice at night.m

29) Joseph Guesdon, Dictimmaire C<unbodgien-Ji'ranqais, Paris, 1930, 1~8?. See

also Institut Bouddhique (comp.) Vaja11anuTu·om Khmaer (Khmer D1ctwnary),
Phnom Penh, 1967, 912, where this meaning of 'me sa' does not occur.
30) Aymonier, Le c, 1111 bodge, I, 235 asserts that 'Me Sa' is. a frequ:nt top.onym in
Cambodia, but there are no references to places of thts name 1D the Index to
Lc C 1unlmdgc prepared in 1916 by G. Coedes. For two cu.rrent toponyms
containing the phrase, see United States Army Topographical Command,
Ccunbodia, Washington, D.C. 1971, 185.
31) J. Ph. Vogel, 'The Head Offering to the God.dess in Pallava Sculpture', Bulle-
tin of the School of Orient 111 and Afria~n Stt~dtes (BSOAS) Vf (1930-1932) 533-
544.
32) Coedes, Insaiptiqns v, 288·293 (Inscription K. 36?): See also G. Coedes,
'Nouvelles donnees sur les origines du royaume Khmer BEFEOXLVIII (1957)
209-220.
33) Ma Tuan Lin (trans. Marquis d'Hcrvey de St-Denis) Ethnographic des jmtj>les
ctrangei'S a Itt Chine, Geneva, 1876, 483.
214 David P. Chandler

Charles Archaimbault records that memories of this custom were

embedded in Lao oral traditions in the 1950s.34 Oral tradition from
the eleventh century Sivaite site of Phnom Chisor in southern Cambodia,
likewise, associates the temple with living, disembodied heads. 35
The beheadings witnessed by Dok Than, and mentioned obliquely
in the Cambodian chronicle, are examples of an ancient and at one time
nearly universal tradition, studied in many cultures by many authors,
whereby human beings are beheaded at planting time, often in honor of
a goddess of the soil. 3 6 Annual imperial sacrifices in China and Vietnam,
for example, are muted examples of this tradition, and so are the yearly·
buffalo-sacrifices that have been attested in so much of modern Southeast
Asia.37 What is unique about the nineteenth century sacrifices in Cam-
a
34) Charles Archaimbault, 'Le sacrifice du buffle W'at P'ou' France-Asie (F-A)
118-120 ( 19 56) 840, See also Pierre Lintingre, 'Legendes du Sud-Laos',
Bulletin des Amis du Royaume Lao Nos 7-8 (1972) 213 ff. .
35) Jnstitut Bouddhique, Brajum riociz pren VI, 56 ff.
36) For general surveys of the phenomenon, see J.G. Frazer, The Golden Bough,
(12 vols.) London, 1955 and E. Hogg, Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, Lon-
don 1958. More specialized studies, dealing with eastern and southern Asia
include M.N. Das, 'Suppression of human sacrifice among hill-tribes of Orissa'
Man in India (MI) XXXVI ( 1956) 21-48; W. Eberhard, Cultures of South and
East Asia, Leyden, 1969; E. Erkes, 'Menschenopfer und kannibalismus in alten
China' Der E1·dball II I (1926) 1-6; Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, 'Beliefs
concerning human sacrifice among the Hill Reddis', MI, XXIV (1944) 11-28;
£.A. Gait, 'Human sacrifices in ancient Assam', .Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Bengal (JRASB) LXVIII (1898) 56-65; R. Heine Geldern, 'Kopfjagd
und menscbenopfer in Assam und Burma .. ' Mittelzmgen der anthtopologische
Gesselschaft in Wien XLVII ( 19 17) 1-65; R. Mitra, 'Human sacrifices in ancient
India', .lRil.SB XLV (1876) 76-118; Severine'Silva, 'Traces of human sacrifice
in Kanara', AnthrojJos L (1955) 577-592 and H.G. Quaritch Wales, Religion
and Prehistoty in Southeast Asia, London 19 57,
37) See, for example, Charles Archaimbault, 'Religious Structures in Laos', Joul'nal
of the Siam Society (JSS) LII/1 (January 1964) 57-74; E. Aymonier, 'Notes sur
les cofitumes at croyances superstitieuses des cambodgiens' E & R XVI (1883)
17 8; Georges Condominas, 'Notes sur le tam bo mae baap aa kuon", International
Archives of Ethnography XLVII, 127-159 and G. Condominas, L'exotique est
quotidien, Paris, 1965, 168 ff; P. Guillemenet, 'Le sacrifice du buffle chez Ies
Bahnar de Ia province de Kontum', Bulletin des Amis de Vieux I-Iue (BAVH)
XXIX-XXX (1942), 118-1 54; R. Hoffet, 'Les Mois de Ia chaine annamitique',
La Geographic LIX/1 (1933) 1-43, A. Leclere, Cambodge: fetes civiles, 577 ff;
Paul Levy, 'Le sacrifice du buffle et le prediction de tempts a Vientiane',
lnstitut lndochinois pour l' Etude del' Homme (IIEH) VI (1943) 69-91, and Andre·
a
Souyris Rolland, 'Contribution I' etude du culte des Genies ou Neak ta chez
les cambodgiens du Sud', Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indochinoises (BSEI)
XXVI (1951) 162'·173.
 ROYALLY SPONSOHED HUMAN SACHIFJC(;;S IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CAMBODIA 215

