Nang Naak: The cult and myth of a popular ghost in Thailand
In Siraporn Nathalang (Ed.), Thai Folklore: Insights into Thai Culture (pp.123-42). Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 2000.
The night has fallen. The golden radiance of the Mahabute Temple slowly merges into a vague deep blue after a long sultry day. The heat lingers. Everything seems too heavy to move. The street vendors, fortunetellers, and lottery-ticket sellers in the marketplace have left. The lampposts flicker in dim yellow like feeble candles. A stray dog wails and wanders aimlessly in circles. Wrapped in colorful sashes, an old takian tree stands still, smiling with an enigmatic flow yet remaining indifferent to the little creature’s dance number. The sacred tree has seen it all. Life and death, love and hate, good and evil are indeed two sides of the same thing, inescapable and inexplicable nature. A long shadow is cast on a green-tiled wooden house next to the small klong. The flowing water looks black, like the blowing hair of a young lady. Lush paper and plastic flower garlands hang and twist on the house’s front fence. Nobody is home, but the television is on. Finally, the sullen wind blows, humming a peculiar tune that sounds like a lullaby. The darkness deepens. A silhouette against the sala in front of the canal resembles a woman holding a baby. Is it Mae Naak, or just an illusion of light and shade?
Although more than a century has passed, the legend of Nang Naak–a lovesick ghost who longs for her human husband–has neither aged nor faded… If myth and folk beliefs are clues to understand the social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of a community, then the tale of Nang Naak reveals not only a personal tragedy of a woman but also the collective psyche of the Thai people.