bodia is that they took place in a Theravada Buddhist nation and enjoyed
royal patronage. In tribal parts of Cambodia1 in the mountains of
Vietnam, and in southern Laos, there is evidence that human sacrifices
of this general kind occurred from time to time in the nineteenth
century,3s But these sacrifices were among people not yet converted to
Theravada Buddhism (in Cambodia and Laos) or to any of the religions
with official standing in Vietnam.
The explanation for this anomaly does not lie necessarily in nine-
teenth century Cambodia (or the region around Ba Phnom) being 'more
primitive' or 'less Buddhist' than other places on the mainland of
Southeast Asia. Instead, as the two texts and other pieces of evidence
reveal, there seems to have been a royal association with the mountain,
carried out in the person of the institutionally 'Hindu' stac tran, who
were the figures linking the king's ceremonial power with the surround-
ing regions of Cambodia. 39 Indeed, only three sites are associated with
ritual beheadings in nineteenth century Canibodia : Ba Phnom, Thboung
Khmum, and Kompong Svai;4° each was the seat of power of one of the
five stac tran.
3 8) Citations include R. Baradat, 'Les Samre ou Pear' BEFEO XLI (1941) 76;
Brengues, 'Notes sur les populations de Ia region des montagnes des carda-
momes" JSS II (1905) 32; Claeys, 'A propos d'un sacrifice rituel. . .',Far
Eastern Association of Tropical medicine, Tenth Congress, Hanoi, 19 38, Tran-
sactions, 848; Guillemenet, 'Lc sacrifice du buffle., .', 131; P. Guillemenet,
Crmtumier de la Tribtt Bahnar, Paris, 1952, 58 n.; Hoffet, 'Les Mois .. .' 42
and Erik Seidenfaden, 'Appreciation of the Callier of BEFEO' JSS XXXIII/I
(January, 1941) 45.
39) On the connections between stac tr7in and the court 'brahmans' or baku, see
Leclere, Cambodge : fetes civiles, 610. Aymooier, Cours de cambodgien, 125
states that the stac tri:in shared with the king (and with no one else) the power
to order capital punishment. In Le Cambodge I, 235, Aymonier writes that the
annual sacrifices to Me Sa at Ba Phnom took place in the month· of pisallh
(April-May) which, according to Leclere, Cambodge: fetes civiles 575 is sacred
to Kali-a statement echoed by a nineteenth century Khmer manuscript {Fonds
Indochinois 129 E) in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
40) Poree-Maspero, Rites agraires, 246, 248. See also Adh6mard Leclere, Re-
cherche str.r le Droit Public des C(ombodgiens, Paris 1894, 189, which associates
stac trl:in with human sacrifices, as they took .office, in the early nineteenth
century.
216 David P. Chandler

Another reason for the persistence of human sacrifices at Ba Phnom

may have been the coexistence, at the popular level, of Indian religions
there long after the conversion of the people to Theravada Buddhism.
Jean Moura, writing of the 1870s, calls the region the 'most Hinduized'
in Cambodia;4I in the 1860s, a German visitor, Bastian, had noticed
'local Brahmans wandering about or begging alms', 42 and prayers
invoking Siva and Kali by name were still being recited at village fes-
tivals (especially ones associated with the nak ta) in this part of Cambo-
dia in the 1950s.43
The sacrifices at Ba Phnom came at the end of an annual ceremony
known as !oeil nak tii ('raising up the ancestors'). This festival still
occurs throughout Cambodia at the beginning of the growing season,
and its extensive regional variations have been studied by French and
Cambodian scholars. 44 Dok Than recalls that
'In former times the festival of /oen nak {a [at Ba Phnom]
occupied three, five or even seven days. All the officials who
were dependent on [the stac triin of] Ba Phnom assembled
and made their shelter on the grounds of wat Vihear Thorn,
about a kilometer northwest of "Me Sa".'
Buddhist monks were called in, he continues, to recite unspecified
prayers at the wat in the early days of the festival, and also to pray for
the dead (dar )4S at the cult sites of 'Me Sa' and at those of three other
nak ta, located respectively to the north, south and west. There was
Buddhist clerical participation, then, in the non-violent aspects of the
cult of nak ta. 4 6 In teres tingly, too, the sites of the 11 ak ta mentioned in
the passage stand at the corners of a roughly rectangular line, taking in
41) Moura, Royaume dzt Cambodge I, 173. See also Aymonier, Le Cambodge I. 174,
231 and 256.
42) A Bastian, 'Remarks on the Indo-Chinese Alphabets', JRAS III (1868) 69.
43) Institut Bouddhique, Brah racpidhi II, 183-184; Institut Bouddhique, Brajztm
rioei2 preh VIII 39-40; 56; 138 and 18 2. See also Souyris Rolland, 'Contribu·
tion', 171-172.
44) For a general analysis, see Institut Bouddhique Brah racpidhi IT, 1-36 and my
review of Institut Bouddhique Brajum rioen p1·en VIII, JSS LXI/2 (July 1973)
218-221.
45) Guesdon, Dictionnai1·e, 611.
46) Cf. Leclere, Cambodge: Fetes civiles, 576, where monks retire before a buffalo
is sacrificed to a nak ta,
 1\0YA Lt. y Sl'ONSOHtW HUMAN SACRIFICES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CAMBODIA 217

at least the eastern slopes of the Ba Phnom,47 just as the four other
regions governed by stac tran were located to the southeast, north, north-
west and northwest of Ba Phnom-that is, at the corners of a massive
rectangle surrounding the hill itself, suggesting that it was thought of at
one time as the central district of the five and, via the cult of 'Me Sa'.
the holiest and most important. 48
The sacrifices at Ba Phnom that seem to have taken place in 1877
were political ones, in a sense, which is perhaps why they are mentioned
in the chronicle. Prince Siwotha had been linked, through his mother's
family with Ba Phnom; he had a following there;49 and his rebellion
against Norodom might have succeeded had the king not benefitted from
timely and extensive French assistance.so Several millenarian rebels
earlier in the century had rallied forces around Ba Phnom.Sl Perhaps
possession of the cult-site, or sponsoring a sacrifice there, was synomo-
mous with legitimation. In any case, the rapidity with which Norodom
nnmcd a new royal delegate to the region, and the way that this reasser-
tion of political control is celebrated in the 1877 inscription, strongly
suggest that the cult site was politically important to him and to his
regime.
In closing, the persistence of a royally-sponsored cult honoring a
consort of Siva with human victims in the late nineteenth century would
indicate that Indian religion was less vestigial outside the confines of the

47) See below, and Aymonier, Le Cambodge I, 161.

48) By tbe mid nineteenth century, the dei of Treang, greatly reduced in size, was
actually located west of Ba Phnom, rather than to the south near what is ~~w
the southern Vietnamese province of Soc Trang; see Maller~t, A1·cheolog1e, I
139; at one time, however, this dei probably inclu?ed most o~ th~ Mekong
Delta. The map enclosed with G. Aubaret's t~ansi,ahon oft~e Gw-Dmh. Tlwng
CM (Histoire et Description de Ia Basse Cochmchme.) ~am, 1863 hsts the
royal capital, Udong, as the capital of Treang, located to tts southwes;. .
49)
M. de Villemereuil (ed.) Explol'ations et Missions de Doudart de Lagree, Pans,
1883,344.
50) Archival·asources indicate that Frep.ch s~pport in putting down the rebellion
for Norodom's acceptmg a French-sponsored programme of
was a qm pro quo · 6
. ·n February 1877 See FOM Indochtne A-30 (2 ), letter rom
f
re f orms ear1ter 1 , • .
Duperre to Minister of Colonies, 12 February 1877.
For some examples, see Lecl~re, Histoire, 252,287, 334, 376,415 and 457;
51)
Eng Sut, 1125, and Moura, Royaume, 143, 162 and 183.
218 David P. Chandler

court than has been thought. Likewise, the location of the cult-site of
•Me Sa• at the rough center of a rectangle marked out by the four other
locii governed by stac tran, and the occurrence of the words me sa, in at,
least two nineteenth century texts to mean 'patroness of the capital city'
all indicate that the cult of the goddess Mahisasuramardini at Ba Phnom
may have extended back for several hundred years and perhaps, under a
different name, to an era preceding 'Funan' and the introduction in
Cambodia of a recognizably Indian religion.

TRANSLATION

Nak Tii Me Sa (Ba Phnom)

A bout 1,500 meters to the east of the summit of Ba Phnom moun-
tain, and about 500 meters southeast of the district offices of Ba-Phnom,
there is a small hillock, approximately- 10 meters high, located at the
edge of the forest. On the top of the hillock, in the space between large
rocks lying helter-skelter against each other, there is a small shrine,
nicely made of cement, measuring approximately two meters on each
side. The building opens onto a field to the east, across which a cement
walkway has been laid, culminating in a stairway that zig-zags up the
hillock to the shrine. Inside the shrine the rear half is raised up approxi-
mately a meter off the ground, flush against the stones of the bill, and
these stones have drawings of animals on them. Along this shelf there
are 'Brahmanical' images-some large, some handsome, but all stuck
together with cement to form heads,. arms and feet as the case may be.
On the ground in front of them is a jar for incense sticks, and two small
statues of elephants, carved out of marble. On either side of the statues
are va~es offered to the shrine by the Chinese. In front of them there
is an open space, paved with brick, wide enough for two people to kneel
side by side and make their offerings.
The shrine and its furnishings are in a Chinese style, because the
Chinese are the ones who most recently rebuilt the shrine. In former
ta
times, the nak bad a (wooden) shelter (arsam) but it disappeared, and
was replaced.
 ROYALLY SPONSORED HUMAN SACR!l'ICES IN. NINErEENTH CENTURY CAMBODIA 219

In the second of the three rows of statues at the back of the tem-
ple, exactly in the middle, is the upright statue of a female, approxima-
tely sixty centimeters tall, with her hair tucked up inside a diadem. The
face is well-rounded, even plump; the breasts are globular and firm. The
image [once had] four arms. The lower arm on the right side, thrust
forward, bears a rectangular object, slightly indented ... the upraised
left arm bears a wheel. The lower one, reaching down, catches hold of
the tail of [an animal t4at resembles] a tiger or a lion. The female
presses down with her feet as if to lift the animal up. The statue stoops
a little to the right, giving the impression that it is trying bard to lift
up the beast; and has a boastful expression ...
An old man named Dok Than, seventy years old, from the village
of Rong Dam rei, near the northern slopes of Ba Phnom, who showed us
around the shrine, said, 'This is the statue of nak t'a MeSa, the most
important of all the nak ta in Ba Phnom. Her cult site is the one most
honored by the people of the district. This has been true since ancient
times, and it is true today.'
There are fourteen other statues of nak tii there, of secondary im-
portance. About fifty centimeters in front of the statue of Me Sa, there
are two (statues of) nak ta, on either side of a space opening in front of
her. These are [sometimes] called the nak t'ii of the gates; others call
them the nak tii of right and left.
Approximately ten meters in front of them (at the foot of the
stairs ?) is the place where buffaloes are sacrificed to the nak ta. A
hundred meters further east is the place where human beings were
sacrificed in former times. Nowadays, this is an ordinary rice-field.
1~ former times-1 have no idea ·of the date, for people's memories
· ·
are tmprectse- t ra dt'tt'on asserts that a man was. beheaded
. every year as
· t o na k ta- Me Sa . Sacrifices
an offenng _ were sttll betng made (as recently
as the 1860s and 1870s) in the era of kralahom Pang, thommadechou Haen
an d t homma d ec hou Tel. , * who succeeded each other as governors of Ba
Phnom.
*that is, in the I860sand 1870s. See Eng Sut, Akkasar, pp.ll55·1156.
220 David P. Chandler

An elderly man, Dok Than, related that approximately sixty years

ago, during the administration of Tei (sic) he had twice been present at
sacrifices at Ba Phnom. According to him, men or animals were killed
and offered to the nak ta on a Saturday in the month of ches, (May-June)
either during the waxing or the waning phases of the moon. According
to ... the governing official [nearby] at Kompong Trabek, the sacrifices
took place on a Wednesday, during the waxing phase of the moon in the
month of ches; an old man named In Va, aged seventy-three, however,
who wor~s as an adviser (ajar) at wat Prasat in the district of Kompong
Trabek, s·aid that the festival occurred on either Tuesday or Saturday
in the waxing phase of the moon in the month of pissakh {April-May)
or che"s.
In former times, the festival of loe1i nak r""a used to occupy three,
nve or even seven days. All the officials dependent on Ba Phnom
assembled and made their shelters on the grounds of wat Vihear Thorn,
about a kilometer northwest of Me Sa. To this place monks were invi-
ted to recite prayers. In the mornings, they would [perform the Buddhist
rituaL known as] dar* at various places, including the cult-site of nak .ta
Me Sa, the cult site of nak t'a krohom ko ('Red Neck') to the north of the
hillock; the cult site of nak ta sap than ('Everyplace') on the slopes of
the larger mountain, to the west, and nak ta tuol chhnean (Fishing-Basket
Mound') to the south. These prayers were recited every day until
Saturday, the day of the festival of loen nak ta.
As for the victims, only a man under sentence of death for a serious
crime was chosen. He was informed of the choice beforehand, and was
allowed to go and watch the activities [at the wat] just as if be were an
ordinary man.
On the execution day, the victim was put into a neck-stock.and led
off to the sacrifice-site. The file of people behind him made a clamorous
noise as they moved; in front and behind him were soldiers carrying
swords, spears and :fire-arms, followed by about a thousand people.
The file moved off [first] to the cult site of nak t'a prah sruk (Lord of the
district), about :five hundred meters east of wat Vihear Thorn. The peo-
ple paused there to honor the nak ta by setting off :firecrackers and rifles.
* prayer for the dead
 ROYALLY SPONSORED HUMAN SACRIFICES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CAMBODIA 221

When this was over, the victim was led off to Me Sa, approximately 800
meters to the south. Here the site was properly prepared for the sacri-
fice, and the people humbly asked the ncik t'a to help them to be healthy
and fortunate, to help the governing officials and all their assistants, and
also the ordinary people. They joined together, too, in asking that enough
rain fall, and at the proper times.
When the prayers were finished, the crowd shouted yak oieu three
times, and then the exeutioner, who was entitled monu ('intelligence')
and whose given name was In, holding a sword, danced hesitantly around
the victim and then cut off his head with one stroke. The people looked
to see what direction the victim's blood fell. If it fell evenly, or spurted
up, then rain would fall evenly over the entire district. But if the blood
fell to one side, rain would fall only on that side of the district.
At this point, rifles were fired off, and firecrackers lit, and there
were all kinds of loud explosions. When people who had assembled at
· other cult sites-that is, those of nak ta krohom ko, nak ta sap than and
nak ta trw! clz!memi heard the explosions from the cult site of Me Sa, they
fired off rifles and set off firecrackers, too, in honor of these nak ta.
In the meantime, the victim's head was impaled and offered up
(thvay) to nak ta Me Sa, and so were a hundred pieces of his flesh. Fifty
pieces were impaled on a stick and offered to nak ta sap than and fifty
others were offered to nak ta tuol chhnean.
In the era of thommeadejou Tei, people gave up killing men, and
sacrificed buffaloes instead. Only rutting buffaloes were chosen, which
were valued at more than 50 riels.
The character of the festival, however, was unchanged, and people
made the same predictions about rainfall from a buffalo's falling blood
as from a man's. When the buffalo was killed, its flesh, too, was divided
up; one hundred pieces went to Me Sa; one leg was offered to nak ta
krohom ko and another was offered to nak ta sap than but nak ta tuol
chhneaiz, it seems, was no longer honored. Perhaps the cult of this nak
ta had been abandoned for a long time, since his cult site was far away.
222 David P. Chandler

There was one innovation in these buffalo-sacrifices. If at the time

it was being prepared for excution the buffalo ran off, this was a sign
that the nak {a would not accept it, and another buffalo was purchased
to be sacrificed in its place.
In the years of thommeadechou Plun, the sacrifice of buffaloes was
abandoned, and live ones were offered (symbolically) instead. About
twenty years ago (c. 1924) people began to sacrifice a pig instead of a
buffalo, but afterwards even this stopped, and now (1944) the sacrifice
takes the form of an offering of cooked pork, purchased at the market ....

from
Institut Boundhique (comp.) Brajum Rioeh Breh (Collected
oldstories)PhnomPenh, 1971-Vol. VIII, 81-88.